Walter Egan Turns Unrequited Love Into a Great New Album
The artist's recent release Fascination is worth your time.
Thanks for spending part of your day with Michael’s Record Collection. In this issue, I am pleased to bring you the story of a new release by an artist I’ve always felt was far too underappreciated — Walter Egan.
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Romantic pursuits have not always worked out well for singer/songwriter Walter Egan, but unlike most of us, he at least has something to show for them. Early in his solo career, he found himself smitten with Stevie Nicks (hey, who didn’t?), who had co-produced his debut album, Fundamental Roll, along with fellow Fleetwood Mac member Lindsey Buckingham. Nicks and Buckingham also provided backing vocals for his early work. Nicks inspired Egan to write his biggest hit song ever — “Magnet and Steel” from his second album, Not Shy — and the song became a top 10 smash.
More than 40 years later, another infatuation turned into the inspiration for the entirety of Egan’s newest album, Fascination, a 2021 release that has been in the can for a few years but just recently came out. The record plays out like a concept album about his unrequited pursuit of Pamela Des Barres. Egan originally met the well-known rock groupie and author of I’m With the Band in the early 2000s and reconnected with her years later on a trip to California shortly after his daughter had informed him how much she enjoyed Des Barres’ book.
“My daughter was telling me how much she liked the book, I'm with the Band,” Egan said. “And I said well that's funny, you know, we're just about to go to LA and I said well, you know, I'm friends with her, kind of, on Facebook. And so I got in touch with her. She invited us over. And it sort of grew out of there.”
Egan, now 73, was single at the time. He and his wife had divorced about a decade before his interest in Des Barres (he has since reunited with his wife) and found himself growing fond of the former groupie.
“My wife is 11 years younger than I am. So, I've always kind of skewed myself to that age demographic,” Egan said. “And so, to meet a woman who was actually my age, and was like two months younger than I, was kind of a revelation to me that I could feel an attraction to someone my own age.”
Egan was traveling periodically to the west coast to perform shows with the Malibooz, so he would try to see Des Barres whenever he was in California.
“I would go out there maybe four or five times a year, and I would get that opportunity to further my relationship, for what it's worth, with her,” he said. “And most of my relationship that's described in this record happened in my own mind.”
Fascination is a collection of a baker’s dozen songs that more or less tell a linear story of how Egan’s interest in Des Barres took shape in his imagination, from the initial connection (“I’m with the Girl” — a play on the title of Des Barres’ book) to waking up to the fact that it was never going to happen (“Hell I Know It’s Over”). Egan, who is working on his autobiography, said he’s been reading his journals from that time period and laughingly added that he’d grown frustrated with the slightly younger version of himself for not waking up sooner and moving on.
“Every one of these songs is connected to one of those occasions where I would be able to take her out or whatever and something would happen,” he said. “That sparked this idea that, uniquely, it is kind of a concept album which is what Robert (Corich of Red Steel Music) recognized in it. And when he said he wanted to put it out, he said, ‘Well you know, the fact that you wanted her and you didn't get her was kind of more relatable to the average person than the opposite of that would be.’ It does very much describe being infatuated with someone, trying to win them over, and all the various kinds of ways you try to do that, and then ultimately the disappointment starts to set in.”
The process of writing the songs that would make up Fascination took place in real time as Egan pursued a relationship with Des Barres.
“I would write (a song), I would record it, and I would send it to her,” Egan said. “Sometimes she liked them and sometimes she didn't say much about it.”
The album kicks off with “I’m with the Girl,” which could have come off of Roy Orbison’s 1989 release, Mystery Girl. It’s not surprising that an Americana artist would share some musical influences with the likes of Orbison, but it wasn’t a conscious effort to mimic that sound. A slightly different version appeared on a 2020 release by Egan’s band The Malibooz called QE 2. The lyrics talk about Egan feeling younger and more vibrant for the first time in a while.
It’s been such a while since I felt my heart smile
Since I felt like this, dreaming of a kiss
Now I feel brand new with these memories of you
“Miss Pamela” hints at where the story is going, with allusions to how the singer is “gonna miss Miss Pamela.” Egan was clearly about to leave the west coast and was realizing he was having feelings for her. It foreshadows the end of the story about not ending up with the girl and musically it is reminiscent of Nick Lowe.
“I think I'm somewhere in between Nick and Jackson Browne and Tom Petty and all those things. Those are my peers,” Egan said, adding Dwight Twilley as another artist he tried to emulate early on in his career.
With “A Fool in Love,” our protagonist is admitting he’s fallen for the girl and the use of the word “fool” is quite a self-aware indicator that things are probably not going to go well. Egan’s electric guitar work after the verses is excellent on this track and he is responsible for just about all of the playing on the album aside from the drumming, which is done by Ron Krasinski. “A Fool in Love” leads into the de facto title track, “The Fruit of Fascination.” It’s not exactly a ballad, though it’s a slower tempo song.
