Listen to the isolated vocals for Eagles song ‘New Kid in Town’
Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Bernie Leadon, the three classic lineup songwriters of Eagles, rose to prominence in the early 1970s with an exceedingly popular brand of country-infused rock music. With chart-busting hits like ‘Take It Easy’ and ‘One of These Nights’, they became one of the world’s most beloved and successful acts by the mid-1970s
Despite the band’s unmitigated success following 1975’s One of These Nights, Leadon decided to leave the band, shirking the intrusive limelight. It has long been believed that Leadon left because he was dissatisfied with the band’s gradual departure from country to pop rock. However, he denied that this was the case in a 2013 interview.
“That’s an oversimplification,” he told Rolling Stone when questioned on the matter. “It implies that I had no interest in rock or blues or anything but country rock. That’s just not the case. I didn’t just play Fender Telecaster. I played a Gibson Les Paul, and I enjoyed rock ‘n’ roll. That’s evident from the early albums.”
Following Leadon’s departure, Eagles brought in Joe Walsh, previously a member of James Gang, as a replacement. With the new configuration, the band soared to new peaks of popularity with their fifth album, Hotel California. The 1976 release soared through album charts around the world with a hefty debt owed to its titular single, which reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 the following year.
Also helping the album on its way were ‘New Kid in Town’ and ‘Life in the Fast Lane’. The former of these singles was the only preview for the album, released in early December 1976. The track’s chorus was written in 1975 by collaborator JD Souther, who joined Frey and Henley to finish it a year later.
“‘New Kid’ emerged from our whole fascination with gunfire as an analogy,” Souther once said of the song’s origin. “The point was, at some point, some kid would come riding into town that was much faster than you, and he’d say so, and then he’d prove it. That’s the story of life. That’s the story of ageing, especially coming out of your teenage and young man years, and as you approach 30, you begin to see that things don’t stay the same forever. And that there’s a lot other guys like you and gals like you that want the same thing that are coming up, and they want their moment, too, and they’re going to get it. And it’s fine. It’s as it should be.”
In the liner notes of the 2003 compilation Eagles: The Very Best Of, Henley added: “It’s about the fleeting, fickle nature of love and romance. It’s also about the fleeting nature of fame, especially in the music business. We were basically saying, ‘Look, we know we’re red hot right now, but we also know that somebody’s going to come along and replace us — both in music and in love.'”
Although Eagles were indeed replaced in the limelight by the punks and ’80s pop stars, their legacy is truly immortalised by an oeuvre of captivating and accessible pop-rock classics like ‘New Kid in Town’.
Listen to the single through its isolated vocals below.
