A Too Little Too Late Farewell To Glenn Frey

By Lord Castleton | Music | February 4, 2016 |

The death of Glenn Frey was sort of underreported in these parts, mostly because we were all reeling from the loss of Lemmy and David Bowie, and I’m still stuck in the mud a little about losing Alan Rickman. Did you know that Frey was in a medically induced coma since November? I didn’t. But then again, I probably avoided a lot of it because it felt like too much at the time. Most people will remember Glenn Frey like the header photo. I like to remember him like this:

The Eagles have seemed to have suffered a bit of a backlash lately, I’m not sure why. Maybe they were such a constant for so many of us during the years when radio was really the only option available for music listening. They were everywhere. And when they were referred to in the ‘Desperado’ episode of Seinfeld, we knew what that meant on a molecular level. We also knew what the offer to Elaine of “Witchy Woman” was.

Any artist hopes to leave something behind. Their own little slice of immortality, and perhaps no song will define any of the members of The Eagles as much as ‘Hotel California.’

I know, I know. Some people can’t stand it. I hadn’t actually listened to it in years. Years. It can sometimes feel more like a mile marker in your life than an actual song, and I know that lately the ‘remember Glenn Frey’ articles have really hammered it back into the public consciousness.

But not enough people have heard this breakdown of it from my good friend Christian Hand. You can listen to him every afternoon on 100.3 The Sound Los Angeles. He’s kind of a master of breaking songs apart and as someone who isn’t as skilled about music as I’d like to be (though I love it), this was the best thing I heard about Hotel California.

I hope you enjoy that as much as I did, right down to the song’s reggae stylings.

It’s an iconic song, no matter what your position on it is. And when you hear things like this, when people just sing it impromptu in Vietnam, it reminds you that music touches us all in a way that truly nothing else does.

I remember sliding around, (unbuckled, of course), in the back seat of my older brother’s Ford Maverick when I first heard ‘Hotel California.’ What memories do you have about that song?