“There's something about that recording that I really like. It's probably my favorite track on it,” said Egan of the title track. “I like the lyrics on that one a lot too.”
The album’s tempo kicks back up to full speed on “Lovers,” a pleading song with more great guitar work, where Egan implores the subject of his affection to explore the possibilities of a relationship.
Once upon a lifetime you get thrown a lifeline
A rescue from the lonely time that you have known
The pleas fall on deaf ears, because the next song is “Woo to Woe,” which shares a little musical DNA with my favorite Egan song — “Fool Moon Fire” from the 1983 album Wild Exhibitions — though with a bit more of a country music flavor to it and a slightly slower tempo. The realization that his feelings aren’t being reciprocated is represented in this track.
“Yesterday Forever & Today” has a bit of a Marshall Crenshaw feel to me, although there is a more obvious influence underneath that.
“I think it's (like) Marshall probably, but through the root of both of us, which is the Beatles,” Egan said.
The album gets its most country track with “Fading Love,” which has a Hank Williams-y feel to it.
“(Pamela) is very much a kind of Americana-country rock person and it was very much aimed at that part of her personality,” Egan said of the song. “Of course, I've been living here in Nashville, so it's hard to deny there's country influencing what I do, but it's country rock if anything.”
Egan said he doesn’t care much for modern country, and was turned on to artists like Merle Haggard, George Jones, and Charley Pride through conversations he had when he met Gram Parsons in the 1970s, when he was trying to get into country rock.
“Fading Love” gives way to a straight fantasy song, “Waking Up to You,” where our protagonist imagines himself in the place he most wants to be.
“It's like, oh well, maybe if I just think about it, it'll work, and of course it didn't,” Egan said with a chuckle.
The album includes a cover of Elvis Presley’s “Treat Me Nice” on the heels of “Waking Up to You,” and its distinctive rockabilly sound sets it apart from the rest of the album. Egan said he and Des Barres shared a fondness for the song, so he included it.
“It always had been one of my favorites, so I was very aware of all the subtleties of it,” Egan said. “I just put on that Elvis hat and I went with it.”
The final three tracks — “Gestures,” “Pride,” and “Hell I Know It’s Over” — serve as a bit of an epilogue to the story. “Gestures” is one of the rockier tracks on the album.
“I think with ‘Gestures’ and ‘Pride’ I have dealt with the semi-bitterness of the perceived humiliation,” Egan said. “I think those two songs reflect me going, ‘What the hell?’ you know, ‘Am I chopped liver?’ And so then I think that I got that out of me, as it were. And then I was able to see it more objectively in that last song. And, you know, I got over it, and I'm happy now and I can be around her and we can be pleasant to one another and I don't have to feel weird, and I don't think she feels weird — I did her podcast.”
“Hell, I know it's over” is a slow and reflecting closing number. The narrator can now move on.
I gave her all I had inside
My heart, my soul, my time, my pride
But now today I push or pull away
And take back what I told her
And now at last I put her in the past
Hell I know it’s over
“It's the one track that has a real piano player. Beth Sass plays piano,” Egan said. “And she also sings background on that particular track.”
Sass also has a writing credit on the song.
The album explores multiple styles of music but is always grounded in Egan’s Americana rock style. His voice still sounds remarkable for someone north of 70 years old and this collection of songs has a lot of high points. I especially enjoy the first five tracks and “Yesterday Forever and Today.”
In the end, Egan may not have gotten the girl at that time, and that’s never a pleasant experience, but like any good artist, he managed to turn that negative into a positive, producing a good collection of songs that his fans can enjoy. It’s a blessing of which he’s well aware.
“The troubadour that I am — the songwriter’s revenge, as it were — I think I got a really good album out of these turbulent feelings that I had,” he said.
Walter said he’d like listeners of Fascination to remember who he was during the time of “Magnet and Steel,” but also to realize that he’s still that person today.
“I'd say that this person who I had thought of as just a remnant of many years ago, somehow is really still vital and is still doing all the things that he was doing...when the world was noticing all the things he was doing,” Egan said when I asked him what he’d like people to take away from listening to Fascination. “And hopefully they'll have a pleasant listening experience with the music and see that I'm still a creator of that.”
Currently, the best place to keep up with Egan is on his Facebook page. Fascination is available for purchase digitally from the various download sites and the physical CD is available on Amazon. There is talk that there may be a vinyl version forthcoming.
For my full conversation with Walter, in which he gets much more in-depth about the album, its songs, and his pursuit of Des Barres, check out the video below. It’s the longest interview I’ve done with a musician but it felt like the shortest at the time.
Thanks for reading. This independent newsletter, and the video and podcast versions of it, depend on folks like you spreading the word. I hope you will share this story, as well as Michael’s Record Collection, with the music lovers in your life.