Of all their albums, this is probably the one I return to most often. A lot of the appeal is nostalgia, but also time and place. That, and I happen to really like this one. I was too young to fully appreciate Hotel California when it came out - I loved the title track, but I didn't get the album until many years later. When The Long Run finally dropped in the fall of 1979, the music I was listening to then was part of my most formative years, and this fit right in with a lot of my other favourite artists.
New technology was starting to emerge as well, and the drum machine hand clap on "Heartache Tonight" was considered cutting edge. I heard a radio interview where Don Henley was explaining the drum sound and how they were going to replicate that in concert.
Considering their last studio album, not counting the Christmas single, was a couple of years earlier, it was an eternity between albums - and when they finally did get together to record the follow-up to Hotel California, it would take them a year and a half, and when the album dropped it was like they'd never been away.
It's no secret I'm a big fan of the guitar work of Don Felder and Joe Walsh, but the big surprise to me was Glenn Frey and his beautiful guitar solo on "I Can't Tell You Why." He didn't get the love he deserves for that one, as it is a song within a song. People go all aflutter over Timothy's vocals, but it's the total package that makes the song great.
Hotel California sold 32,000,000 copies, and their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 (also released in 1976) would go on to sell over 40,000,000 copies worldwide.
They were kind of a big deal.
This kind of success must have put the band under immense pressure, and they probably thought The Long Run would be propelled into the stratosphere like its predecessor. The album went platinum in the States eight times over - pretty impressive, but it must have been cold comfort to the band, who were likely expecting to continue selling tens of millions of records ... only to fall short by their standards.
For all intents and purposes, The Long Run was the end of their long run. Sure, there would be a live (it started live at any rate, before the overdubs) album in 1980, a few new songs on Hell Freezes Over (I am partial to "Get Over It"), and then the head-scratchingly tepid double album Long Road Out of Eden that I think I managed to get all the way through once before putting it on the shelf. The vibrant band of my youth was relegated to being a dog-and-pony nostalgia act.
For all that, The Long Run doesn't represent the band's nadir - I still love it. And even the throwaway "Greeks Don't Want No Freaks" shows the fun side of a band that was often portrayed as a very serious and grumpy bunch, except for Joe Walsh, who was in his own orbit and may or may not have known what was going on at the time.
Listening now to a song like "King of Hollywood," it's even more bittersweet than when I was a kid. Musically, the song still gives me the chills, as the guitar work is haunting. Heck, even their version of Joe Walsh's "In the City" works. I am partial to the raw power of the version on The Warriors soundtrack that came out a few months earlier, but here the smooth harmonies reveal a kinder version, and regardless of which version is better, it is a classic song.
The album closes out with "Sad Cafe," a song that to me always carried a lot of hope and melancholy. As I got older, the song seemed to grow with me, and I'm still moved by the lyrics, which is kind of cool, as let's be honest - the band was never known for their words.
Now I look at the years gone by
And wonder at the powers that be
I don't know why fortune smiles on some
And let's the rest go free
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