30. “Witchy Woman” (Eagles). The second single off the band’s debut LP and also their first Top 10 hit, this slinky blues/funk number was written by Henley and Leadon, reflecting the former’s gift for wordplay and the latter’s skill at generating dark atmosphere. Driven by foreboding tom-tom patterns and wailing harmony breaks, the track works Native American mysticism into the groove, reflecting how the Eagles regularly mixed varied influences from across the American landscape. The lyric is unquestionably derivative, echoing Santana’s 1968 hit “Black Magic Woman,” but Henley’s commitment to good craftsmanship makes the song a highly satisfying listen nonetheless. Blending specific imagery (“dancing shadows and firelight”) with cryptic assertions (“she got the moon in her eyes”), the number strikes an effective balance between storytelling and vibe, so in some ways it’s a precursor to “Hotel California.” From the sexy phraseology to the lightning-strike power chords, “Witchy Woman” is fine record-making even though it’s decidedly youthful songwriting—did the Eagles ever deliver a more salacious line than “she can rock you in the nighttime till your skin turn red”? Mercy!
29. “Journey of the Sorcerer” (One of These Nights). Listening to this ornate mixture of bluegrass, psychedelic, and rock elements, it’s interesting to note how few instrumentals the Eagles featured on their albums, and how wise they might have been to include more of them. The orchestral reprise of “Wasted Time” that opens side two of Hotel California is gorgeous, and Frey’s “I Dreamed There Was No War,” on Long Road Out of Eden, is evocative and panoramic. Surely some of the dross on Long Run and Long Road could have been eliminated to let the guys explore something weighty. Musings about what might have been aside, “Journey of the Sorcerer” is the best of the Eagles’ instrumentals, and not just because it’s a complete musical statement running nearly seven minutes. Written by Leadon, who plays the banjo leads while guest player David Bromberg accompanies him on fiddle, the piece is big, mysterious, and thrilling. Starting out like the underscore for a horror picture, it segues to adventurous places before reaching the cathartic first chorus, a waves-crashing-against-the-shore torrent of strings fusing with some of Henley’s best-ever drumming. And so it goes through various passages, each wilder than the last, with the long slow churn that precedes the final vamp becoming a special showcase for Leadon’s melodic picking. This track seems to come from the same dark place as “Bitter Creek” and “Witchy Woman,” thereby proving it’s unwise to dismiss Leadon as the blissed-out surfer dude who bailed on the Eagles when things got too edgy. As for “Journey of the Sorcerer,” the song gained an unusual afterlife when it was selected as the theme song for the BBC adaptation of Douglas Adams’s absurdist sci-fi book series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
28. “Learn to Be Still” (Hell Freezes Over). As with many cuts on Hell Freezes Over and Long Road, this one’s essentially a solo track, written by Henley and frequent collaborator Stan Lynch (the founding drummer of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers). It’s a masterful song no matter its origin, one of the best instances of Henley channeling his op-ed musings through the prism of a pop song. Floating along a shimmering lake surface formed by intermingled guitar lines, Henley’s sandpaper voice explores the difficulties of finding equilibrium in a world riven by strife. The narrative shift from “we” to “you” is telling—Henley slipping into philosophy-teacher mode—but the cumulative effect is so involving that the literary tension between clinically diagnosing a societal problem and subjectively offering counsel feels necessary. The delicate shapes of Felder’s simple electric solo complement the steady drive of the rhythm patterns, and the bridge represents a gorgeous union of concept, execution, and feel.
