Joe Walsh on his “gang” that inspired ‘In The City’
Even though he doesn’t seem like the rough-and-tumble type, Joe Walsh has been in a few gangs across his life. The most prominent was The James Gang, his hard rock trio from Detroit that made him a favourite to heroes like Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend. While it probably isn’t accurate to call the Eagles a “gang”, Walsh did lend some unpredictable wildness to the band’s country rock reputation.
When the Eagles broke up in 1980, Walsh made sure that he kept busy. An established solo artist before even joining the band, Walsh had plenty of side projects and solo recordings that were ready to go even before the Eagles officially disbanded. One of his biggest hits came a year before the band split: ‘In The City’.
Originally released in 1979, ‘In The City’ has two famous versions, one by Walsh as a solo artist and one by the Eagles that appeared on the band’s final album of their initial existence, The Long Run. Walsh’s solo version would become the more famous of the two thanks to its appearance in the 1979 film The Warriors.
“’In The City’ was written for the movie The Warriors,” Walsh later remembered. “A friend of mine named Barry DeVorzon (he produced The Association) was in charge of the music for the film and asked me to come up with something.”
“I went to junior high school at P.S. 216 in Queens (NYC). I was in a gang, but we weren’t that tough because I had to be in by 7:30 to practice clarinet,” Walsh added. “Anyway, I came up with ‘In The City’ out of memories of growing up partly in New York City, which contrasted a lot from where I lived before that, which was Ohio.”
The versions recorded solo and with the Eagles wound up being nearly identical, with the Eagles stepping in to take over the gospel backing vocals that were featured in the original solo recording of the song. Still, the song’s relationship with The Warriors solidified it as a Joe Walsh song through and through.
“The Warriors was made about gang-type city situations, and I related to that, having grown up in New York City, so again it was a positive statement to go against the desperation of miles and miles of concrete and growing up in a city – that really can affect you, and we thought it was a valid thing to put on The Long Run, and so we chose to do it,” Walsh related to the BBC in 1981.
Check out ‘In The City’ down below.
