Eagles hit Eleanor where it hurts.

Though I've already stated it, it bears repeating: I hate the Eagles.

I won't waste my time qualifying that hatred with intensives. I won't even waste it composing a grammatically cogent case for hating the band. I'll merely slice my head open and spill some of the adjectives therein into this post.

Corporate. Slimy. Self-satisfied. Bland. Disingenuous. Corporate again.

When Bob Dylan drew all that flak for switching to electronic instruments, it was because people thought he'd turn into the Eagles. Kurt Cobain shot himself because of the Eagles.

Whatever is wrong with Michael Jackson, the Eagles caused it.

So recently, when I found out that I liked two songs related to the Eagles, it hurt.

It started in a godforsaken lobby some months ago, not at the dentist's office, but certainly something more banal, but with larger windows. Since they had no interesting magazines, I was resting my eyes in some article in ESPN and tapping my foot absentmindedly to the beat coming from the television.

It was your typical 1980s pop workout, but there was something interesting and mournful in it. Danceable 1980s pop is trendy these days with the skinny-pants set, so I didn't feel self-conscious admitting I liked it. Then the video ended with a hammer blow to my heart.

"Boys of Summer," Don Henley.



Ouch.

But that wasn't too demoralizing. After all, it actually gave me some pleasure to think of this purported earthy cowboy genius shoehorning himself into a pastel suit and strutting to a synth beat amidst billowing beachside curtains in Southern California. That all neutralized the Eagles element. I was safe.

The next one was far more painful. In my childhood, I read and reread the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series by Douglas Adams. I was not just a fan, I was a worshiper.

Young Christians are taught to wonder what Jesus would do. I took to wondering what Douglas Adams would say if he were in my position. The literal-minded, understated, Adamsian irony I hard-wired into my brain is a fundamental part of my personality to this day. If I had not, at twelve, read his books, I would be a radically different person.

I also loved the videos my father showed me of the BBC miniseries of the books. And so, at one point a couple of days ago, I tried to find out who had done the theme song. I found the pop culture phenomenon I loved most dearly in bed with the one I hated most ardently.

The Eagles, "Journey of the Sorcerer."



And it was the Eagles at their most Eagles-like, a useless but hubristic exercise that combined sexless precision and faux-sincere countrification. A rinky dink neoclassical composition on space-age synth and banjo. Just the type of thing the Eagles would do.

And I couldn't deny I liked it. I did. I do. When I hear it, aside from the confused feelings it conjures now that I know who made it, it reminds me of the time I first read the series. I am transported back to the sunny Saturdays I spent curled around that hulking blue volume on my bed. I think of the tiny holes that termites left in its pages. I can't be angry.

Of course, conflicted feelings are all the more reason to restate: I hate the Eagles.

-Eleanor