RIP: Randy Meisner, 1946-2023

          Among those who write about pop culture generally and celebrities specifically, there’s an unattractive tendency to presume special insight or—even worse—intimacy. I’m sure I’ve been guilty of this in the past, assuming that because I’ve spent an extraordinary amount of time considering the life and work of some individual, naturally I’ve unlocked secrets about that person. Perhaps some authorized biographers have made that shift because their subjects have shared previously hidden information. But given the vantage point from which I observe the story of the Eagles, it would be absurd for me to make any such claim. And that’s why I’m taking a somewhat oblique approach to memorializing founding member Randy Meisner, who died on July 26 at age 77 of complications from COPD following decades marred by various addictions and ailments. I did not know the man and therefore feel unqualified to offer any grand statement on the equation of his existence. Did his grim later years mark his passing as the final note of some rock-and-roll tragedy? Or do the glorious achievements of his peak render such appraisals moot because Meisner left behind work that will last?
          Since I’m unable to answer those big questions, all I can do is catalog my thoughts at this poignant moment. To begin, I can’t help but wonder about what might have been. What if emotional difficulties and substance abuse had not prematurely ended Meisner’s tenure in the Eagles? Did he have the sketch for another “Take It to the Limit” inside him, ready to be elevated and shaped by Frey and Henley? The mediocrity of his solo output provides no satisfactory evidence one way or the other, because Meisner didn’t subsequently align his erratic songwriting abilities with collaborators on the level of Frey and Henley. Beyond his contribution of ideas for tunes, the what-if regarding his departure from the band gets at the bigger question of what the Eagles might have sounded like in the ‘80s; had Meisner not left the nest, might the whole group have retained stronger cohesion and lived through the travails of what became the Long Run era?
          Broadening the scope, what if Meisner simply had an easier go of life overall? The stories of his ambivalence toward fame and his inability to maintain work/life balance are legion, so clearly Meisner brought personal challenges with him on the road to notoriety. But what if he’d somehow found that elusive balance, either through nourishing relationships or professional help? Would a happier and healthier Meisner have made more music? Would he have made better or more consequential music? Or would he simply have enjoyed life away from the spotlight with less tabloid drama than Meisner endured in his final decades on Earth?
          There’s a lesson here, I suppose, that one could string together from Meisner’s songs—maybe on some level his tunes were messages to himself, messages that he only occasionally heeded. No question, it’s a certain kind of fool who seeks the spotlight in the first place, and just as certainly, taking it to the limit cuts both ways—pushing to the edges of one’s potential is dangerously close to testing how much strain a body and mind can survive. “Try and Love Again”? That didn’t always go Meisner’s way, alas. “Nothing Is Said (Till the Artist is Dead)”? By the time he wrote and recorded that song in 1982, it seems the complicated issue of legacy was already weighing heavily on Meisner’s mind.
          So many what-if questions. What if he’d been able to capitalize on the minor hits generated from the same album featuring “Nothing Is Said,” thereby becoming a fixture on the ‘80s charts alongside Frey and Henley? What if his flirtation with country music had yielded a viable second act? What if his reunion with the Eagles at the band’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction had been more than just a one-off? (A one-off during which, rumors persist, Meisner’s bass wasn't even plugged in to amplifiers.) What if his failing health, as widely reported, had not prevented Meisner from making guest appearances on the History of the Eagles tour alongside returning founder Bernie Leadon? The denial of a victory lap seems a particularly unkind turn of fate. One of so many, sadly, visited upon the man.

          Thus another message from his songbook, the unavoidable realization that life does what it will no matter what path we might imagine in our dreams. Typically of Meisner’s solo output, this final offering—to the best of my knowledge, the last original song he wrote and recorded—is slight and trite. Yet in context of his story, it’s also touching and true.