Now, the man who once sang, “I keep on going, guess I’ll never know why,” is back on the road to promote his first album in 20 years, “Analog Man.”  A lot has changed since 1992, and Joe, in typical comedic fashion, uses his title song to air his frustration at being an analog man in a digital world:

Welcome to cyberspace, I’m lost in the fog.
Everything’s digital, I’m still analog.
When something goes wrong, I don’t have a clue.
Some 10-year-old smart ass has to show me what to do.
Sign on with high speed, you don’t have to wait.
Sit there for days and vegetate.
I access my email, read all my spam.
I’m an analog man.

Good old Joe’s been a powerhouse rocker since his days in the James Gang. He’s a writer of witty tunes (“And every Sunday we work in the yard; pick up the dog do; hope that it’s hard”), a creator of clever album titles (“The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get”), a former chaos collaborator with the late Keith Moon (“living in hotels, tearing out walls”) a recovering alkie, and the only member of The Eagles I ever liked. AND, he’s Ringo’s brother-in-law!

He spoke for all of us children of the ’60s and ’70s when he sang, “Lucky I’m sane after all I’ve been through.” And, like Joe, “I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do.”

Here’s Joe, describing how he came to write “Life’s Been Good”

Here’s a video containing the original words and music of “Life’s Been Good”

© Dana Spiardi, June 3, 2012