White Greatness, Originality, Creativeness

[Alex Linder]

http://grantland.com/features/the-eagles-greatest-hit/

At the time, the ambitious Frey was just another wannabe musician who wanted to be famous, only he wasn’t sure how to get there. Then he started listening to Browne work every morning.

“Around nine in the morning,” Frey remembers, “I’d hear Jackson Browne’s teapot going off with this whistle in the distance, and then I’d hear him playing piano. I didn’t really know how to write songs. I knew I wanted to write songs, but I didn’t know exactly, did you just wait around for inspiration, you know, what was the deal? I learned through Jackson’s ceiling and my floor exactly how to write songs, ’cause Jackson would get up, and he’d play the first verse and first course, and he’d play it 20 times, until he had it just the way he wanted it. And then there’d be silence, and then I’d hear the teapot going off again, and it would be quiet for 20 minutes, and then I’d hear him start to play again … and I’m up there going, so that’s how you do it? Elbow grease. Time. Thought. Persistence.”