27. “Ol’ 55” (On the Border). The Eagles weren’t averse to cutting songs by outside writers, including three such tunes on Eagles, one on Desperado, another three on On the Border, and many more following their 1994 reunion, notably the five (!) on Long Road Out of Eden. But seeing as how they mostly eschewed the practice from 1975 to their breakup in 1980, it’s a good thing they picked winners before prioritizing original material. Written by Tom Waits and introduced on his 1973 debut album, this tune is such a splendiferous country-rock gem that it feels like an essential component of the Henley-Frey songbook rather than an outside effort. In fact, Henley and Frey trade vocals, with Frey handling the verses, Henley rendering the poetic refrains, and the whole band singing the evocative choruses. Using gradual dramatic buildups and vivid wordplay, “Ol’ 55” captures the way some perfect moments feel like slow motion even as they slip away too quickly. The song’s final vamp, all gigantic harmonies and mournful steel (courtesy of Felicity/Shiloh survivor Al Perkins), is among the band’s loveliest flourishes. Unsurprisingly, Waits was underwhelmed, lamenting that the Eagles took the edge off his song. Substantial royalty checks helped soothe his wounded artistic pride.
26. “It’s Your World Now” (Long Road Out of Eden). Written by Frey and Tempchin, the best song on the band’s last album is loaded with significance and symbolism. An adios number set to a swaying Tex-Mex beat and playfully plucked strings, the tune is full of goodbyes and good wishes, as if Frey somehow knew the stars would never align for another Eagles LP. “It’s Your World Now” fits snugly into one of Frey’s best pockets, that of the suave crooner who appreciates fine wine and fine women, and it also speaks to the group’s higher aspirations with its call to “be part of something good, leave something good behind.” Adding to the elegiac quality of the song is the way Henley’s harmony vocal rises to equal volume with Frey’s lead during the last lines—how better to wave farewell than to do so together? The day Frey died, the band placed the lyrics of “It’s Your World Now” on the front page of their official website. That gesture reinforces that artists lucky enough to enjoy success on the level the Eagles experienced understand how their work becomes community property, after a fashion. Seen through that lens, the tune is Frey’s justifiably proud grace note. “The curtain falls, I take my bow,” he sings. “That’s how it’s meant to be—it’s your world now.”
25. “James Dean” (On the Border). Started by Browne and finished with help from Frey, Henley, and Souther, the vivacious “James Dean” pays musical tribute to the ultimate teen-angst icon—while also encapsulating the way young people perceive their experiences as epic melodrama. The key couplet, “I know my life would look all right if I could see it on the silver screen,” is damn near perfect, and the rest of the song is almost as good. Starting out with a guitar attack and then plowing right into the chorus, the tune benefits from a typically attitudinal lead vocal by Frey, ever the voice of the young gun with something to prove. As for the lyrics, the “sock hop, soda pop” run is delicious, and the “along came a Spyder” bit is as clever as it is darkly humorous. Leadon contributes one of his most robust electric solos, and the whole band charges hard during the indelible “too fast to live, too young to die” section.
24. “You Never Cry Like a Lover” (On the Border). Although Souther was initially Frey’s musical partner, he seems much more simpatico, musically and thematically, with Henley. Both are reserved intellectuals, and both regularly elevate love songs into ruminative novellas. Consider this magnificent track, which they cowrote. In some ways, it’s two songs in one, with intimate verses and operatic choruses, but a compelling narrative pulls the pieces together. Exploring emotions with an almost granular level of scrutiny, Henley articulates the song’s core theme by declaring, in full voice, “I thought I saw somebody I loved sleeping deep inside you.” Ouch. Yet while some Eagles songs describing the faults of romantic partners are judgmental, this track is empathetic, acknowledging “somebody must have put some pain on you.” It’s less a litany of shortcomings and more a heavy sigh about the subject’s inability to let down her guard. All of this is delivered with a beguiling mixture of vulnerability and grandiosity. The gigantic piano swells triggering the choruses feel like waves of anguish, the pulsing guitar breaks (by Leadon) feel like painful realizations, and the feathery call-and-response vocals at the end suggest a last attempt at breaking down walls. It’s not difficult to draw a line between this song and Henley’s “The Heart of the Matter,” which Souther helped write—consider them snapshots of the same wounded poet at different ages.
