70. “Frail Grasp on the Big Picture” (Long Road Out of Eden). This cranky/funny Henley-Frey cowrite is something of a cousin to “Get Over It,” an earlier collaborative endeavor with more economy and focus. Offering a shotgun-spray lament about Americans failing to recognize how they’re being manipulated by corporate goons and government overlords, this track has the feel of Henley randomly bitching about the day’s headlines while Frey fires back with zingers. On the ominous side of the track are hopeless remarks (“light fading and the fog is getting thicker”), and on the c’est-la-vie side are pithy ones (“You keep on rubbing that, you’re gonna get a blister”). Especially considering the inherent pomposity of the narrative approach (“I’ve seen it all before”), aiming at so many thematic targets diffuses the impact. So, too, does an awkward shift from the rubbery funk of the song proper to the almost Roger Waters-esque loftiness of the bridge. By the time the number runs its course close to the six-minute mark, it’s gotten old—as in “get off my lawn” old. Call it too much of a so-so thing.
69. “I Dreamed There Was No War” (Long Road Out of Eden). Given his affection for acting in movies and cutting film/TV theme songs, it’s strange Frey never made the logical leap of scoring a feature, especially since instrumentals like this one proved his capacity for sonic grandeur with an Aaron Copland flavor. Featuring a restrained Stratocaster floating over string washes, “I Dreamed There Was No War” is such an involving piece of music that the title does it a disservice. Sure, it works as a prayer for peace, and none would ever question the necessity for more of those. But it also works as a man singing through his instrument, exploring notes on the scale his voice can’t reach, and in so doing expressing feelings for which there are no words. The track won a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.
68. “Tryin’” (Eagles). Although Meisner’s strongest moment on the band’s first album is the dramatic “Take the Devil,” he acquits himself well on this straight-up rocker, which he wrote. In some ways a thematic precursor to “Take It to the Limit,” inasmuch as it hits the same you-gotta-be-in-to-win-it theme, the tune has momentum, savage fretwork, and tasty harmonizing. Like so much of Meisner’s solo work, alas, it’s a filler track, too derivative and underdeveloped to fully capture the listener’s imagination. That said, “Tryin’” works well as the last cut on the Eagles’ debut LP, capturing the musicians’ collective determination to graduate from comers to chart-toppers.
67. “What Do I Do With My Heart” (Long Road Out of Eden). Frey once said of Henley, “Without Don, we’d be Air Supply,” wryly acknowledging his own tendency for penning featherweight love songs. As “What Do I Do With My Heart” proves, sometimes the Eagles became Air Supply even with Henley’s participation. The slightest of the new Henley-Frey compositions on Long Road, this AC ballad features laughably clichéd lyrics, but it’s redeemed by an excitingly ascending melody and the fun of hearing Frey and Henley sing a full duet. Previously, they split vocals every so often (examples span “Doolin-Dalton” to “How Long”), but the end of “What Do I Do With My Heart” intermingles Henley’s R&B-inflected line readings with Frey’s blue-eyed-soul ad-libs. Still, one wishes they’d gone the “Victim of Love” route and cut this one live because the combination of a ’90s-sounding click track, overly precise audio editing, and the unfortunate dissonance of sustained “r” sounds make the track antiseptic and brittle. It’s letter-perfect in a bad way, more ProTools than professional.
66. “Twenty-One” (Desperado). The Eagles’ second album doesn’t have any truly weak songs, if only because each number is part of a larger diorama, but “Twenty-One” is the runt of the litter. Written and sung by Leadon, whose banjo/dobro picking enlivens the track’s scant 2-minute, 11-second running time, the number makes a simple point quickly, expressing the invulnerability of youth with appropriate levels of musical exuberance. Tracked between “Doolin-Dalton,” which sets up the concept album’s characters, and “Out of Control,” which depicts how easily youthful abandon becomes recklessness, “Twenty-One” is effective. As a stand-alone track, it’s a base hit down the middle at best. Incidentally, the Meisner-sung “Midnight Flyer,” on the band’s next album, is a virtual soundalike for “Twenty-One,” complete with another helping of Leadon’s expert banjo playing.
