Writers: Don Henley and Danny Kortchmar
Producers: Don Henley, Danny Kortchmar and Greg Ladanyi
Recorded: 1980-81 in Los Angeles
Released: August 1982
| Players: | Don Henley — vocals, drums Danny Kortchmar — guitar Steve Lukather — guitar Timothy B. Schmit — bass, vocals Steve Porcaro — keyboards, vocals Jeff Porcaro — drums Joe Walsh — guitar, vocals |
| Album: | I Can't Stand Still (Asylum) |
“Dirty Laundry,” a scathing attack on the electronic media, was Don Henley's first solo hit after the Eagles disbanded, reaching Number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Explaining his view of the song, Henley related it to his own quest for privacy amid tabloid journalists always poking around for seamy fare: “I'm a citizen and a tax payer just like everybody else, and I feel I'm entitled to some privacy and some dignity. I figure I owe my fans the best songs I can write, the best records I can make and the best performances I can give. Other than that, I feel like my life should be my own.”
The tabloid press and local television stations had had a field day with Henley in 1980, when he was arrested after a naked 16-year-old girl was found in his Los Angeles home, suffering from a rug overdose. (He was eventually fined $2,000, given two years of probation, and ordered to attend a drug counseling program.)
Henley was able to quietly deal with his long-time girlfriend Maren Jensen's debilitating battle with Epstein-Barr Syndrome. Henley said the couple was mutually supportive during the illness, but he admitted it was hard: “I was freaked out. I was attentive and supportive, but I didn't exactly come home when I was supposed to because I was traumatized. Kootch (Danny Kortchmar) and I would record until three in the morning and then come back to my house and guzzle scotch and vodka and tell each other how great we were.” Henley and Jensen broke up in 1986, after she recovered.
Kortchmar — a veteran of sessions and tours with James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt — was Henley's chief collaborator on I Can't Stand Still, co-writing eight of the album's 11 songs and co-producing the record. “I was getting a chance to produce,” Kortchmar said of the album. “We were trying to create a sound from scratch. What instruments will work and what won't? What would the background vocals be like? Don was offering the kind of freedom I'd never had with any artist.” Kortchmar has worked with Henley on all of his solo albums.
I Can't Stand Still — which featured contributions from fellow Eagles Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit — peaked at Number 24 on the Billboard Top 200 and was shortly certified gold. It has since gone platinum.
Henley opted not to tour to support the album, returning to the studio to work on its follow-up, the multiplatinum Building The Perfect Beast.
