People said that the Eagles made a living out of documenting that moment when the dream turns sour. Well, that is emphatically true, at least in all albums after On The Border (1974). But even then, sometimes, the songs seemed merely sad, and empty, like most rock music in the 70’s.
Desperado, thankfully, ISN’T one of those albums. It was a concept album, their first and only, and the concept here was the rock-guitarist-outlaw. There’s not a minute of it which is boring - it is a stimulating and creative ride all the way.
There’s many reasons for that, and I here will furnish just two. One, it was the last album on which the original four were together - Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner. This happily coincided with the fact that most of them (with the possible exception of Randy Meisner) did their best songwriting on this album. Henley and Frey have seldom written better songs than "Tequila Sunrise" and "Desperado". Bernie Leadon turns in what I consider to be his (and the Eagles’) finest moment - the acrid, gravel-in-the-teeth folk jangle called "Bitter Creek".
Jackson Browne, who often had the Eagles cover his songs, turns in the song that sets the tone for the album so iconically - "Doolin/Dalton". Apart from this, the song on which all four collaborated, "Saturday Night", is a beautiful, wistful ballad filled with brimming emotions. David Blue turns in the notorious song "Outlaw Man", perfect for the occasion and instrumented perfectly. Randy Meisner brings "Certain Kind of Fool" into the mix, a beautiful consideration of the specific madness of rock musicians AND outlaws. Awesome as the song is, it still isn’t Meisner’s best moment.....it’s darn close!
The other reason is that they got the concept so accurately etched out, absolutely evocative and inspired. The album hangs together perfectly, with the songs capable of standing on their own apart from the concept (which is the hallmark of the best concept albums).
The magnificent, brooding, romantic, ultimately foolish and tragic defiance of the outlaw (and the rock musician) has been seldom set out more starkly yet grandly than in the song "Desperado":
"Desperado,
Why don’t you come to your senses?
You’ve been out ridin’ fences for so long now
Oh, you’re a hard one, but I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasing you have hurt you somehow.
Don’t you draw the Queen of Diamonds, boy
She’ll beat you if she’s able
You know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet
Now it seems to me some fine things have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can’t get
Desperado,
You know you ain’t gettin’ no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they’re drivin’ you home
Freedom, oh freedom..
That’s just some people talkin’,
Your prison is walkin’ through this world all alone.
Don’t your feet get cold in the winter time
The sky won’t snow and the sun won’t shine
It’s hard to tell the night-time from the day
Now you’re losin’ all your highs and lows,
ain’t it funny how the feeling goes away?
Desperado,
Why don’t you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, and open the gate
Oh it may be raining, but there’s a rainbow above you,
You better let somebody love you
You better let somebody love you
Before it’s too late."
Probably is the best song Henley and Frey ever wrote together. The predictable reprise at the end of it all, goes like this:
"The Queen of Diamonds let you down,
She was just an empty fable
The Queen of Hearts, you say, you never met
Your twisted fate has found you out,
And it’s finally turned the tables,
Stole your dreams and paid you with regrets
Desperado
Is there gonna be anything left
You sealed your fate up a long time ago
Ain’t it hard when you’re all alone in the center ring,
And there’s no time left to borrow
Is there gonna be anything left?
Only stardust, maybe tomorrow....
Maybe tomorrow....."
Even the breathtaking lyric of "Desperado" pales against the acrid, blood-in-the-teeth, serpent-at-your-heel, mouth-in-the-gravel edge of the Eagles’ best ever song, "Bitter Creek". This is without doubt Bernie Leadon’s finest moment. It’s a chronicle of the totally unforgiving life of an outlaw - with the sinister exhortation "Oh son, don’t wait too deep....at Bitter Creek".
There are other beautifully creative moments too - "Doolin/Dalton", the opener, sets the scene out like a Norman Rockwell painting, with the pain in the sunset. "Tequila Sunrise" is almost pastoral, where the red glow of the sky is splashed across the lyric. "Certain Kind of Fool" explains the madness of the rock-musician-outlaw - "He’s a certain kind of fool that likes to hear the sound of his own hand.." "Outlaw Man" helps the bandit run harder, faster and in foolish defiance. "Saturday Night", a beautiful, simple ballad, brings that vulnerable tenderness in the outlaw to the fore.
Yes, the Eagles were masters of making money out of that moment when dreams turn sour. But whereas "Hotel California" (from their 1976 album of the same name) might have been to everyone, their finest moment, I feel they had reached there far, far earlier and in much grander shape, in "Bitter Creek". None of the later albums satisfy as much as Desperado does.