Every Eagles Song Ranked: Songs 20-11

20. “Best of My Love” (On the Border). The song’s virtues are inarguable. Beautiful melody. Great playing. Remarkable lead vocal by Henley. Nonetheless, it says volumes that in addition to becoming the band’s first No. 1 pop hit—by way of a truncated version absent more than a minute of the original recording—“Best of My Love” topped the Easy Listening chart, where it was preceded by a song from the Osmonds and followed by one from Olivia Newton-John. Written by Frey, Henley, and Souther, “Best of My Love” made the Eagles synonymous with unthreatening love songs. On the plus side, maybe that pushed them to explore harder sounds. On the minus side, it gave the Eagles a safe place to hide once they reunited, as seen by the barrage of unthreatening ballads that began with 1994’s “Love Will Keep Us Alive” and continued through multiple saccharine numbers on Long Road. Presaging the fate that befell the Police’s biggest hit, “Every Breath You Take,” “Best of My Love” is also a ballad that casual listeners embrace for its comforting hooks and soothing melodies, oblivious to the meaning of the lyrics. After all, the titular phrase is an expression of defeat rather than one of devotion. Sometimes the Eagles really were too clever for their own good, because in this case they hid a bitter pill in too much sugar. Still, as far as this ranking goes, all of those extrinsic considerations are academic—what matters is the song’s impeccable craftsmanship. 
 
19. “Heartache Tonight” (The Long Run). Frey’s old buddy Seger improvised the chorus when the band was stumped about where to take the song, so perhaps the spontaneity of “Heartache Tonight” is what makes it such a vibrant jukebox thumper. (Seger shares songwriting credit with usual suspects Frey and Souther, who started the song together, and Henley, who contributed.) The irony, of course, is that the song’s rhythm track sounds absurdly processed. As always, one of the Eagles’ special skills was transforming lively riffing into hermetically sealed precision—seriously, try finding a flaw in any of this tune’s painfully mechanized handclaps and snare hits. Yet the raunchy honesty of the composition wins out, especially when Walsh slices through the track with fiery slide licks. Simultaneously looking back to Frey’s workingman’s-blues origins and foreshadowing his solo adventures in Partytown, “Heartache Tonight” is one of the group’s best lighthearted numbers, a grim referendum on human relationships disguised as a rollicking jam about hooking up. Released as the first single off The Long Run, the tune became the album’s sole No. 1 pop hit. Later, it earned a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.
 
18. “Try and Love Again” (Hotel California). Meisner was all over the band’s first couple of albums, when lead-vocal duties were distributed democratically, but it wasn’t until the fourth LP that he finally scored a radio hit with “Take It to the Limit.” He should have notched another one with this soaring ballad, but, surprisingly, only three cuts from Hotel California were released as singles. Its unexplored commercial potential notwithstanding, “Try and Love Again” is superb, easily the best solo Meisner composition the band ever recorded. While the lyrics could use some sharpening, the thematic gist is clear and the musical impact is undeniable. Crooning over an elegantly fluid melody while Henley’s double-time hi-hat complements piercing guitar figures from Frey and Walsh, Meisner delivers the same high-tenor romanticism he did on “Take It to the Limit,” only without the showy flourishes. The group’s harmonies kill here, so even though the words inch toward Adult Contemporary treacle, the tune contributes to the LP’s overall effect, injecting hope into an otherwise fatalistic flow. Although “Try and Love Again” is easily overlooked, partially because so many cuts on Hotel California are knockouts and partially because Meisner faded from view soon afterward, the song ranks among the band’s most luscious confections.
 
17. “In the City” (The Long Run). The Eagles catalog is filled with songs that one member brought to group sessions completely formulated, and “In the City,” written by Walsh and Barry De Vorzon, tops that list. It’s also among the peak achievements of Walsh’s entire repertoire. Created as the theme song for Walter Hill’s stylized gang-violence movie The Warriors, “In the City” first reached the marketplace as a Walsh solo recording. The Eagles cut their own version for The Long Run, improving the original’s instrumental filigrees and polishing the harmony vocals. Particularly in the band version, “In the City” has an irresistible groove, slide-guitar licks so hot you could use them for branding irons, and intoxicating harmonies. The basic track is simultaneously lush and minimalistic, with enough air for the listener to bop along with every bongo hit, and Walsh folds his keening wail into the arrangement perfectly, treating the vocal like part of the guitar line. When the vamp hits, “In the City” shifts into a minute of pure sonic pleasure, the band seemingly reveling in their own consummate musicianship as they ride the steady waves of the uplifting melody. Walsh’s propensity for novelty songs and rave-ups makes it easy to forget there’s poetry in his soul, but “In the City” proves he’s an artist first and a court jester second.
 
