The fast lane on my car radio has become a traffic jam of Eagles songs since SiriusXM added a Hotel California channel to its roster.
The Eagles were already gone from the soundtrack of this boomer’s life, relegated to background music. I’d heard them too darned often in the 45 years since their eponymous album dropped. And their greatest hits remain earworms no matter how quickly I change the channel to avoid them.
Sadly, Sirius temporarily dropped my favourite channel, The Loft, to bring us yet more Eagles.
I say “yet more” because the Eagles already were everywhere on channels that appeal to people of my vintage. I have four such channels programmed into my car radio; it’s not unusual for all four to be playing Eagles tunes at the same time.
This begs a question: even if you absolutely love the Eagles, can’t there be too much of a good thing? And do fans feel cheated when they miss hearing Eagles songs on other stations because they were singing along to the Eagles song on the Eagles station?
I’m old, so I understand nostalgia, the impulse to gather things around us from those happy days when we were younger. And at my age, a bigger chunk of life lies behind me than ahead.
But even songs I really, really like start to sound like It’s a Small World After All if I hear them too often. I’m not the sort of person who orders the same dish every time I dine out.
And as a Python character once said, I’m not dead yet. Despite the damage rap did to modern singing, there are some good songs out there that I’ll never hear if I’m force-fed a steady diet of Eagles.
But I guess Sirius has decided though I can check out any time I like, I can never leave.