Boys of Summer: crafting the perfect lost Eagles album
It was a sad day for the entire world of soft rock when Eagles decided to call it quits. They had been one of the most breezy examples of how to make rock and roll sound beautiful, and yet they also managed to be the most dysfunctional outfit in California by the time they played their final benefit show and nearly killed each other onstage. But if they had decided to take a few years off and come back together, what would their new material have sounded like in an alternate timeline?
Granted, it’s not as simple as breaking down all of the band member’s solo career songs into a greatest-hits collection. They had a signature from when they started to the minute that they broke up, and if they managed to put out an album that sounded exactly like Don Henley’s Building the Perfect Beast or Glenn Frey’s No Fun Aloud, people would have started to ask questions.
So when sculpting the best album of their middle period, that means picking songs that might not have been the biggest hits but fit into the band’s oeuvre a lot better. And while that does mean Henley and Frey working together as a team, that might also mean leaving behind some of their former members’ songs as well.
As much as Don Felder wanted to contribute more, his post-Eagles hits like ‘Heavy Metal’ aren’t really what we’re looking for here. That said, some tunes aren’t the most thoughtful tracks in the world that could have worked for him, like Frey giving him a song like ‘Partytown’ to sing, which relies a lot on old rock and roll tropes and would be a good way to introduce him as a singer.
But, really, this would still be Henley’s album from back to front. There would still be a handful of hits like ‘The Boys of Summer’ and ‘New York Minute’, but it also means framing songs that might not have had a chance to get as big as they could have. Even though ‘A Month of Sundays’ isn’t the most hook-driven song in Henley’s catalogue, it says a lot more about what they could do as musicians who have become seasoned pros rather than others chasing the spotlight.
For as self-serious as Henley can be from time to time, though, you need someone like Joe Walsh to act as the court jester amid everything. ‘A Life of Illusion’ was already a worthy hit from his first solo outings, but since this timeline doesn’t involve any massive comeback album in the 2000s, bringing in tracks like ‘Guilty of the Crime’ could have worked well, especially since it had been waiting around since 1994 before it ended up on Long Road Out of Eden.
And while Frey’s songs do have a bit of a middle-aged tinge to them after a while, that’s not to say that he doesn’t have a good spot on the album. After all, the band were already flirting with cinematic-sounding songs, so instead of throwing in tired-sounding tracks like ‘True Love,’ having the rest of the band harmonise on a track like ‘You Belong to the City’ would be perfect, as well as giving them an excuse to show some grit on ‘The Heat is On.’
Since the band did have a few odds and ends turn up during their reunion, this also presents an opportunity to play with the concept of what they could sound like. The central tracks on Hell Freezes Over would be a nice callback to their old sound, and since they had ‘How Long’ hanging around since their early days, recording it would have been a great way to remind everyone of what they were capable of in their prime.
So, even though it’s hard to speculate on how much they could have accomplished together in the 1980s, this version of the Eagles would have been a great way of showing what it’s like to grow up as a classic rock band. They might not have been partying on the same level as the Hotel California era, but getting older doesn’t automatically mean artists have to take their foot off the gas.
Boys of Summer: The lost Eagles album
- ‘The Heat Is On’
- ‘Partytown’ (sung by Don Felder)
- ‘Guilty of the Crime’
- ‘The Last Worthless Evening’
- ‘Love Will Keep Us Alive’
- ‘How Long’
- ‘A Life of Illusion’
- ‘You Belong to the City’
- ‘New York Minute’
- ‘A Month of Sundays’
- ‘Boys of Summer’
- ‘The Girl From Yesterday’
