Song Lyric of the Day (Don Henley, on Love in ‘A Graceless Age’)

“We all need a little tenderness
How can love survive
In such a graceless age?”—American rock ‘n’ roll singer-songwriter Don Henley, “The Heart of the Matter,” from his CD, The End of the Innocence (1989)
 
The Eagles’ current "Long Goodbye" retirement tour—and the advancing age of the band’s surviving members—means that, though we may continue to hear from Don Henley at the occasional concert or even CD, our opportunities to hear his unique perspective on the world will inevitably diminish.
 
Even aside from Henley’s essential contributions to one of the most successful bands of the rock ‘n’ roll era, his solo work from the Eighties will continue to reverberate in our minds—including the question he posed in the quote above.
 
Sadly, not merely love, but also friendship and even elementary courtesy, face increasingly dire prospects in the “graceless age” already far along when Henley wrote these lyrics—and even worse now.
 
(The image of Don Henley accompanying this post was taken Dec. 2, 2008, by Steve Alexander.)