The song's title is drawn from "The Ballad of the Sad Café", a novella by Southern Gothic writer Carson McCullers. The original story is about a woman with a harsh demeanor who is
transformed by love and opens her home to people in her small southern town, turning it into a café. Likely this reference comes from Don Henley, who was a one-time English lit major and is generally credited with elevating much of the Eagles' output from simple love ballads.
Other writers credited include Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh and JD Souther. Souther was Frey's
pre-Eagles partner in Longbranch Pennywhistle. He wrote or co-wrote several of the Eagles'
hits, but never matched the fame of his former partner. The song is both a nostalgic longing for a familiar place, but also a meditation on the fickle nature of fame.
As others have said, The Sad Café of the song is the Troubadour club. Frey and Henley met at
the club in 1970 and formed a plan for a rock band. The Troubadour at the time was already an epicenter of the LA music scene, serving as a launching pad for performers like the Byrds,
the Doors, Joni Mitchell, and comedians like Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and Steve Martin.
The lyrics make metaphorical comparisons to a church, calling it "a holy place protected by amazing grace." The refrain goes: "Oh, expecting to fly, we would meet on that beautiful shore in the sweet by and by." The latter is a turn on the lyrics of a Christian hymn from 1868. It encourages listeners not to be sad because everything will be fine in the afterlife, or the "sweet by and by."
"Expecting to Fly" is a song by Buffalo Springfield (written and sung by Neil Young.) Buffalo
Springfield in the late 60's was considered the best live band in LA. In their heyday, they were
expected to break out big like the Byrds, but they only kissed fame briefly with a single top-ten hit.
And thence we consider the line: "I don't know why fortune smiles on some and lets the rest go free." In the afterlife of Buffalo Springfield, members Stephen Stills and Neil Young went on to
fame and fortune. Richie Furray formed Poco, but struggled with achieving the same relevancy. Later, he and JD Souther joined ex-Byrd Chris Hillman to form a supergroup after the formula of Crosby, Stills and Nash, but lightning didn't strike for them.
Many speculate that The Sad Café is the Eagles themselves, and maybe there is some truth to it.
In the McCuller's story, the café is torn apart by greed and ego and the desire for control, much
like the Eagles were and continued to be in their reunion efforts. The shore wasn't so beautiful
in the sweet by and by. Or if you prefer: the long run.
The song's title is drawn from "The Ballad of the Sad Café", a novella by Southern Gothic writer Carson McCullers. The original story is about a woman with a harsh demeanor who is transformed by love and opens her home to people in her small southern town, turning it into a café. Likely this reference comes from Don Henley, who was a one-time English lit major and is generally credited with elevating much of the Eagles' output from simple love ballads.
Other writers credited include Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh and JD Souther. Souther was Frey's pre-Eagles partner in Longbranch Pennywhistle. He wrote or co-wrote several of the Eagles'
hits, but never matched the fame of his former partner. The song is both a nostalgic longing for a familiar place, but also a meditation on the fickle nature of fame.
As others have said, The Sad Café of the song is the Troubadour club. Frey and Henley met at the club in 1970 and formed a plan for a rock band. The Troubadour at the time was already an epicenter of the LA music scene, serving as a launching pad for performers like the Byrds, the Doors, Joni Mitchell, and comedians like Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and Steve Martin.
The lyrics make metaphorical comparisons to a church, calling it "a holy place protected by amazing grace." The refrain goes: "Oh, expecting to fly, we would meet on that beautiful shore in the sweet by and by." The latter is a turn on the lyrics of a Christian hymn from 1868. It encourages listeners not to be sad because everything will be fine in the afterlife, or the "sweet by and by."
"Expecting to Fly" is a song by Buffalo Springfield (written and sung by Neil Young.) Buffalo Springfield in the late 60's was considered the best live band in LA. In their heyday, they were expected to break out big like the Byrds, but they only kissed fame briefly with a single top-ten hit.
And thence we consider the line: "I don't know why fortune smiles on some and lets the rest go free." In the afterlife of Buffalo Springfield, members Stephen Stills and Neil Young went on to fame and fortune. Richie Furray formed Poco, but struggled with achieving the same relevancy. Later, he and JD Souther joined ex-Byrd Chris Hillman to form a supergroup after the formula of Crosby, Stills and Nash, but lightning didn't strike for them.
Many speculate that The Sad Café is the Eagles themselves, and maybe there is some truth to it. In the McCuller's story, the café is torn apart by greed and ego and the desire for control, much like the Eagles were and continued to be in their reunion efforts. The shore wasn't so beautiful in the sweet by and by. Or if you prefer: the long run.