Song of the Day 2/17: The Eagles, “Love Will Keep Us Alive”

Gee, sure is cold in Texas. Just goes to show that, on occasion, hell freezes over.

That was the name of the 1994 reunion tour on which introduced this tune, with lead vocal by bassist Timothy B. Schmit. The ultimate SoCal soft rockers had disbanded in 1980, and didn’t have much new material for the tour and accompanying album. Schmit knew this song because Jim Capaldi and Paul Carrack wrote it a few years earlier, when they, Schmit and Eagle guitarist Don Felder considered starting a band together.

That band, under the name of the Malibu Men’s Choir, sent a demo tape that included the song to Eagles manager Irving Azoff, who rejected it. Done by the Eagles it reached No. 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart despite not being released as a single. Schmit’s rare lead gives the ballad a tender fragility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2eK_-aNRS0

Carrack, who surely wrote it with his own voice in mind, gives the song a passionate reading in concert.

As for those shivering in Texas, their government isn’t doing squat, so love will have to keep them alive.