“Aggressively ignorant”: how Don Henley helped Randy Newman write one of his best songs
There was something in the Californian waters as the 1970s and 1980s overlapped. A myriad of iconic artists walked the deep green hills of the sunshine state, penning songs that lived perfectly under its clear blue skies. Of those alumni, Randy Newman and Don Henley stood firm, creating a pantheon of work that would go on to define the Californian scene.
The latter, in particular, rolled into the 1980s off the back of a fruitful decade that pitted him as leader of the most iconic Californian band. If it wasn’t for the Eagles’ warm and sunny harmonies or lavish guitar solos that typified the glamour of West Coast living, then his somewhat high-maintenance disposition certainly cemented him as a true Hollywood dweller.
But despite their most iconic song being ‘Hotel California’, Henley’s band missed a trick in penning an iconic love letter to the state that would go on to rival the likes of ‘California Dreamin” by The Mamas and The Papas. I mean, there’s something about writing an anthem for your city that inherently ties your legacy to its history. I mean, look at Sinatra; the double uttering of New York has made him the city’s undying king.
If Henley were to look back on that moment today, he’d probably remember a plane ride he spent with Randy Newman as the opportunity that got away. When Newman noted to Henley that LA didn’t have a catalogue of adoring songs quite like Chicago or New York, Henley flippantly suggested he do it.
It was a suggestion Newman took to heart, as he then headed for the studio and penned ‘I Love LA’. However, in true Newman style, and speaking to a wider sense of facade that exists in the underbelly of Los Angeles, the lyrical content was indeed adoring but sardonic in equal measures.
“The guy in the song is sort of aggressively ignorant,” he explained to interviewer Robert Hilburn. “He thinks the great thing about the city is rolling down Imperial Highway in a convertible with his redhead at his side. To him, everything is so great that he doesn’t really see things at all. He doesn’t distinguish between ‘that mountain, those trees, that bum down on his knees’.”
In keeping with the song’s surface-level grandeur, Newman recruited some of the scene’s most glamorous names, Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie, to contribute backing vocals on the track. Its slick production style and sunny disposition did make it somewhat of an anthem for the city in the 1980s, being regularly played at Lakers games, perhaps for its opening lines denouncing New York and Chicago.
But ultimately, the success of the song speaks to the sense of blind vanity and commercialism that existed in that decade. I’m sure Newman couldn’t have helped but smile to have seen neon-coloured rollerbladers gliding down Venice Beach singing his lyrics proudly, blissfully unaware of their own contribution to the problem being referenced.
