Credit: Far Out / Album Cover
Wed 29 July 2026 3:00, UK
Joe Walsh didn’t make the kind of music that most people needed to think too hard about.
He liked the idea of making a handful of tunes that had some more introspective lyrics every now and again, but by and large, a lot of his solo career centred around the kind of music that people could crank up the radio and bang their heads to every now and again. But even with some of the greatest songs of his generation, Walsh felt that there were more than a few songs where things could get too goofy.
Then again, the idea of Walsh being too goofy was an oxymoron in many ways. He was practically the court jester of the Eagles every single time he went onstage with them, and even though he would find time to mellow out on songs like ‘Pretty Maids All in a Row’, he was still focused on having a good time every time he played with the band. After all, that’s why they hired him in the first place.
Glenn Frey had always felt that Bernie Leadon wasn’t going to be the right fit for them in the long-term, and with someone like Walsh in the band, they could have a lot more rock and roll credentials than they originally had. ‘Life in the Fast Lane solidified them as one of the greatest rock and roll bands of their time, but Walsh wasn’t going to be defined by his role in Eagles, either.
He had already been a legend ever since working with James Gang, and he was going to show the world that he was just as important solo as he was with the band. So, even under the hectic schedule that the band had when touring the world with Hotel California, the fact that Walsh could still find time to make albums like But Seriously Folks is practically a miracle, given what his world looked like.
Which is probably why the entire record feels like one big party from start to finish. There is the occasional serious track, but most of the record was about Walsh living up to his status as one of the most easygoing guitar legends who has ever lived. He even got his own hit out of the deal with ‘Life’s Been Good’, but there were a few moments where he didn’t seem all that comfortable with the final product.
The whole track is virtually like a mini epic over eight minutes on the album, but given that the song is all about his life at the top of the musical world, Walsh thought he could have benefited from having better lyrics, saying, “The lyrics, I didn’t want to use ’em. I was gonna replace them with something more rock and roll. But [drummer] Joe Vitale and Bill [Szymczyk] said, ‘No, these words are wonderful. They’re legitimate, and you gotta use ’em.’ And I was thinking, ‘Well, they’re kind of dumb, and the song will either be looked at as a satirical, funny song or it’s gonna not be funny at all, and it’ll go down the toilet as one of the worst things ever written.’”
Further reading: From The Vault
He wouldn’t have been too paranoid for thinking that, either. The idea of Walsh talking about his days as a rock and roll sound more than a little bit dopey out of context, but hearing his squawky voice singing about how he trashes hotel rooms and lost his license after speeding around in his Mazaratti is the kind of thing that most people expected of a rock and roll star to be singing about.
It does hold the distinction of having the biggest rock and roll clichés put together into one song, but Walsh is the perfect example of why clichés just work sometimes. There’s never any reason why he couldn’t make a few dopey lyrics every now and again, because if there was anything that he learned from the Eagles, it was that there needed to be some levity in between all of the ballads.