65. “The Greeks Don’t Want No Freaks” (The Long Run). A fair argument could be made for rating this oddity higher, simply because it’s the funniest song the Eagles ever cut. Given their preference for ambitious narratives, however, the fleeting 2-minute, 21-second duration of this musical tribute to frat-boy mischief reveals its nature as a throwaway that went the distance simply because the band lacked better ideas. (Think of “Greeks” as “Born to Boogie” taken to full term.) Had the Eagles been more prolific, larks like this one would have felt more deserving of inclusion on the band’s LPs. Given their snail’s-pace work ethic, however, a noisy riff about collegiate high jinks feels out of place not only on The Long Run but also within the overall Henley-Frey songbook. Oh, well. The line about vomiting never fails to elicit a smile, and the song’s humor proves that droll worked for Henley and Frey whenever they went there. Jimmy Buffett contributes to the shout-along choruses and outro.
64. “I Wish You Peace” (One of These Nights). Fittingly, Leadon sings the last song on his final Eagles album. Much to Henley’s reported consternation, the songwriting credit for “I Wish You Peace” is split between Leadon and his then-girlfriend, Patti Davis, better known as Ronald Reagan’s daughter. (No Reagan fan, Henley later sang about the Great Communicator as “that tired old man we elected king.”) “I Wish You Peace” has many of the same strengths and weaknesses as Leadon’s big On the Border number, “My Man.” It’s a pretty, countrified ballad with a Zen vibe, soft enough to support Leadon’s thin voice in the lead position and supple enough to expand when harmony vocals join the mix. If it’s possible for a song to be excessively gentle, this one fits the bill. Yet it’s difficult not to feel a sense of loss while listening to “I Wish You Peace.” Eagles 2.0 scored without Leadon on Hotel California, but the group sure as hell could have used his rootsy authenticity while making The Long Run, which has too much chilly meticulousness and not enough warm soulfulness.
63. “Fast Company” (Long Road Out of Eden). Blending a Henley falsetto vocal with nervous-energy funk that recalls “The Disco Strangler,” “Fast Company” is such a throwback that it wouldn’t be surprising to learn it was conceived during the Long Run sessions. The retro vibe extends beyond the sonics. Given the adjective in the title, it’s impossible not to draw parallels to “Life in the Fast Lane,” and, sure enough, the track warns Beautiful Young People about leaving their humanity behind in the quest for fleeting thrills. (The band castigated grown-up versions of such people with another Long Road track, “Busy Being Fabulous.”) For all of its reaching back to the past, “Fast Company” also reflects the indignities of aging, because Henley garbles phrasing on the bridge, a rare slip for someone who values enunciation so highly. (Try deciphering the “raging fire” bit without consulting the lyric sheet.) The track also has one of the limpest dramatic breaks in the Eagles catalog, second only to that woeful drum fill in “I Can’t Tell You Why.”
62. “Nightingale” (Eagles). “Take It Easy,” the incomplete Browne song that Frey finished, wasn’t the only pull the Eagles made from Browne’s songbook for their debut LP. Closing out side one, “Nightingale” provides a terrific segue from Frey’s reflective “Most of Us Are Sad,” and it also represents (no pun intended) that rarest of birds—an unabashedly cheerful song with a Henley vocal. Bouncy, rootsy, and thick, the tune is a toe-tapper with a rural feel. It’s among the Eagles’ best trifles.
61. “King of Hollywood” (The Long Run). If the song’s narrative landed somewhere other than a dick joke, “King of Hollywood” would be much higher on this list. Even though it’s another slowly paced diatribe, this one’s got it all over “Teenage Jail.” Beginning with a fade-in, subtly suggesting listeners are about to hear a story that’s been happening forever and will keep happening long into the future, the track segues into a dark, probing rhythm pattern balanced by creepy-crawly guitar figures. (Felder, Frey, and Walsh each play solos.) Frey and Henley sing in tandem, describing the way a showbiz lech lures lovelies to his casting couch, and as the song advances through six and a half minutes of psychosexual malignancy, the mood grows more and more oppressive, even though the music is darkly alluring. This is Henley-Frey storytelling at its most controlled, specific, and tight—poetic cynicism, if you will—but their inability to stick the landing kills the buzz. Not only is the punchline too easy, but the climactic joke keeps the song mired in the muck of one scumbag’s small world instead of providing a bigger statement about the way the Dream Factory turns people into cogs. Still, pity the poor bastard Henley and Frey used as the model for their protagonist if he ever recognized himself in the unflinching lyrics.
