Already Gone

Two chiming electric guitars and a snap of snare, and the song is already sprinting — this is the Eagles at their most uncomplicatedly joyful, a breakup rendered as jailbreak. Frey sings it grinning, all bright Midwestern vowels and open throat, and when the harmonies pile into "I will sing this vict'ry song" the release is physical. Jack Tempchin and Robb Strandlund wrote it, which may be why it lacks the band's usual self-laceration; there's no regret here, only the giddy relief of a man who realized he was out the door before his partner finished the sentence. The famous couplet about being "already gone" and how "we never even feel the chains" reframes the whole thing as a small piece of homespun philosophy, delivered without a shred of solemnity. Musically it's the last flush of Bernie Leadon's country brightness meeting a harder rock attack, guitars answering each other in cheerful competition through the outro. Written and recorded as the band was toughening up for stadium life, it's tailor-made for windows-down driving on the first genuinely warm day of the year, or for the morning after you finally ended something and discovered, embarrassingly, that you feel wonderful.