16. “The Sad Café” (The Long Run). Since the Eagles couldn’t have known The Long Run would be their last album for a decade and a half, it’s amazing they gave their first act such a perfect closing statement. Written by Frey, Henley, Souther, and Walsh, “The Sad Café” is a veiled homage to restaurant/singles hangout Dan Tana’s and/or the joint’s next-door neighbor on Santa Monica Boulevard, the Troubadour. Different Eagles offer different interpretations, but either way, these are the places where the band’s story began. “The Sad Café” is also a thoughtful rumination on the vagaries of fame. Opening with images suggesting the remorseless passage of time, the song segues into nostalgic recollections of the moment when counterculture kids felt the world was theirs. Using just the right combination of idealism and regret, Henley sings, “We thought we could change the world with words like ‘love’ and ‘freedom.’” Throughout the number, the melody is a soft caress. A critical listener could describe the song’s light instrumentation as enervated, and, indeed, there’s an audible weariness to the close-harmony singing in the middle of the song, but the sense of bearing heavy burdens mirrors the lyrics. “I don’t know why fortune shines on some,” Henley sings in the tune’s best line, “and lets the rest go free.” Griping about success? Not really. Acknowledging how the limitless possibilities of wanting success give way to the grinding pressures of sustaining same? More like it. Following some gorgeous acoustic soloing by Felder, a high-flying bridge, and a final vocal passage that takes the form of an invitation to revel in sweet memories of simpler times, the song closes with buttery sax from guest player David Sanborn and then fades, closing the door on the Eagles as a recording entity until they surmounted their friction with “Get Over It.”
 
15. “Bitter Creek” (Desperado). Virtually a Leadon solo track featuring his bandmates as accompanists (Leadon wrote the tune, sings the lead vocal, and fills the frame with expressive acoustic-guitar hues), “Bitter Creek” finds the Eagles at their most cinematic. Starting with tight little pinches low on the neck of an acoustic guitar, the song transitions from subtly unnerving dissonance to a clip-clop groove, evoking images of a cowboy riding through dangerous territory in fading light. Then Leadon slides into the story. Cryptic and specific at the same time, the narrative hints at danger, loss, pride, and many other things, neither withholding so much detail that the listener is lost nor providing so many guideposts that the song becomes limited to one interpretation. Like “Hotel California,” this one’s a dark mood piece, but with even more deliberately sustained tension. The band’s harmonies enter as a response to Leadon’s first utterance of the title, and thereafter the other singers shadow Leadon, ghosts in the gloom as our doomed cowboy plunges deeper into the night, with glory or oblivion waiting ahead.
          Once the lyric plays out just after the three-minute mark, the song undergoes a sly transformation, changing from a warning to an incantation. For the last two minutes of the number, Leadon complements his rhythm parts with impassioned acoustic soloing, all to the accompaniment of dogged “ooh-ooh” harmony vocals. Is the scary vamp of “Bitter Creek” the sound of a mortal facing his final test, the sound of a soul transcending, or something entirely different? Few Eagles songs contain so much mystery, but perhaps a clue can be found in the sequencing. Tracked between the where-have-all-the-good-times-gone ruminations of “Saturday Night” and the no-one-gets-out-alive finality of “Doolin-Dalton/Desperado (Reprise),” Leadon’s “Bitter Creek” says something profound about the impossibility of reconciling dreams of immortality with the cold fact of human impermanence.
 
14. “After the Thrill Is Gone” (One of These Nights). Yet another fantastic deep cut from the band’s fourth album, “After the Thrill Is Gone” is one of the paramount achievements of the Henley-Frey collaboration. They wrote the song together and sang it that way, with Frey handling the verses and Henley the choruses—sort of. Ingeniously structured, the tune doesn’t have a traditional verse-chorus pattern, instead moving from two low-key stanzas into a pair of escalating couplets before settling back down for another stanza, a wrenching guitar solo by Felder, a repeat of the escalating couplets, and then, in a thematically relevant return to solid ground, a final twist on the low-key stanzas that leads into a vamp on the title phrase and, rather than a fade, a distinct ending.
          The song is just as graceful and self-assured lyrically as it is musically, cascading from one great turn of phrase to the next: “Empty pages and a frozen pen,” “Half the distance takes you twice as long,” and, voicing the anxiety that lurks inside the heart of every popular entertainer, “You’re afraid you might fall out of fashion.” The lyric is so well-written that it doesn’t matter whether the listener interprets the song as a eulogy for a romance that’s lost its spark or a sad commentary by rockers who’ve become too accustomed to success. It’s both of those things because, after all, what is a rock career except a love affair between music and musician? In its quiet way, “After the Thrill Is Gone” is one of the great songs about the disconnect between the two halves of the term “show business.”
          Oh, and points to the exec at Asylum who positioned this number as the closing song on 1982’s Eagles Greatest Hits, Vol. 2, a de facto obit for the band’s first run. Way to twist the knife, dude.
 
