About The Song
When Joe Walsh was living in Santa Barbara, California he was neighbors with musician Barry De Vorzon, who was putting together the score for a film centered around New York City gangs called The Warriors. Walsh already had a link to the East Coast after his family moved to New York City from Ohio for a few years during his youth, where he attended junior high school in Queens, New York, then went on to high school in Montclair, New Jersey.
“He explained to me that it was about gangs in New York [and] would I do a song for it?” remembered Walsh on his collaboration with De Vorzon. “He and I came up with the words after reading the screenplay.”
Along with De Vorzon’s penned “Theme From The Warriors,” “The Fight,” and “Baseball Furies Chase,” he also co-wrote and co-produced “In the City” with Walsh for the 1979 film.
Walsh’s lyrics fit the dystopian setting of The Warriors, based on the 1965 book by Sol Yurick of the same name, and follows a turf war between New York City street gangs that leaves one fleeing the north Bronx to their home turf in Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York after being framed for the murder of Cyrus, the gang leader of the Gramercy Riffs.
“That movie still has a cult following,” said Walsh, who never released “In the City” as a single. “Shaquille O’Neal once told me it was his favorite film ever,” added Walsh, “but when it first came out it didn’t really get any recognition, and the song was just on the album.”
When his Eagles bandmates Don Henley and Glenn Frey heard what Walsh did with “In the City,” they wanted to record it for the band. “They said, ‘Well, look, let’s redo it and give it the recognition it deserves,’” said Walsh. “So we did [for the 1979 Eagles album ‘The Long Run’].”
De Vorzon remembers learning that the Eagles wanted to cover one of his songs. At the time, the Eagles had already released Hotel California and were working on their follow-up album, The Long Run. “Joe calls me up and says, ‘Hey, Barry, I think the Eagles are gonna do ‘In the City,’” recalled Vorzon in a 2022 interview. “I said, ‘Really?’ I said, ‘Joe, I want you to do me a favor. Never bring this up again until you can walk into my house with an album by The Eagles, and my song is on it out because if it doesn’t make the cut, I will kill myself, alright?’”
Decades later, the Eagles’ version of “In the City” appeared on a 2014 episode of The Simpsons (“The Winter of His Content”) and in a Warriors parody on the animated series Rick and Morty in 2017. “In the City” was also featured on the Eagles’ 1994 live album Hell Freezes Over.
Video
Lyrics
Somewhere out on that horizon
Out beyond the neon lights
I know there must be somethin’ better
But there’s nowhere else in sight
It’s survival in the city
When you live from day to day
City streets don’t have much pity
When you’re down, that’s where you’ll stay
In the city
Oh, oh
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh
In the city
Oh, oh
I was born here in the city
With my back against the wall
Nothing grows, and life ain’t very pretty
No one’s there to catch you when you fall
Somewhere out on that horizon
Faraway from the neon sky
I know there must be somethin’ better
And I can’t stay another night
Ooh
In the city
Oh, oh
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh
In the city
Oh, oh
In the city
In the city
In the city
Oh, oh