Joe Walsh - Life's Been Good

A couple of years' back I threatened to inflict my musical taste on you as I gradually worked my way through my vinyl collection giving the discs a clean with a new gadget I'd treated myself to.

Well, this isn't an indication that I've got up to 'W' (yes, my vinyl collection IS in alphabetical order... how else would one find anything?) but, as I was listening to Mark Knopfler's 'Skydiver' on the way into work this morning, the lyrics reminded me a little of Joe Walsh's 'Life's Been Good'.

I was only 11 when this came out and I heard it on the radio in the hairdresser's one Saturday morning, but didn't know who it was by or what it was called - although the line 'I go to parties sometimes until four, it's hard to leave when you can't find the door...' stayed with me (as an aspiration?). Well, it was another 20 years before I found out what it was and finally bought the LP it came from 'But, seriously folks...'.

As well as the brilliant guitar work, it's a brilliant evocation of the 1970s rock star lifestyle and when he says 'Lucky I'm sane after all I've been through', I'm amazed that any of them are actually alive after what they did during that decade - if the documentaries we watch on BBC4 of a Friday night are to be believed.

Anyway, enjoy, and I may inflict some more of the Eagles' solo efforts on you in time to come, I think I've got Don Henley's 'Boys of summer' on single somewhere and I may have Glenn Frey's 'The Heat is on' on a compilation LP. Sadly, I can't put any Eagles up here because I've only ever had them on CD so it breaks my self-imposed vinyl rule - but still, one of the best bands on the planet, discuss... Ooo, no, I'm wrong, I've just remembered that I've got 'Take it Easy' on a compilation LP too, you lucky people. For a band that epitomised the 1970s, the solo releases of Henley and Frey seemed to do the same for the 1980s - just try listening to the 'The Heat is on' without conjuring up an image of bronzed men in pastel shirts topped off by white Matinique jackets with the sleeves pushed back to the elbow. In fact didn't Frey actually appear in an episode of Miami Vice?