‘A Month of Sundays’: the most gripping song Don Henley ever made
Most artists aren’t just looking to get on the charts whenever they write a song. The millions of fans singing a tune is a dream built for the pop stars of the world, but the artists are the ones willing to stick their neck out on the line and create music that people either didn’t know was possible or make tunes that touch people’s hearts every time they hear it. Don Henley had already had his celebrity status secure in the Eagles, but tucked away in the middle of Building the Perfect Beast, ‘A Month of Sundays’ became one of the most powerful tunes that he ever put to tape.
By the time Henley started working on the album, though, he still needed that one golden hit to stay relevant. He had a handful of decent hits off his first album, like ‘Dirty Laundry’, but once he heard the subtle strains of synthesisers and guitar licks on Mike Campbell’s demo for ‘The Boys of Summer’, he had found a tune that he could base his entire solo career around.
But listening to the rest of the album, much of it is still the same kind of rootsy rock and roll the Eagles were known for, but perhaps with a little more depth. But just like ‘The Last Resort’ had something broader to say on Hotel California, ‘A Month of Sundays’ reads like a slice-of-life poem that happens to be set to music.
You have to remember that Henley was a child of blue-collar workers in the south, which meant looking through a lot of the farmland in the country. But rather than trying to sell himself as the kind of guy that equates playing rock and roll to being a farmer driving a plough, Henley takes inspiration from the kind of changes happening in real-time all around him.
Since he stayed in his native Texas, this tune became a surreal look at what people had taken for granted for all those years. Given that MTV marked the moment rock and roll went into the digital age, Henley speaks from the perspective of a lowly farmer wondering how far times have changed since then.
It’s hard to tackle a tune like this and not come off like Grandpa Simpson shouting into the sky, but Henley’s not looking to patronise. He’s just telling the story from one man’s perspective, and it’s gut-wrenching seeing a man whose life has seemed to pass him by. He had worked for years trying to leave his mark on his business, but seeing all of his methods get replaced with assembly lines is certainly sad, but it’s also a fact of life.
Now, all our protagonist does is sit wasting away on his front porch, wondering if he will ever see his other half again. We don’t even get details of whether this person died or not, but we don’t need to. We just know that he’s now alone and wondering what kind of impact he made in the grand scheme of things.
This kind of mentality doesn’t care as much water now that this same breed of people have social media and are more than happy to shout at anyone who comes their way, but here it’s not a case of someone trying to bat anybody down. It’s just pure sadness, and even if you don’t agree with it, you can’t help but feel for this man at the end of his life, wondering where everything went wrong.
It’s not like Henley wasn’t afraid to put his money where his mouth was. Outside of music, he has devoted as much time as he can to the Walden Woods Project, which looks to preserve the wildlife in America rather than having it overlaid with the same industrial complexes that we see far too often.
While evolution is the most important part of having society thrive, it’d probably be hard for any heartless corporate suit to ignore this kind of song. Many people can try to write about their own problems, but what Henley touched on had to do with not losing one’s humanity, even if it meant making a few questionable business decisions.