13. “Already Gone” (On the Border). Having contributed “Peaceful Easy Feeling” to the band’s first album, Tempchin resurfaced with this playful rave-up. (Robb Strandlund cowrote the tune.) Sung by Frey with a winning mixture of humor and macho posturing, it’s a straightforward I’m-outta-here number, with only the tiniest inklings of a larger statement. What earns the song such a high spot on this list, besides the high-octane groove and the top-shelf vocal, is the vigor of the band’s attack. This was only the second track to which Felder contributed guitar, and his incandescent playing clearly raised the band’s commitment to another level. On the first album, the band tries to rock out, fumbling with “Chug All Night” and almost getting there with “Tryin’.” On the second album, they flex their muscles on “Outlaw Man” and “Out of Control,” sounding more believably tough. With “Already Gone” and “Good Day in Hell,” the other Felder track on the third album, the Eagles find their missing ingredient, a guitarist who can shred. By charting higher than anything off Desperado, this first single from On the Border forcefully proclaimed the beginning of a new chapter in the Eagles story. They were never going to be the Stones or the Who—skeptical producer Glyn Johns was right about that—but after much trial and error, they successfully integrated heavily amplified fretwork into their country-rock sound, paving the way for explorations beyond the limitations of rootsy songwriting.
 
12. “Take It to the Limit” (One of These Nights). Meisner’s career pinnacle, and the rare instance of an Eagles song soaring on hooks and melody and vocals, without benefit of a persuasive lyric. (Per the norm, Meisner presented an unfinished sketch to Frey and Henley, who completed the songwriting process.) Offering a vague statement of carpe-diem purpose, the tune takes flight with a majestic rhythm track—heavenly strings lifting a mid-tempo march into rare air—then slides into an irresistible chorus that feels like gospel. Meisner’s plain Midwestern phrasing makes the confounding words seem sincere, and the tune’s authors nail the occasional perfect couplet (“If it all fell to pieces tomorrow, would you still be mine?”). Best of all? Those spectacular high notes. They form the ideal climaxes for this mesmerizing fireworks display of a song. Yet in typical Eagles fashion, there’s a dark side to this huge hit, because Meisner’s reluctance to perform “Take It to the Limit” on tour led to standoffs with Frey, which in turn helped motivate Meisner’s departure from the band. Frey ungallantly put the tune back into the Eagles’ live repertoire during the late ’90s, his attempts at the lead vocal falling well short of Meisner’s thrilling performances. (Since Frey’s death, Vince Gill has served the song reasonably well at Eagles concerts.) Incidentally, Meisner recorded a stripped-down version of “Take It to the Limit” for his 1978 solo debut LP, but that recording also pales in comparison to the glorious version on One of These Nights.
 
11. “Tequila Sunrise” (Desperado). It’s mind-boggling that Frey and Henley wrote two of their best-ever songs during their first week as collaborators, but the proof is in the anguish of “Desperado” and the ennui of “Tequila Sunrise.” Built around a simple acoustic-guitar figure that’s a little bit Roy Orbison and a little bit Tex-Mex, “Tequila Sunrise” employs mournful steel and warm harmonies to support Frey’s unvarnished vocal. Without overstating the forlorn lyric—thus avoiding the trap of sounding excessively self-pitying—Frey tells one of the world’s oldest stories so persuasively that “Tequila Sunrise” becomes the soundtrack for every guy who’s every been shot down, every guy who’s ever regretted hooking up with the wrong woman, and every guy who knows he’ll probably do the same thing all over again, loneliness surmounting reason every damn time.

 

Every Eagles Song Ranked: Songs 30-21

 

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.

