My Top 2000 Songs #1143: In The City

There's something both wonderful and silly about the moment when Joe Walsh's "In The City" cranks up at the end of the 1979 film The Warriors. The slow-burning arena-ready rocker full of power chord crunch and gospel-choir harmonies is a triumphant coda for the dorky but glorious movie; but Walsh's at-the-time already-dated classic rock seem wholly incongruous for a film about 70s-era NYC street gangs. Though, since everything about the film feels deliriously incongruous, it somehow works.

The song is probably more familiar to most people in its slightly-polished Eagles version, the band's harmonies and some big budget studio punch giving it an extra coat of smooth shellac. It feels a little out of place on the band's 1979 swansong The Long Run--as a longtime fan of Walsh, I always found his presence in the dreaded band kinda strange--but, on the flipside, it's the best thing about the record, Walsh's gift to some colleagues struggling to finish a long-stalled, undercooked production, so there's that.

Eagles' version:

Film credits:

Walsh live:

Walsh with Ringo Starr's band, 1992:

Random cover found on YouTube: