That line comes, of course, from The Big Lebowski. And when I first saw the film and heard that line it was like, finally, a single sentence to encapsulate my experience with the Eagles; all my issues with the band, all my feelings, all the arguments – all neatly summed up in that one line.

It’s become easy to dislike the Eagles – easier with time in fact. They became one of those giant machines, a corporation touring for the money rather than the love. They all but admitted this. Separate dressing rooms, separate lives, very little communication (apart from the modicum on stage) and it all amounts to The Rolling Stones without the decent back catalogue nor the energy of Mick Jagger; the precision of Charlie Watts.

I can’t even remember when I started hating the Eagles. I guess I used to like them. I remember my brother used to thrash that live double album (it’s filled with studio overdubs and isn’t really live at all) but it was nicer than hearing the ubiquitous greatest hits/best-of albums. If for no other reason than Joe Walsh performing Life’s Been Good and the band offering Seven Bridges Road.

My own connection to the Eagles is rather strange –I really enjoyed the band biography, To The Limit: The Untold Story of The Eagles. And I quite enjoyed Don Felder’s book.

The story of the Eagles is somewhat fascinating. A group of essentially anonymous musicians were pulled together to back Linda Ronstadt and record with her. Flash forward to the end of the 1970s and over a half-dozen albums the Eagles had become one of the biggest bands in the world. They broke up in 1980 and the band’s greatest hits album is the biggest selling record in the world – bigger than Thriller and Rumours, though it’s a compilation, not an original album.

There’s also the drugs, fighting, paranoia, competition and general rock’n’roll stories. They probably – for most of the last two decades – seemed like harmless old guys plying their trade. But to me they were just narcissistic rock’n’roll jerks, egotists on a power-trip.

So, good on them, they’re highly successful. But I fuckin’ hate them. Their music can make you feel like the end of the world is at your doorstep. So what made them so big?

And then, oddly, I can claim to love certain songs by the band. Even whole albums in a weak moment – not the case though in other moments.