Paradise Almost Lost
Almost anyone over a certain age easily recognizes an Eagles Album cover. Back in the day, we all went down to Columbia Sounds (Columbia, Mississippi, OR the record store in your town) and purchased a copy. For those born too late to have vinyl as your only option, well, you may have missed out because you had too many options. Having to work for or wait for something intrinsically increases its value. That’s true in life, love, and even music.
The Eagles were the band for the American generations. No, not the Stones, no, not the Beatles, not even Aerosmith, but something just being defined. The Eagles came onto the scene and dominated every other music genre, to the point that parents, children, grandchildren, and even great-grand-children know them today.
Though it has changed throughout the decades, my favorite Eagles song is “The Last Resort.” Cover bands learned several Eagles songs because it was a requirement and as a 13-year-old boy, a local band would come by my house and ask me to play drums for their rehearsals because their drummer lived out of state. So as their part-time drummer, I learned songs by the Eagles and others, and they appreciated me, just because I could keep their beat.
My taste in music is about as broad as it comes. Overall, I would say that Country music was my favorite, but the music trail that I run down varies from day-to-day. The first Eagles album I owned was a greatest hits compilation from 1971 – 1975.
Throughout the years, I heard most of their music, generally over the radio. It wasn’t until years later that I truly gained an appreciation for Eagles music. Technological advances had brought us from the dark ages when radio and vinyl were our only choices. We had evolved from vinyl to eight-track tape, to cassette tapes, to the point where compact discs were the preferred music medium and for the first time, and I acquired a copy of the famous “Eagles Live” cd. I’m talking about 14 songs and over 77 minutes of fantastic live music along with live interaction from the band, and the most noted Joe Walsh quote, “Hey man, I’m freakin’ out.”
As I mentioned though, my favorite Eagles song is “The Last Resort.” It is a song that for me requires more than one listening, sometimes three or four times back-to-back. The music is perfect, and for someone like me with a diminished ability to hear, it is a song that I would love even without the vocals. Someone with musical training could better describe in better detail the nuances and specific pieces that make up the song, so I’ll leave that to an expert. To one with an affinity for “words” like me, the lyrics tell a history lesson from the point-of-view of a young woman, of the yearnings of man to move and explore, and the destruction resulting from progress contrived too quickly and without full consideration of consequences. Specifically referring to the United States of America and how men motivated to explore and escape crowds, marched westward and like wildfire, multitudes followed, until they reached the coast then continued to Hawaii. Without the ability to advance farther, the crowds saw the beauty of the West Coast, called it paradise, and began to settle.
Writers Don Henley and Glenn Frey, calls out man, for the greedy search for power and riches. They call out those who justify their actions in the name of religion. And they call out the apathetic who live for a momentary “high” without consideration of what is happening around them. Finally, the song questions of true “ownership” of the country and laments about what is going to be left behind.
Marion County, Mississippi is home to a geological oddity. Known as Mississippi’s Little Grand Canyon, Red Bluff, as it is locally called is a formation formed over years of erosion, exposing rich colors of clay and sand as it drops some 200 feet in elevation toward Pearl River. Though it is on private land and posted to hiking, generally the signs are ignored by people from far and near. This fact is one only mentioned, because to date, it is only explored by a few people, here and there. I was reminded of the Eagles song recently as I saw some posts on Facebook and heard comments on how people have begun to come in droves to the site due to the COVID-19 shutdown of the country. People began to become stir crazy from being shut in and in need of weekend activities, sought Red Bluff as an answer. I saw pictures and heard accounts of between 150 and 200 cars parked along the sides of the road near the site.
As the lyrics “the rich man came and raped the land” played in my head, I was deeply saddened by the knowledge that our little secret is out and will likely never be the same with this kind of stress on the bluff. I realize that no one has ill intent; they are just looking for something to do on the weekend. Normally, there might be one or two or maybe 10 visitors on a weekend. But if every car had 3 occupants, there are now 600 or more in one day climbing around and disturbing its beauty. The magnificence of Red Bluff lies in the fact that it is constantly changing but doing so very slowly and due to naturally occurring factors. Almost unnoticed at times, the Bluff inches back, taking more and more land to the point that the road has had to be moved on more than one occasion. And while it is not “ours” as in the people Marion County, I can’t help but wish there was a way to limit access to it.
Hopefully, as we begin to emerge from near-total shut down in this country, and Red Bluff will return to relative obscurity. And hopefully, time, wind, and water will commence immediately to erase the impact that COVID-19 has had on its beauty. Finally, when going through your playlist, make sure to listen to “The Last Resort.” Then, give it a second listen. I think you will fully appreciate the words of Henley and Frey.