Every Eagles Song Ranked: Songs 40-31

40. “Busy Being Fabulous” (Long Road Out of Eden). Something of a sequel to “Life in the Fast Lane,” critiquing grownups who can’t leave their hard-partying ways behind, “Busy Being Fabulous” is the best of the new Henley-Frey songs on Long Road, thanks to its winning combination of relatable lyrics and countrified hooks. Gliding along on a mid-tempo beat that easily supports thick harmonies and the occasional delicate instrumental flourish, the track lives on the lighter side of the Henley-Frey songbook, less a comprehensive treatise and more a pithy critique. There’s also a certain been-there/done-that quality, inasmuch as the Eagles had already crafted more than a few songs about people with frail grasps on the big picture. Considered from a fan’s perspective, however, the song finds the band’s top songwriters revisiting a core theme with new maturity and wisdom. What’s more, “Busy Being Fabulous” is beautifully rendered—each verse forms the setup for a caustic punchline, the dense chorus allows the listener to luxuriate in the signature Eagles sound, and the song runs a satisfying four minutes, just enough to fully explore its lyrical and musical ideas. The tune gained some traction in the marketplace, hitting No. 28 on the Country chart and No. 12 on the Adult Contemporary chart.

39. “Doolin-Dalton” & “Doolin-Dalton (Instrumental)” & “Doolin-Dalton/Desperado (Reprise)” (Desperado). Excepting perhaps the group’s stillborn attempt at a reunion in 1990, here’s the most interesting near-miss in the Eagles saga: maverick filmmaker Sam Peckinpah briefly considered transforming the group’s cowboy album into a movie. To see the material’s cinematic potential, examine the photos on the LP’s sleeve, taken by Henry Diltz during an adventurous session—which also involved Browne and Souther—at an old Western-movie location in the hills above Malibu. Singer-songwriter Ned Doheny, the story goes, gave Browne a coffee-table book about gunfighters, and upon seeing the book, the Eagles zeroed in on the real-life story of the Doolin-Dalton gang, sensing potential for a parallel between robbers and rockers. Written by Browne, Frey, Henley, and Souther, the album’s opener, “Doolin-Dalton,” has a great high-lonesome quality, with Frey’s anguished harmonica strains bouncing off the ballad’s arena-sized rhythms like coyote calls in a canyon. Yet the song is really just a prologue, establishing the characters and mood for the album. “Doolin-Dalton” gets an instrumental callback near the top of side two, and it returns again during the album’s beautiful finale, “Doolin-Dalton/Desperado (Reprise).” Inserting additional lyrics as a means of concluding the album’s narrative, this effective fusion of two tracks eventually becomes a gigantic round that’s pure Zane Grey mythmaking. Elegantly capping the rock parallel are these lines: “Is there gonna be anything left? Only stardust.” The notion comes across that in the same way gunfighters leave in their wakes slabs on Boot Hill and some tall tales, rockers leave behind their music. This romantic analogy reflects the self-assuredness of young songwriters determined to earn their places in the pop-music pantheon. Decades of subsequent Eagles success prove the men behind that analogy eventually made good on their boasts.
 
38. “Pretty Maids All in a Row” (Hotel California). Side two of the Eagles’ best album features some of the most delicate musicianship in the band’s entire catalog. Coming out of the acidic “Victim of Love,” side two’s dreamy stretch begins with this Walsh cut, continues with Meisner’s gorgeous “Try and Love Again,” and concludes with the magisterial woe of “The Last Resort.” Lyrically, “Pretty Maids,” composed by Walsh and his old Barnstorm bandmate Joe Vitale, is the weakest of the three because except for some strangely evocative phrases about the fleeting nature of life, “Pretty Maids” is more of a mood piece than a narrative. Musically, however, it’s crisp and resonant. Over a minimalistic beat defined by airy breaks—huge snare hits punctuating dramatic pauses—Walsh uses guitars and keyboards to paint clouds in a dusky sky, taking listeners to some reflective place where they can add their own specificity of circumstance to the generalized sighs and sways and swoons. Walsh injects his vocals with a rare degree of vulnerability, giving the effect of a shy guy revealing himself to a sympathetic listener. There’s something sexy about the number, as well, thanks to the cascading harmonies and that smooth slide-guitar lead, a steady hand on the small of a partner’s back during an intimate pas de deux.
 