60. “You Are Not Alone” (Long Road Out of Eden). A lovely declaration of support written for his teenage daughter, Frey’s simple ballad sets a personal declaration to a gently driving beat. The use of martial drumming seems peculiar on first listen, a harsh component for such a warm song, but on repeated spins, the rhythm track makes sense, representing the steady presence of a father saying he’ll always be there during rough times. Frey’s vocal is sincere and soothing, and the keyboard grace notes that accentuate the minimalistic chorus add radiance. One hopes the song remains a comfort to Frey’s family now that he’s gone.
59. “I Don’t Want to Hear Any More” (Long Road Out of Eden). Having cowritten “Love Will Keep Us Alive,” Paul Carrack found his way onto yet another Eagles album with this solo composition, performed, naturally, by Schmit. While “I Don’t Want to Hear Any More” is weightier than “Love Will Keep Us Alive,” offering a more nuanced lyric and a stronger beat, it’s very much a soft-rock number, dissecting the moment when a lover realizes he’s about to get kicked to the curb. (Yes, it’s about a dude asking for space to cry privately—not exactly the nerviest sentiment in rock history.) To the song’s credit, the lyrics convey a measure of world-weary wisdom, the driving bassline adds tension, Schmit injects his line readings with delicate feeling, and shimmering guitar contributions by Steuart Smith and Walsh help cast the desired spell. A minor hit with the elevator-music crowd, the song reached No. 23 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
58. “Earlybird” (Eagles). The only tune that Leadon and Meisner wrote together, “Earlybird” is about one-half of a great number. Beginning a bit too literally with a recording of bird chirps, the song segues into a sweet groove thanks to the juxtaposition of a swirling banjo pattern with a steady rock beat. Leadon’s lead vocal is as unmemorable as the lyric, but when he plugs in his electric guitar to play lead parts, the song takes off, with quick little jabs offsetting the pretty blend of Leadon’s and Meisner’s voices during sustained syllables. The song begs, however, for a lyrical polish from Henley and a minute or so of extended musical development from Frey, perhaps a next-level bridge or a storm-the-castle vamp. As is, “Earlybird” is a tasty appetizer.
57. “No More Walks in the Wood” (Long Road Out of Eden). Certain Long Road songs are such close avatars for previous Eagles triumphs that it’s as if the band made a list of past successes to emulate. This opening track, for instance, is a group-harmony vocal piece set to gentle guitar strumming, much in the vein of “Seven Bridges Road” but dour instead of romantic. Henley and Smith did a fine job setting a poem by John Hollander to music, and the song’s cautionary message taps into Henley’s familiar environmentalist themes. Yet even though “No More Walks in the Wood” is undeniably beautiful, the track exudes the portentousness that once led Mojo Nixon to label Henley a “long-haired poet of despair.”
56. “Seven Bridges Road” (Eagles Live). A high-spirited cover of a lyrical ballad by Steve Young, “Seven Bridges Road” was the only “new” song on Eagles Live, and it’s a handsome showcase for the band’s legendary harmonies, especially during the a cappella passages. To the occasional accompaniment of insistently plucked acoustic guitar, Felder, Frey, Henley, Schmit, and Walsh dive and soar in perfect unison. The stripped-down arrangement lets listeners enjoy the way Frey’s warm tenor, Henley’s high rasp, Schmit’s choir-boy purity, and Walsh’s nasal whine complement each other. (Felder’s colorless voice gets lost in the mix, though he contributes the guitar parts.) A minor entry in the canon, to be sure, but still a highly enjoyable one.
