The Passing of Glenn Frey

Glenn Frey died yesterday. He was 67. He was my age. He was j’s age. Wait-----who was Glenn Frey? Oh, he was the co-founder of the Eagles. And by the Eagles I mean the band, not the fraternal organization that a whole lot of old people belong to. I know the Eagles, and I know their music, but they were a ‘70’s band, not a ‘60’s band. Therein lies a slight difference between Elletu and me, a ‘generational gap,’ if you will. She’s playing Eagles music all day and feeling sad and nostalgic. Just the other day I was telling j’s husband that even songs from the ‘60’s about drugs, such as “White Rabbit,” make me feel nostalgic today, and I didn’t try any drugs (or drink, for that matter) when my generation was doing that. It’s easy to see now that music defines a decade. Those of us who graduated from high school in the ‘60’s seem to identify with music from that decade, and so it is for people who graduated from high school in the ‘70’s, such as Elletu.

That being said, I do like the Eagles’ music, and when a music maker passes away, I hate to think about their genius being gone. David Bowie, and Natalie Cole just before him, won’t be putting out any more new songs. It is sad. Keith Green died in a plane crash 34 years ago, and I still miss him and his music, even though I have several of his albums. It makes me stop and think, do we take songwriters for granted? And who will leave us next?

I had to do some research about Glenn Frey, since I honestly did not recognize his name when I heard of his death (sorry, Elletu). So research is just what I do--I can't help myself. I was so surprised to see that Linda Ronstadt had something to do with the 'incubation' of the Eagles. Glenn Frey and Don Henley knew each other before they joined Linda Ronstadt's band in 1971. But it was their time together in that band that led to their formation of the Eagles later that year. I am definitely a Linda Ronstadt fan. This is something about her I did not know. I wonder if Elletu knew it before. She does now.

This afternoon Elletu sent me this article from CNN, and it backs up just what she and I were texting back and forth to each other earlier in the day, our surprising feelings when singers and songwriters who spoke for our generation pass away. I deleted some paragraphs of the article because of space, but the main thrust of the article remains intact. I am posting it here to show solidarity with Elletu, the youngest of our Sisterhood, a 'youth of the '70's' indeed, just to let her know that I, a child of the '60's, feel her pain today. Today we are all Glenn Frey fans!

(CNN)The passing of Glenn Frey both recalls and closes the book on one of rock's most celebrated rock 'n' roll songwriting teams, but for many of us it also signals something more personal: the passing of a time when the Eagles' "Hotel California" was the anthem for the youth of America in the '70s -- the way Beatles music was for the children of the '60s.

For people who came up in that time, the death of Frey -- and earlier this month the death of David Bowie -- comes as a reality check, a resounding reminder that the days of "Take it Easy" and the promise of "One of these Nights" are long behind us.

'Hotel California' speaks to generation

But it was "Hotel California," released in 1976, that made them a worldwide sensation. The album's opening track of the same name, co-written by Frey, was the clarion call for the Eagles the way "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" had been for the Beatles: It described both the band's self-destruction by excess, its awareness of that self-destruction and its inability to stop it. ("You can check out any time, but you can never leave. ...")

It was "Hotel California" that internalized all the angst of the times, trading in the '60s -- Vietnam, student unrest, turning on and dropping out -- for a weary age of tuning in and getting laid, its lead character moaning about not having the spirit of 1969 in the air anymore.

This introspection was what separated and elevated the Eagles from all the other American bands, and it was Frey who was key to it. The only thing he cared about was the hot-rush politics of romance, while Henley wanted the band to be more relevant, to put a cool contemporary voice to the romance of politics.

******

Because despite the belief that rock 'n' roll will keep us forever young, the truth is it doesn't age well on us. That's the beauty and power of rock 'n' roll: It celebrates transient youth in the present tense. It's what makes it both shimmery and precious. And it's what makes the death of Glenn Frey so mournful.

The passing of Glenn Frey reminds us all too well of the kids we were in the '70s -- our blue jeans and black boots, our long hair and 'stashes and crushes on impossibly beautiful, unattainable girls, our nights spent cross-legged in front of turntables listening with great intent to the latest album of one of our heroes. We believed that somehow we could change the world by the force of our belief in the power of rock 'n' roll, but instead the world changed us.

When we mourn for Frey, are we mourning our lost selves and a time when we all thought we could live hard and stay free and surf and bike and run and jump and love and never lose because we were forever young?

God bless, Glenn Frey. You were part of our dreams. Now, truly, you belong to the night.

******

And I should add here, perhaps to make us feel better, that today is Dolly Parton's 70th birthday! May we all look that good when we turn 70!