The Eagles song that Don Henley struggles to listen to

Don Henley And Glenn Freythe deus ex machina of the Eagleswhen it came to making songs they were absolute perfectionists. Starting from this assumption, it may not be surprising that Henley, in an interview granted to the CBS Sunday Morning television program – where, among other things, declared that 2026 will likely be the Eagles’ last year of operation -, said that he can’t listen to one of his band’s best-known songs, “Desperado”, guilty of not having taken the necessary care, due to production times.

“Desperado” it was the first song on which Henley and Frey worked side by side. This is the memory that is not without nostalgia Don Henley: “I had rented a little cabin at the top of Laurel Canyon. He came to me. I had an old upright piano and the beginnings of a song that I had started writing in the late ’60s. I showed him the pieces I had and he sat down at the piano. It was sort of based on an old American singer-songwriter who, at one point, was the most popular in America, a guy called Stephen Foster who died penniless in New York. It was based on his songs that my grandmother he sang in the rocking chair. Glenn knew who Stephen Foster was and he just picked up the thread. We called him the Lone Arranger because he was really good at arranging songs.”

To produce the first two albums of Eagles – “Eagles” (1972) e “Desperado” (1973) – was Glyn Johnsbut the relationship between the band and Johns began to sour when he Eagles they began working on what it would become “On the Border” from 1974.

The memories of Don Henley about working on the album “Desperado” explain the reasons why the group ended up separating from the producer. “Glyn wanted to make the album on the cheap, that it didn’t cost too much. Because that’s what the record company wanted and it was also their way of making records. Get in, make and get out.”

“Desperado” was recorded in two weeks and Henley found the process of making the title track “very intimidating”, because members of the London Symphony Orchestra who were bored out of their minds while waiting for the session to start, playing chess between takes. Now, after some time, the drummer and singer of Eagles admits that remembering the orchestra players playing chess is fun and only has admiration for the string parts written by his old college friend Jim Ed Normanhe wished he had more time to work on “Desperado”. Because, unlike those musicians, for him this was more than just a job.

Henley explained to Sunday Morning: “I think I did four takes, maybe five, and to this day I still have some trouble with the intonation of the lead vocal. I don’t listen to it.” In truth, he adds, it’s not unusual for him not to listen to his music. “Why should I, do I have to play it every night? I don’t listen to much music anymore. Every now and then I turn on the radio or put on a classical music record. I listen to some audio books. But after a while it can all get boring.” But if he listens to his music again, some things come to mind. “I feel the flaws and what we should or could have done in a given circumstance.”