55. “Center of the Universe” (Long Road Out of Eden). Arguably the most derivative tune in the Henley-Frey songbook—that is, if one sets aside numbers that prompted accusations of plagiarism—“Center of the Universe” sounds like a deliberate homage to the Beatles, especially given how the romantic guitar solo echoes George Harrison’s playing and how the breathy “ahh” coming out of the chorus recalls the sighing vocals of “Because.” Yet while the sound is Fab Four, the lyrics are pure Eagles. (Frey and Henley share songwriting credit with Smith.) If it’s possible to imagine such a thing, “Center of the Universe” is a condescending love song, with an obnoxious protagonist explaining that the unimportance of a romance, relative to the scope of creation, is satisfactory. “I hate to disappoint you,” the fellow coos patronizingly, “but there’s something you should know.” A declaration of commitment in the form of an existential smackdown—that’s about as Henley as it gets. It’s tempting to believe the song’s softer textures reflect Frey deliberately undercutting his partner’s superciliousness.
54. “Out of Control” (Desperado). The title of this tune, one of the band’s best early rockers, would seem to connote something well outside the Eagles’ purview, as their laboriously crafted music often makes the group seem irredeemably uptight. However, as many examples throughout this list prove, they could cut loose, in their fashion, when the moment was right. Witness the authenticity pulsing through this aggressive track, written by Frey, Henley, and Tom Nixon. Motor City machismo infusing his you-want-a-piece-of-this guitar work and vocals, Frey rides the fast tempo like a buckaroo on a bronc, and when he hits the key lyric paralleling Old West wilding with rock-and-roll striving (“You got to gamble on your story—you got no guts, you get no glory”), he advances the eager-young-guns theme that Meisner introduced with the debut LP’s “Tryin’.”
53. “My Man” (On the Border). By the band’s third album, Leadon’s mellow and/or bluegrassy and/or psychedelic discursions seemed to exist a world apart from the mainstream songcraft of the Henley-Frey brain trust. In some ways, this gentle ode to the recently deceased Gram Parsons brought Leadon back into the fold, since it’s a melodic, plaintive number in the style of the band’s first platter, only with slicker harmonies and production. “My Man” is a lovely tune with thoughtful lyrics, and the theme of surviving loss fits into the Eagles’ collective identity more comfortably than some of Leadon’s other walkabouts. Moreover, Leadon clearly strove to capture something about Parsons’s idiosyncrasy, even though the initial inspiration for the song was another gone-too-soon musician, Duane Allman.
52. “Please Come Home for Christmas” (single-only release, 1978). Boy, was there a lesson here the band failed to learn. Cut to placate their impatient label, this slick cover of Charles Brown’s vintage yuletide number breezed into the Top 20. (Henley knew the original recording from a soul-music station he listened to as a young man in Texas.) Jaunty and melodic, the cut showcases Henley’s R&B vocals at their finest, while Felder’s crisp solo suits the pristine arrangement. As to the lesson the song could have taught the Eagles, it’s about not worrying everything to death. Unfortunately, Henley and Frey were so far down the delusions-of-grandeur rabbit hole that they wrote or cowrote nine of the ten tracks on The Long Run, even though they didn’t have nine songs’ worth of great material. In a different world, someone could have persuaded the Eagles to record a few cover tunes, get the LP finished a year before they actually did, and move forward with their fraternal bonds intact. As for “Please Come Home for Christmas,” it remains one of the band’s most durable singles, getting heavy rotation every holiday season.
51. “Hole in the World” (single-only release, 2003). The new tunes on Hell Freezes Over didn’t reveal much about where the band might head creatively if the members ever got serious about recording again. “Hole in the World” provided a better clue. Inspired by the 9/11 attacks but arriving two years after the fact, the tune foreshadows songwriting flaws that plague Long Road. Featuring a gospel-tinged Henley vocal and succinct lyrics about the futility of religious strife, the song gets off to a good start with a claps-and-clicks rhythm track and splendid harmonies, imaginatively using a chorus-verse structure instead of a verse-chorus structure. Unfortunately, after another solid chorus-verse sequence, the song gets stuck on repeat, with six iterations of the chorus comprising the remainder of the composition. Henley sculpts some sweet Al Green–style riffs around the group vocals, and the song becomes a round for a while, but the lack of a bridge or a third verse makes the tune feel unfinished, even though the arrangement, playing, and production are flawless. Similar criticisms can be leveled at lots of material on Long Road, throughout which it seems as if more attention was given to finessing production than to refining compositions.
