For good or ill, the nature of music criticism involves finding fault as much as it involves celebrating greatness. Worse, music criticism is inherently subjective, so what one reviewer perceives as weakness, another might perceive as strength. There’s also the messy business of interpretation. Meanwhile, the subject of all this scrutiny, the recording artist, can merely wonder at how different people view the same work in different ways. All of which is a means of saying that I have exactly zero expectations anyone will agree with every choice I made while ranking and reviewing songs the Eagles released between 1972, the year of their debut album, and 2007, the year of their final album with Glenn Frey, and very possibly their last LP ever. Yet while I fully anticipate readers finding fault with the way I’ve found fault—oh, the irony!—there is one important nuance that I must stress right up front. Critical as my remarks might sound at times, I’ve loved the Eagles’ music nearly my whole life. Like any important relationship, however, my affection for the sonic splendors that Frey created with Don Henley and their various bandmates is complicated.
But first a quick explanation for why this blog exists. I’m primarily a film professional, working as an educator and journalist specializing in cinema while also plugging away at a screenwriting/filmmaking career. One outgrowth of my lifelong engagement with motion pictures was the creation of a blog called Every ’70s Movie, which launched in 2010 and has since earned nearly 6 million views. (Visit that blog here.) Reflecting my tendency to obsessively investigate subjects of personal interest, the blog features original reviews of feature films released between Jan. 1, 1970, and Dec. 31, 1979. (The parameters are a bit more elastic than that, but you get the idea.) So far, I’ve reviewed more than 2,500 movies. Like I said, obsessive. In any event, you begin to see how Every Eagles Song came into being. I enjoy writing about things that I enjoy, so long as I feel that I can do so with some degree of aptitude—and, hopefully, some degree of erudition. You be the judge on that second one.
As for the specific timing of Every Eagles Song, the band celebrates an important anniversary in 2022—their first album was released 50 years ago. Even with the passage of so much time, the band’s best music still surprises me by revealing fresh nuances and relevance. Flip side, some of their work frustrates me more with each passing year, since each disappointing track represents a missed opportunity to create something amazing. Yet what never wavers is the admiration, gratitude, and respect I have for the Eagles as a musical entity. Every song the band ever recorded has some sort of meaning for me, just as their most famous recordings have meanings for entire generations of listeners.
I was very young during the Eagles’ 1970s heyday, but the three singles that were released from the band’s 1976 masterwork, Hotel California, are among my earliest musical memories. My engagement with the Eagles deepened during my high school and college years, spurred by fascination with Henley’s early solo records and by treasured vinyl copies of the band’s first two greatest-hits collections, both of which I played into oblivion. A fuller exploration of the catalog wouldn’t occur until the years immediately before and after the Eagles’ 1994 reunion, when, for a period of several years, the group’s music became a sort of research project for me. During that heady time, I thrilled upon encountering the group’s finest album cuts for the first time, winced upon enduring their rare weak numbers, and generally savored the experience of hearing the great stories the band told through their meticulously crafted songs.
In a manner of speaking, I caught my first Eagles show in early 1990, when Timothy B. Schmit made a guest appearance during a Henley solo gig at the Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Four years later, I saw the whole band play live at Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, New York, just a few months after they got back together. (Wow, did I pay dearly for that seventh-row ticket at a time when paying dearly for anything was beyond my means.) A combination of bad timing and my aversion to the band’s murderously expensive ticket prices resulted in a 20-year gap, because I didn’t see the Eagles live again until January 2014, when they reopened the Forum in Inglewood, California, during their History of the Eagles tour. Yet the band wasn’t far from my consciousness during those intervening decades, thanks to books, home-video releases, magazine stories, and online content. I was cognizant of every major development in the Eagles saga, and the band’s music remained a beloved part of my life even during years when I didn’t catch their shows.
A bittersweet encounter with the Eagles happened on February 15, 2016. Working backstage at the Grammys, I was among a handful of people who watched the surviving band members and Jackson Browne sound-check their tribute to the recently deceased Frey. In fact, just before the band took the stage, dumb luck planted me in their path. The musicians walked right by me after exiting their green room, and I happened to be in Henley’s eyeline, so he offered a grim nod, presumably reflecting the solemnity of the occasion. It was a strange experience to witness his grief, though of course I felt the same loss in a much less intimate way.
Nonetheless, calling me an Eagles superfan would require tremendous exaggeration, simply because of how infrequently I’ve seen the band live. That said, I believe I have a strong grasp on the band’s recorded output, and as far as credibility for appraising music goes, I cite the decade I spent as a country, folk, pop, and rock critic for local periodicals. I may not be an expert, but neither am I a pure dilettante. The most relevant item on my CV, however, is my abiding love for this particular band. I can’t imagine diving this deep into any other discography, and after having scrutinized the Eagles’ albums, singles, and rarities, I value their music more than I did beforehand. Hopefully reading this list—and arguing with it or yelling about it, as the case may be—will compel you to discover or reexamine some of the musical marvels that Frey, Henley, Schmit, Don Felder, Bernie Leadon, Randy Meisner, and Joe Walsh created.
Finally, the exact sources for some of my biographical information have been lost to time because I’ve spent decades absorbing data from interviews, radio broadcasts, TV appearances, and the like. Naturally, I consulted credible sources while checking my information, beginning with liner notes in the band’s albums and the content of the group’s officially sanctioned History of the Eagles documentary. Another resource was the website L&M’s Eagles Fastlane (www.Eaglesfans.com), which has since evolved to include a lively Facebook page. The usual books were consulted, including Marc Elliot’s Take It to the Limit, Felder’s Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974—2001), and Andrew Vaughan’s The Eagles: An American Band. Also helpful was Eagles: The Ultimate Guide, a so-called “bookazine” published by Rolling Stone in 2016 (and republished in 2021). Whenever something in one of these sources seemed dubious—as with some of Felder’s more self-serving comments—the source has been identified in tandem with the questionable assertion. Generally, reference material was consulted only for dates, facts, and, on occasion, another perspective on either the composition process or lyrical interpretation. All opinions are mine, so blame or credit for the content of this blog falls solely on my shoulders.
Are you with me so far?
