The Eagles FAQ by Andrew Vaughan

Author:Andrew Vaughan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: rock history
Publisher: Backbeat
Published: 2015-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

The title of this 1974 LP, So What, came from Walsh’s attitude toward life at the time. He’d recently lost his young daughter in a car accident. Thanks to management connections, several Eagles—namely Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and Randy Meisner—sang harmony on some sessions.

Song for Emma

While Walsh was in the studio making records, Stefany and Emma liked to take a walk every day from their home in North Boulder Park to a playground that Emma enjoyed. It was a safe, simple life. Walsh had been away during the spring of 1974 but was due to arrive home on April 1. That morning, Stefany was driving her daughter to playgroup when tragedy struck. A car drove through a stop sign and hit Stefany’s Porsche hard enough to spin it across the street. Stefany was not hurt, but Emma, just three years old, suffered serious brain injuries. She died in the hospital that night. Walsh was devastated; he and Stefany never recovered emotionally from the accident, and were divorced not long after the terrible event.

While he couldn’t admit it for a long time, Walsh almost went under. Years later, he told radio presenter Redbeard, on an episode of In the Studio, how deeply he was affected by his daughter’s death. The presenter asked Joe a question that he had been asked many times before: why did he join the Eagles? Walsh would usually talk about admiring the group, or, if he was feeling flippant, he might say he was recruited for his sense of humor and fun, so as to stop the Eagles beating each other up. But on this occasion, he told the truth.

“At that time, I was coming off of the death of my daughter Emma, who was killed by a drunken driver in 1974,” he said. “Some senile drunken lady ran a stop sign, and I lost my family. And I tried to kill myself for two years. That’s why I called my album So What. I didn’t care about nothing. I didn’t have any emotions, and I was not strong enough to continue a solo career. On So What is a song called ‘Song for Emma.’ She died . . . nobody knew that. I didn’t allow it being in People magazine or Associated Press. I kept that very quiet. But that squashed me like a bug and I tried to kill myself for eighteen months. And I still wasn’t dead. So I forgave God and joined the Eagles, just to get going again.”

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