Little Stories: The Eagles, My Mom, and Me

How one of my first rock album purchases led to a misunderstanding with my mom that continues to affect me to this day.

(Photo by eBay seller guidoguidoguido67)

Little Stories, focusing on memories from my youth, is an occasional feature of Inconspicuous Consumption. You can see more Little Stories here.

Also: This post is not paywalled. Enjoy! — Paul

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News came down the other day that the Eagles compilation album Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 had been certified by the Recording Industry Association of America as the first album ever to officially sell 40 million units in the United States, thus making it the top-selling U.S. album of all time. (It’s actually been the top U.S. seller since 2018, but I hadn’t been aware of that until I read about the new sales milestone.)

I am partially complicit in this cultural benchmark, because I purchased a copy of Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 at my local record shop on Long Island when the album came out in 1976. I was 12 years old at the time and didn’t really know much about the Eagles, but an ad for the album had been running on the radio and I liked the song snippets that were included in the ad, so it seemed like a safe bet. It was only the third or fourth album I’d ever owned.

If you’re into vinyl LPs and/or the Eagles, you may know that the bird skull on the cover of this album (see above) has a raised, three-dimensional texture. In other words, it’s embossed. It must have cost the band’s record company a bit more to use a stamping die while printing the LP covers, but I didn’t know anything about the embossing process when I was 12 years old; in fact, I didn’t even know the word “embossed.” I just knew that the cover of my new Eagles album had this cool 3-D effect, which I found very exciting.

I felt like I needed to share that excitement with someone, and my mom was the only person home when I got back from buying the album, so I showed the LP cover to her.

“Here, look,” I said. “Run your fingers over it. Isn’t that neat?”

She felt the 3-D surface and said, “Oh, it’s embossed.”

“Yeah,” I said, all giddy enthusiasm, “it’s boss!”

My mom then explained what she had actually said, and how embossing works. “Oh,” I said, somewhat deflated.

I already knew at age 12 that my mom had zero interest or fluency in anything even vaguely pop-cultural, so I’m not sure why I thought she’d share my excitement over a rock album cover, and it was even less plausible that she’d describe something as being “boss.” Still, it was fun to think we were on the same page about how awesome my new LP cover was, even if only for a second. During that moment when I misunderstood what she said, I felt the generational and aesthetic divides between us collapse and even allowed myself to envision the two of us hanging out in the living room and listening to Eagles records while eating potato chips and drinking Coca-Colas. You have to know my mom to appreciate how utterly delusional this scenario was on every level, but I guess that’s a measure of how much I wanted to connect with her, with anyone, about my new Eagles album cover.

Within a few years, my musical tastes had developed in a decidedly non-Eagles direction, so I long ago sold my copy of Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975. Still, I always think of it whenever I encounter anything embossed or hear something described as “boss,” so it would be fair to say that the album has had a lasting effect on me. I can’t speak for the other 39,999,999 people who purchased it, but I’d say I got my money’s worth.

Paul Lukas has been obsessing over the inconspicuous for most of his life, and has been writing about those obsessions for more than 30 years. You can contact him here.