In celebration of California Day here at RTH — and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong — I submit that “Those Shoes” by The Eagles is The Most Coked-Out Song Ever.
First, take the arrangement. It’s not enough to have one talk box guitar. No, here, all the guitars have bendy mouth things on them, the better to convey the sound of snorting noses. Then, there’s the mix of drum machine and Henley beats. (Guess which of the two has more swing.) The relentless, unchanging bass line convinces me that even mellow nice-guy Timothy B. Schmit is feelin’ kinda nervous right now, man.
I don’t think need to have tried Peruvian flake to get the sweats to this song. I mean, look at this homemade video: just some innocent shots taped from someone’s car window, and with this song, it looks like an outtake from Boogie Nights. How exactly did this song avoid inclusion in that film, anyway?
I can’t forget the lyrics. I bet Henley and Frey wanted to provide a searing but sensitive portrait of “desperation in the single bars.” When Don sings it, however, it sounds cold, lifeless, uncaring. You know where I’m going with this. I maintain there’s at least a flicker of humanity in even the most brittle Steely Dan track. But not here.
Don’t listen to this song too much, though. My research indicates that repeated exposure leaves the recipient feeling uncannily like he or she’s reaching the drop during a five-day L.A. bender, surrounded by hot concrete and cars, with no significant foliage for miles and miles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f0510qYnk&feature=related
enjoy!
Oats, ya said it all i cant say no more.
great article!
Agree with shawn. Short and sweet — and I may just agree with your assessment, to boot!
You deserve more oats,
HVB
Definitely an oppresive, unrelenting claustrophobia that doesn’t really feel intentional, just a byproduct of being in the Eagles. I hope I’m not ever in the state of mind you’d have to be in to want to throw this on.
Wish I’d had more time today, I’d like to have celebrated California Day by putting together an FBI Least Wanted List so Townspeople could rank the Eagles from most awful to least most awful.
Thanks all, for your kind words and contributions. As they might say in CA, that is very cool of you.
Alexmagic, feel free to prepare that FBI Least Wanted List in The Back Office when you have the time. Offlist messages and the boom in hits from West Coast IP addresses tell me that we may be running California Day into Friday! I, for one, never got to get to my planned analysis on the effect that relocating to California has on British rock stars.
Oats, I agree with all the above that this is one fine piece on the subject. We’re trying like hell to get to Don Felder and see if he agrees with you.