SLS: Eat Your Lunch All By Yourself

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Jim has given us a long list of related words for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday, inviting us to play a song ‘that mentions abandoning, departing, deserting, exiting, leaving, resigning, or retiring.’ Is it National Bugger Off Day, or something? Nope, his post explains that today is the anniversary of the day that Paul told the others he was leaving The Beatles. But given the American propensity to name days for ridiculous reasons, I vote to put my idea forward!

It didn’t take me long to choose a song for this, as this has long been a favourite of mine:

Having to get round the usual restrictions on anything by The Eagles I found this one, which is described as a ‘studio version’ but shows a live performance. I’m getting old and easily confused, and that does it for me! But before I forget, in my dotage, you can of course find the lyrics at genius.com.

A little unusually for The Eagles they didn’t write this song: it was by two singer-songwriters called Jack Tempchin and Robb Strandlund, about five years before The Eagles did their version. Jack was then managing a club called The Back Door at San Diego State College (which later became San Diego State University). The club was a showcase for folk music, and he and Robb often performed there together. Songfacts quotes him as saying

“We were playing one night and we were in the back room, which was the kitchen where there were these big refrigerator doors. I opened the door and there was a white jug. So I got this jug out, and for some reason, we thought it would be OK to just drink out of this jug. It was hard cider, and I had never had any alcohol or any drugs or anything at that point.

So, we were drinking out of this jug and we started to feel really good, and I said, ‘Let’s write a country song.’ So in about 20 minutes in the back room there, we wrote ‘Already Gone.’ The chorus goes ‘woo hoo hoo’ because I just felt so good suddenly.”

Jack was good friends with Glenn Frey of The Eagles, and whilst he had played the song himself a few times he was apparently surprised to get a phone call from Glenn, who was in the recording studio. Glenn said something like “Do you know that country song you wrote? I think that’d be a good rock song.” Then he held the phone up to the speakers and played Jack their newly recorded version of his song.

The Eagles opened their third album, On The Border, with Already Gone. The album came out in March 1974 and peaked at #17 in the US and #28 in the UK: it has since gone 2x Platinum in the US and Silver in the UK. This was the first single taken from it, in April 1974, reaching #32 in the US and #12 in Canada. The album was notable for being the first the band recorded in the US: their two previous records had been recorded in England, but they felt they needed a change of both location and producer, and Glenn has said that moving the process to LA helped him relax more with his music.

Songfacts comments that The Eagles often had notable lines in their lyrics, and cites two from this song:

So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains
And we never even know we have the key

When you look up in the sky
You can see the stars and still not see the light

I’d add a third to those, the one I have partially used for today’s title. This is a reminder of the opening verse:

Well, I heard some people talkin’ just the other dayAnd they said you were gonna put me on a shelfBut let me tell you I got some news for youAnd you’ll soon find out it’s trueAnd then you’ll have to eat your lunch all by yourself
That last part is one of the best ever “go fuck yourself” lines ever written in a song, in my view. Simple, but very effective. And it helps make this the best song I could have chosen for Jim’s theme.

That’s me done for today. As always I thank Jim for running the shindig, and doing such an excellent job of it. I’m off to see what others have chosen to play for this and then, as I live alone, I guess I’ll be eating my lunch all by myself. But at least that is through choice and not rejection!

I’ll see you again for some more Tuesday Tunes, I hope. Until then, take care 😊

41 thoughts on “SLS: Eat Your Lunch All By Yourself”

  4. I have this original vinyl..a flawless album that announced to the world that the band had “arrived”: this song you highlight, as well as “You Never Cry Like A Lover”, “James Dean”, “Ol’55” and f course “Best Of My Love.” Title track rocks too!

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  5. Learning that ‘Already Gone’ was written in 20 minutes in a college kitchen over a jug of hard cider makes listening to it even better! And you’re so right about that ‘eat your lunch all by yourself’ line—it really is the ultimate polite sendoff. Fantastic SLS pick, Clive!

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  6. Great choice, Clive and I have always liked this song, but this is the first time that I read a post about it, and you did a great job with that. I know how difficult it is to find decent videos of the Eagles, as they didn’t make that many of them.

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  7. National Bugger Off Day! 🤣 We need one of those every week! 😂

    Like you, I love the Eagles and this song has always been a favorite. I never knew its origins and had no idea it was a country song. Classic line about “eating lunch all by your self” …. the perfect FU sendoff. Glenn Frey did it for me and I was shocked and so sad when he died in 2016. A tremendous loss. Excellent song choice and write up; I really enjoyed this one, my friend. 😊

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  10. Hi hi Clive, I am really glad that I was able to enjoy today’s post. 1st I watched the video and also wonder why it’s called a studio version when it’s that cool live footage. Anyhow, when I watched the video There were many lines that stood out to me because even though I knew this song from childhood, I don’t think I ever paid attention to any of the lyrics and so the one about the chains really stood out then in your post, I agree with you about the eating of the lunch and love how you worded that!

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  11. Always loved this song myself, but although I knew the writers, I didn’t know the history of the song, so thanks Clive.

    By the way I think a Go Fuck Yourself Day is well overdue, don’t you?

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