(September 22, 2024). J.D. Souther, the singer/songwriter best known for his soft tenor voice and his work with artists like Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, and — most famously — the Eagles, died last Tuesday (Sept. 17) in New Mexico. Souther was the second prominent musician to die suddenly in that state in three days. Tito Jackson died in Gallup, NM on Sept. 15 of an apparent heart attack.
While the cause of death for Souther — born in Detroit in 1945 as John David Souther — is unknown, it’s clear that it was indeed sudden, as both he and Jackson were still touring. In fact, Souther was reportedly set to launch a tour with singer Karla Bonoff in Phoenix this week (Sept. 24).
Souther was a key part of the tight-knit Southern California country-rock community that included Ronstadt — who he dated briefly in the early 1970s — and the Eagles, the band that included the late Glenn Frey, who was J.D.’s roommate and musical partner in the late 1960s as the duo Longbranch Pennywhistle. Frey and Souther split up after one self-titled album in 1970 and later both connected with Ronstadt — along with Don Henley, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meissner — with those three and Frey later forming the Eagles.
Souther, who turned down a chance to join the Eagles as that band was forming to focus on his songwriting, was an important part of the group’s huge success in the mid-to-late 1970s. He co-wrote with Frey and Henley three of the Eagles’ five No. 1 singles (specifically, the first, third and fifth ones), with the exceptions being “One of These Nights” and “Hotel California,” coincidentally the title tracks to their first two No. 1 LPs.
In another odd coincidence, the last No. 1 song Souther co-penned for the Eagles and the first (and only) top ten hit he wrote for himself met both coming and going on the American charts. His own “You’re Only Lonely” was slowly climbing the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1979 at No. 53 (in its fifth chart week) when the Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight” blasted in just above it at No. 52, giving Souther his first back-to-back compositions on the ranking.
Of course, “Heartache” flew up the chart, reaching No. 1 just five weeks later — the fastest the Eagles had ever achieved — while the less proven (as a singer) Souther took his sweet time crawling up the list, later joining the Eagles in the top ten that December as their song was descending. The two songs with different trajectories were listed back-to-back once more with Souther’s “You’re Only Lonely” climbing to No. 8 while “Heartache Tonight” fell to No. 7, given Souther the distinction of having written back-to-back hits in the top ten (something that only the writers of disco songs by Chic, Sister Sledge and Donna Summer had accomplished that year).
But Souther’s two 1979 successes had more in common than adjacent chart placements at the beginning and near the end of their chart runs. “Heartache Tonight” and “You’re Only Lonely” shared common lyrical themes of doom and despair — despite their radically different approaches in conveying the messages.
“Heartache,” the lead single from the band’s The Long Run, was credited to Souther alongside Frey, Henley and Bob Seger (who also provided uncredited backing vocals) and was a straight-up rocker. The up-tempo, handclapping, foot-stomping romp proved that rock-and-roll not only still lived (in disco’s increasing wake) but was thriving. “Heartache” further illustrated that the Eagles — and rock music by extension — could sound fun again and top the charts (something that the Knack’s No. 1 “My Sharona” had proven just a couple months earlier).
That fun sound was contrasted, however, by the song’s lyrics, to which Souther contributed. They spoke of heartache and unavoidable despair. The song begins ominously, “Somebody’s gonna hurt someone before the night is through. Somebody’s gonna come undone, there’s nothing we can do.” Full of contrasts, “Heartache Tonight” would later speak upliftingly about taking chances, only to return to the inevitable doom of pending heartbreak, which in this case could apply to both personal relationships and the band’s own grueling attempts – as alluded to in the song’s final verse – to recreate the success of its prior album, Hotel California, which proved to be a two-year, arduous task.
Souther’s “You’re Only Lonely” took a less veiled approach to delivering its melancholy message. It approaches the loneliness and despair with hypothetical language (“When the world is ready to fall on your little shoulders, and when you’re feeling lonely and small… you need somebody there to hold you; You can call out my name when you’re only lonely…”). But, make no mistake, Souther, whose Roy Orbison-like delivery on the tune underscores its message of vulnerability, had already conceded that the woman to which he is singing has already fallen into despair (“Remember, I was there when you were a queen and I’ll be the last one there beside you’).
But those two tracks are just two of the half-dozen Top 40 singles that Souther penned over a fifteen-year period, all six of which carry the same messages of gloom and doom.
On the Eagles’ first No. 1 single in 1975, “Best of My Love,” the third verse sums up the protagonist’s sad situation perfectly, “…but every morning, I wake up and worry ‘what’s gonna happen today.’ You see it your way and I see it mine…but we both see it slippin’ away.” Again, while there’s some optimism in the fact that he finds it in his heart to give her the best of his love, it’s clear throughout the tune that it simply isn’t enough.
On their third No. 1 smash, “New Kid in Town” (the leadoff single from 1976’s Hotel California), the lyrics serve up a double-meaning of a romantic relationship soon to be doomed by a cheating lover, and a rock band – namely the Eagles – predicted to be replaced by the next hottest thing once the glitter fades. These messages seemed both appropriate – given some of the bandmembers’ fleeting relationships with women – and ironic given that their astronomical success would only increase with the next single, “Hotel California,” and a prior greatest hits album that would become the all-time biggest-selling LP in the U.S.
No matter, the songs had J.D. Souther’s lyrical stamp all over them, as did the final two top 40 hits he scored as a writer, both in the 1980s.
The first of those was “Her Town Too,” a 1981 duet with James Taylor, which was the first single off Taylor’s Dad Loves His Work album. The song is famously about the breakup of a marriage, with incisive lyrics that refer to the splitting up of property and the dissolution of friendships that were formed as part of the union. As Taylor and Souther alternate and harmonize during the bridge, “well, people gotten used to seeing them both together, but now he’s gone and life goes on…nothing lasts forever, oh no.” Ironically, those lyrics spoke truth to their own circumstances as it would be the last time either artist would appear in a top 40 pop hit as a singer.
But Souther had one more appearance as a songwriter, this time by teaming with former collaborator Don Henley on “The Heart of the Matter,” a solo hit by Henley that once again tackled multiple sources of despair all centered on an attempt by the protagonist to achieve some level of understanding. In it, Henley sings of a failed relationship, “I got the call today I didn’t wanna hear but I knew that it would come. An old true friend of ours was talkin’ on the phone… she said you found someone.” He later shifts to a bigger world-view dilemma, crooning, “Ah, these times are so uncertain… There’s a yearning undefined and people filled with rage… we all need a little tenderness; how can love survive in such a graceless age?”
The times were indeed uncertain. As with Taylor, Henley would never again reach the top 40 as a solo artist (although he teamed with Patty Smyth on the rock ballad “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough” in 1992). Meanwhile, Souther, whose pennings were enough to land him in the Songwriters Hall of Fame (alongside two Grammy nominations) had ventured into acting, scoring an appearance in the Steven Spielberg film, “Always,” and later in a recurring role for the ABC series “Nashville,” which ran in the 2010s.
Souther, who’d taken a musical hiatus after lackluster sales of his earlier albums, would return to touring and recording music later in life, including his 2011 release Natural History, which reimagined some of his earlier compositions recorded by himself and other musicians. None of his later efforts matched the success of the six tunes noted above.
Still, those six songs – with their themes of sadness, despair, and fleeting hope – helped form the soundtrack of a generation, contributions for which J.D. Souther will always be remembered fondly.
May he Rest in Peace.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog and on Meta’s Threads.
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