Life in the Fast Lane

Not so much a straight biography as a hip, conversational and occasionally meandering fable about the band Eagles (no definite article), the 1970s, too many egos, and mountains of cocaine. I worshipped the band in their heyday, in the desperate way only a lonely teenaged girl can pull off, but felt only mild outrage when they became a pop culture punching bag in the ensuing decades (mostly thanks to The Big Lebowski).

Wall doesn't argue that Eagles were groundbreaking musical geniuses, but he admires the way they captured the zeitgeist of 1970s California, when the folksy Laurel Canyon sound of Crosby Stills & Nash and Joni Mitchell was replaced by a darker hedonistic cynicism. Plus they sure knew how to write hit songs. Sure we all know now that Glenn Frey and Don Henley were raging misogynistic assholes, but reading this book made me nostalgic for my 13 year old self, listening to Eagles records in my bedroom, with only the music and lyrics to tell me how to feel.