“I’m sick of it”: The song and American suburb that turned Steely Dan against the Eagles
Steely Dan were never fond of a fad.
In fact, Donald Fagen still thinks of rock ‘n’ roll as some sort of fascist trend and hopes the bubble will burst before too long. However, they always respected great musicianship, which placed them in quite a tricky position when appraising the Eagles.
The pair were both managed by Irving Azoff and unlike most commercial bands of the age, Steely Dan had developed a level of respect for the Eagles. They happily regarded their talent from the get-go, but after a while, respect was quickly dished out begrudgingly rather than willingly. This was proven in their track, ‘Everything You Did’.
The 1976 song saw the Dan sing, “Turn up the Eagles; the neighbours are listening,” in their typically wry tones. This line arrived shortly after the duo found enough fame and fortune to move to Malibu. It was in these laidback Californian hills where the Eagles had truly conquered the airways.
As the only act with two records presently in the ten best-selling albums of all time list, the country rock clan were, obviously, ubiquitous everywhere in the world. But they were effectively the American Beatles up in lush Malibu. Their unique mix of a Birkenstock-like sound and the sort of politics and ideology that might be discussed over a local Pinot Noir, made them fit right in there.
Former hippies who had done to well for themselves not be lured by white goods, condos, and a slightly more centrist mindset, lapped them up in these Californian spots that had swiftly turned from counterculture hotbeds to real estate hotspots. Steely Dan, with a bit of cash in their pockets, were now right among, and suddenly the respect they had for the Eagles began to diminish.
At the time that Fagen and Walter Becker were writing ‘Everything You Did’, the Eagles record One of These Nights was on heavy rotation in the surrounding areas, the titular track, in particular, had rise to number one and was being endlessly played.
This prompted Steely Dan to sarcastically proclaim, “Turn up the Eagles; the neighbours are listening,” which, when ran through Google translate on the figurative-to-literal setting, comes up as, ‘For the love of God, will you turn that down’.
When Don Henley chatted with Uncut about the lyric, he revealed he was well aware of the backstory: “I know them pretty well, and it was like he was sort of saying, ‘Everybody’s in LA’s playing this f–kin’ record, and I’m sick of it!’ It was a little bit of an acknowledgement and a little bit taking the piss, because we had the same management – still do- but you know, they’re very droll, Fagen in particular.”
This opened the door for the dastardly Eagles to hit back at their one-time pals with the ‘Hotel California’ line, “They stab it with their steely knives but they just can’t kill the beast.” An original draft even cited the band by their full name, but this was scrapped in favour of something a little more subtle.
However, you’d be wrong to think of this lyrical exchange as any sort of feud. Respect ran between the two acts, and they remained with the same management for decades to come. Nevertheless, it typifies Steely Dan’s loathing of all things that seem fad-ish that they felt the need to blare out their distaste for anything overplayed in a scathing song
