7/25/2019 EOI Henley Sums It Up Again

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Henley

Sryu$

It

Up Again

ONHENLEY

]

The

End

of

the

Inno-

cence.

Geffen

***rtz

,

Much

as

the

Eagles'

*The

Long

Run

sunimed

up what

there

was

to

sum

up

of

the

lg?Os

a

decade

ago,

Don

Henley

has

returned

from

a

nearly

five-year

recording

silence

'TheEndof

Innocence':

RECORD

RACK

to

put

a lid

on the

1980s

with

'The

End of

the Innocencg

the

third

post-Eagles

album

from

one

of our

finest singer,/songwriters.

In crle

your

subscription

to

Time

lapsed

while

the

Shah was

sittingpretty, a

fair share

of raw

malerial

has

accumulated

for

a

civic-tninded

sort to

work

with,

ethics-wise.

All

the

topics

here are lopied

enough,

and

references

to Reagan-

omics, TV

evangelists,

real-estate

tycoons

and

the homeless

abound.

In the,

uh, long

run, however, the

moments

that

draw

you

back tolhe

album are

those

in

which

Henley

sticks

to

such

old,

timeless stand-

bys

as looking

for

love in all the

wrong

ivory

towers.

The best

songs

here are by and

large

personal

ballads

of loss

and

subsequent

self-discovery. The ti-

tle track,

a low-key,

piano-based

collaboration

with

Bruce

Hornsby,

neatly

ties

together several

of

Henley's

favored

themes-pun-

gent

nostalgia

for

an

earlier

era in

a

smaller town,

anti-Republican

pol-

itics and sexual

release-

The

plaintive

The

Last

Worth-

less

Evening

is

the most Eagles-

like

number,

a.

romantic

plea

to

move on

from

the

hurt

of old

relationships.

And The

Heart

of

the

Matter,

Henliy

tells

us,

is

forgiveness;

like

millions of other

boomer loners,

his

protagonist

has

realized,

perhaps

too late

and

per-

haps not,

that

the

work

I

put

between

irs

doesn't

keep me

warm.

Henley takes up most

of

Side

2

with

a

rocked.up

four-songsuite

of

social

awareness.

And though the

targets-greed,

politics

disguised

as religion,

etc.-are

legitimate,

LACYATXINS /

LA.Tffi

Rock's

quotable

Don

Henley

and

he

gets

some

terrific

zingers,

his approach

is a little too scatter-

shot to do any of these

subjects

rcal

jusUce.

Henley

may be

one of

rock's

most eminently

quotable

moralists,

but the ethics he's most

comfortable exploring are

still

the

ethics

of the

heart.

-CHRISWILLMAN

:.44