‘New Kid in Town’ is a song by the Eagles from their 1976 studio album Hotel California. It was written by Don Henley, Glenn Frey and JD Souther. Released as the first single from the album, the song reached number one in the U.S. and number 20 in the UK. The single version has an earlier fade-out than the album version. Frey sings the lead vocals and plays acoustic guitar, with Henley providing the main harmony vocals and drums, Randy Meisner plays the guitarrón mexicano, which is a Mexican acoustic bass normally played in mariachi bands, Don Felder plays all the electric guitars, and Joe Walsh plays the electric piano and organ parts. The song won the Grammy Award for Best Vocal Arrangement for Two or More Voices.
"We were writing about our replacements." That's what J.D. Souther told Songfacts about this song, which he wrote with Eagles members Glenn Frey and Don Henley. Souther was part of the flourishing Southern California music scene, and often collaborated with the Eagles, also co-writing their hits ‘Best Of My Love’ and ‘Heartache Tonight.’
Souther explained: "'New Kid' emerged from our whole fascination with gunfire as an analogy. The point was at some point some kid would come riding into town that was much faster than you and he'd say so, and then he'd prove it. That's the story of life. That's the story of aging, especially coming out of your teenage and young man years and as you approach 30, you begin to see that things don't stay the same forever. And that there's a lot other guys like you and gals like you that want the same thing that are coming up, and they want their moment, too, and they're going to get it. And it's fine. It's as it should be."
Cash Box said that "Bill Szymczyk’s production brings out the delicacy of the vocal harmonies, and the lyric here is quite effective." Stereogum contributor Tom Breihan said "It’s a sad, dark, passive-aggressive song. It’s also really pretty...It’s just a self-pitying, discontented, beautifully realized sigh of a song." In 2016, the editors of Rolling Stone rated ‘New Kid in Town’ as the fifth greatest Eagles song, describing it as "an exquisite piece of south-of-the-border melancholia" and praising its complex, "overlapping harmonies."
Label – Asylum
Songwriters – Don Henley, Glenn Frey, JD Souther
Producer – Bill Szymczyk
SONG LYRICS
[Verse 1]There's talk on the street, it sounds so familiar
Great expectations, everybody's watching you
People you meet, they all seem to know you
Even your old friends treat you like you're something new
[Chorus]
Johnny-come-lately, the new kid in town
Everybody loves you, so don't let them down
[Verse 2]
You look in her eyes, the music begins to play
Hopeless romantics, here we go again
But after a while, you're lookin' the other way
It's those restless hearts that never mend (Oh)
[Chorus]
Johnny-come-lately, the new kid in town
Will she still love you when you're not around?
[Bridge]
There's so many things you should have told her
But night after night, you're willing to hold her, just hold her
Tears on your shoulder
[Verse 3]
There's talk on the street, it's there to remind you
Doesn't really matter which side you're on
You're walking away and they're talking behind you
They will never forget you 'til somebody new comes along
[Chorus]
Where you've been lately? There's a new kid in town
Everybody loves him, don't they?
He's holding her and you're still around
[Outro]
Oh, my, my
There's a new kid in town
Just another new kid in town
(Ooh, hoo) Everybody's talking 'bout the
(Ooh, hoo) New kid in town
(Ooh, hoo) Everybody's walking like the
(Ooh, hoo) New kid in town
There's a new kid in town
I don't want to hear it
There's a new kid in town
I don't want to hear it, ah-ooh
There's a new kid in town
There's a new kid in town
There's a new kid in town
Everybody's talking
There's a new kid in town
People started walking
There's a new kid in town
There's a new kid in town
There's a new kid in town
There's a new kid in town