Considering the slapdash rush to capitalize on the sudden success of the tampered-with "Sounds of Silence", its surprising that the step-parent album came out as well as it did. It helped that six of the songs had been written for earlier albums but it's not any of those songs that is my favorite: that honor goes to "Somewhere They Can't Find Me". It's probably the worst song on the album, saddled with dated sixties guitar noodling on the chorus, clumsy vocals, no finish, and one of the more excruciatingly awkward lines in pop music - "I held up and robbed a liquor store" - that, even as a child, I recognized as embarrassingly weak. However, it is thsse shortcomings that keep it from sliding into the fake desperado outlaw crap that has made me hate The Eagles for so many years. While his feelings for his girl may be romantic, he never romanticizes his situation, and rejects any chance of posturing by admitting that his life has become "a scene badly written in which I must play" and that it is not right for him to leave this girl behind knowing that she will eventually be forced into his sordid story through no fault of her own. That the song ends before he takes his leave allows us all to write the ending of our choice and it is that weakness that I appreciate the most.
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