23. “Victim of Love” (Hotel California). Although the rest of their recorded output benefits from various forms of studio sweetening, the basic track for “Victim of Love” was recorded live in the studio. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, doubters. Based on a Felder groove and completed by Frey, Henley, and Souther, this propulsive composition adds grit to the ballad-heavy second side of Hotel California, with Felder’s scalding fretwork and a gut-punch rhythm pattern framing the harsh lyrics. The clue to the song’s verbal power is in the opening interrogatory, which returns during the outro: “What kind of love have you got?” Yet another Eagles number asking a party girl to give introspection a try, “Victim of Love” has sexism in its DNA, no question; too often in Eagles cuts, romantic fallout is the woman’s fault, with the man shaking his head disapprovingly. (“I could be wrong,” Henley sings in this number, “but I’m not.”) Does this trope reflect well on the band? No. But does it capture something true about the zeitgeist of the band’s hedonistic/misogynistic peak? You bet. And honesty, no matter how coarse the things it reveals, is the stuff of great art.
22. “Hollywood Waltz” (One of These Nights). One of the band’s very best deep cuts, written by Leadon and his brother Tom with contributions from Frey and Henley, “Hollywood Waltz” summarizes in four gorgeous minutes nearly everything the Eagles ever tried to say about the emotional price of reckless coupling. Set, naturally, to an easy waltz beat, the song has an intricate fabric, with Leadon’s mandolin and steel figures bouncing off emotive tones from Frey’s harmonium and guest player Albhy Galuten’s synths. (The Leadons delivered a completed version of the composition to the band, at which point Frey and Henley replaced the lyrics with words of their own.) The song has the steady push and pull of ocean waves crashing against a beach with progressively more power as the tide gets higher and higher. Meanwhile, Henley’s immaculate lead vocal provides just the right emotional shadings to the song’s grim observations about a woman left adrift by a series of callous lovers. Complicating the song’s thematic exploration is a shift from the third to the first person. Does the sad declaration “I’ll go down doing the Hollywood waltz” emanate from the narrator, the subject, or both? This ambiguity adds to the magic of the song’s transcendent final section, a richly layered cascade of falsetto trills, harmony vocals, and instrumental crescendos that seamlessly blends elements of bluegrass, classical, country, and rock. Even on an album filled with great moments, the outro of “Hollywood Waltz” is special.
21. “The Long Run” (The Long Run). Like “Best of My Love,” this classic track brings with it a whole lot of excess baggage. First, the good news. Described by the band as a tribute to Memphis soul, “The Long Run” is a charming thumper with big slide-guitar parts from Walsh substituting for a horn section, an easygoing mid-tempo groove decorated by rhythm-guitar hiccups, and a steady organ throb from Felder filling in the background. Henley, his lifelong affection for R&B informing his expert phrasing, sells the narrative about a couple working through a rough patch, and the whole thing goes down smoothly. Now, the bad news. As rock critic Dave Marsh famously noted, “The Long Run” sounds suspiciously like Otis Clay’s 1973 soul song “Tryin’ to Live My Life Without You.” Differences between the numbers are evident, but so, too, are myriad similarities, from chord progressions to song structure. As songwriters, Frey and Henley were so inventive that there was no reason for them to deliberately cop someone else’s work. Furthermore, because the band featured covers on previous albums, there was ample precedent for them to record “Tryin’ to Live My Life Without You,” with full credit to songwriter Eugene Williams. Hell, they’d just done the same thing with Charles Brown’s “Please Come Home for Christmas.” Therefore, Marsh’s conspiracy theory about the Eagles song being a “rip-off” doesn’t withstand scrutiny. Yet “The Long Run” could be an example of accidental plagiarism—musicians inevitably repurpose things they’ve heard, even if the source has been forgotten. In any event, “The Long Run” is the happiest track on the otherwise gloomy LP of the same name and a reliable source of uplift during concerts.
