Dan Fogelberg - The Innocent Age (1981)

Classic Album Review (6)

The Innocent Age "double-album" was released in August 1981. This was Fogelberg's most commercially successful album. It featured many hit songs like, "Run for the Roses", a song he "hastily" wrote as a theme song for the Kentucky Derby; "Leader of the band", a song he wrote in honor of his father; "Same old lang syne", a song he wrote about a chance meeting with an ex-girlfriend, at a small convenience store in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois on Christmas eve; and "Hard to say", which featured backing vocals from Eagle's co-founder, Glenn Frey.

There are a total of 17 songs on this double-album, each a storybook in itself. Many of my favorite songs never really made it to the radio. Songs like, "The Reach", a song about the life of the Northern Atlantic ocean fishermen off the coast of Maine; "Ghosts", a tell-tale haunting passage that begs the listener to imagine the illusive spirits among us; and the title track, "The Innocent Age", a song about the inevitable loss of childhood inn…