Finding a passage back to a
place I was before – Glenn Fry
(1948 – 2016)

Written By: Terri Pressley

“Music expresses that which cannot be said
and on which it is impossible to be silent.”
~Victor Hugo

There are many quotes attributing the meaning of music to life, some cliché, some moving, but all denoting how music can leave a
very deep imprint in the story of our lives. I have found this out for myself today as an icon of music, especially in my life, has
passed away. I am surprised as I write this just how much this man’s music has followed me, events and happenings in my life
brought back to life upon hearing those songs. I sat listening to the news feeling choked up, tears glistening in my eyes. I heard
the Eagles songs long before they began to mean something to me after all I was only 8 in 1971. The first album I loved of theirs
was ‘One of These Nights’ (1975). I was on a journey exploring music, I was just a young kid, but was finding that all those feelings
I had no words for could be found in music. By 1977 I was a freshman in high school and that 1976 album ‘Hotel California’
decidedly made me a fan for life. I would buy their older records one at a time as I had the money to, loving everything about them.
I remember sitting in my friend Tracy’s living room while she played ‘Desperado’ and I sang my heart out, sometimes crying at the
sadness of the song the way only a hormonal, lonely, misfit of a teenager can. I won’t tell you my life story, but as I think about all
the songs, I can see in my mind’s eye just how many punctuated pivotal times in my life. I sang, and cried, as my tormented soul
sought for answers, direction, all without realizing the writer of the songs knew of my pain, knew my aloneness, and the words and
music they wrote gave succor to the tragedy that was my life. I sadly never got to see the Eagles in person, probably the only of my
generation who never went to a concert……ever. I had hoped by the ‘Hell Freezes Over’ tour I would finally be able to go and was
waiting to buy tickets when Glenn Frey became ill and the concert was postponed. This of course is the illness that finally claimed
his life today. So I say goodnight and goodbye dear troubadour and will close with part of the official statement by the Eagles
band members, management staff, and his family:

“But first a kiss, one glass of wine / Just one more dance while there’s still time / My one last wish: someday, you’ll see /How hard I
tried and how much you meant to me.”