37. “Saturday Night” (Desperado). This deep cut was an offbeat selection to open concerts on the History of the Eagles tour, though Frey and Henley clearly wanted to make a statement by appearing together onstage before other band members emerged—call it Rewriting the History of the Eagles. After all, the composition of “Saturday Night” was begun by Meisner and completed with help from the other original band members. Furthermore, the recorded version is such a group effort—Leadon decorating the track with mandolin washes, Meisner singing a few lines—that reducing it to an acoustic duet lessens the song’s beauty. Worse, repurposing the song underscores the ungallant nature of the band’s fractious dynamics; at the end of the day, it’s all about Don and Glenn, so hit the road if you’ve got a problem with that, pal. In any event, this effectively world-weary song is told from the perspective of men realizing youth has slipped into the rear-view mirror. Bittersweet and tender, the tune articulates the same hard-won wisdom—or uncanny prescience, given how young the Eagles were when they cut this material—as the same album’s “Desperado” and “Tequila Sunrise.” Solid stuff.
 
36. “How Long” (Long Road Out of Eden). It’s a safe bet the overwhelming majority of fans who pushed the first official Long Road single up the Adult Contemporary and Country charts glossed right over the song’s original intentions. Written by Souther and included on his 1972 debut album, the tune was part of the Eagles’ live set back in the day, its boppy rhythms and sweet harmonies masking a topical narrative about a Vietnam War deserter. When the Eagles resurrected the song in 2007, it became a perfect invitation to their audience—whereas “Get Over It” told fans the Eagles could still lay down macho grooves, “How Long” sent the comforting message that the “Take It Easy” guys could still manufacture cotton-candy sonics. Featuring a vocal split between Frey and Henley, “How Long” is a blast whether you probe the lyrics or simply ride the song’s pleasing textures. Galloping assuredly through a rangy melody, the band sounds fantastic, their playing as taut as their close-harmony singing. (Fittingly, the track won the Eagles a Grammy for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.) To fully appreciate the propulsion of this song, track down video of the band performing “How Long” on TV in the mid-’70s, because their back-in-the-day take on the song, all raunchy guitars and strutting confidence, smokes the Long Road version—some tunes are better suited to passion than precision.
 
35. “Waiting in the Weeds” (Long Road Out of Eden). With all due respect to that song’s noble sociopolitical aspirations, forget “Long Road Out of Eden.” The real epic worth discussing on the band’s last album is “Waiting in the Weeds,” a breathtaking ballad running nearly eight minutes and featuring some of the most beautiful lyrical and musical imagery that Henley, who cowrote the song with Smith, has ever conjured. Ostensibly a bittersweet romantic tale told from the perspective of a man watching in anguish as his lost love throws her affections at an undeserving rival, it is also, as Henley has noted, a veiled statement about the band circa the mid-2000s. The romantic rival in the song (“He’s the darling of the chic”) is a stand-in for some of the musical horrors that dominated the pop charts while the Eagles were sequestered in the recording studio. And if that sounds like another shot of back-in-my-day crankiness from Henley, who turned 60 shortly before Long Road was released, he justifies his scorn by countering the Auto-Tuned emptiness of boy bands and pop tarts with the handmade intricacy of the guitar parts and overlapping harmonies that drive “Waiting in the Weeds.” (Translation: “Lemme show you how it’s done, kids.”) Some of the wordplay is positively sublime, as when the end of one phrase, “the flavor of the week,” becomes the beginning of another, “is melting down your pretty summer dress.” And the melody is truly haunting. Finally, the tension of the bridge gives way to the grandeur of the third chorus, evoking sunbeams breaking through clouds after a summer storm, and the multilayered round that takes shape during the closing chorus is on par with the band’s finest moments of recorded performance. To this writer’s ears, only the closing vamp of “Hollywood Waltz” is more achingly pretty than the last stretch of “Waiting in the Weeds.”
 
34. “Peaceful Easy Feeling” (Eagles). Prominently featuring the word “easy” in the titles of two cuts on their first album had the effect of putting targets on the Eagles’ backs, critically speaking, and the fact that both tunes became classic hits only made things worse. For decades, wags opined that “Peaceful Easy Feeling” and “Take It Easy” were panaceas during turbulent times and nothing more. Had the Eagles produced only upbeat songs about overcoming life’s difficulties, the critique would have been valid. What’s more, “Take It Easy” is a deceptive song, since the narrative implies the protagonist might continue a losing pattern by hooking up with the girl in the flatbed Ford; he is the unreconstructed Me Generation male, feeding his desires and kicking the notion of consequences down the road. The main character in Tempchin’s “Peaceful Easy Feeling” doesn’t think nearly as deeply, though it’s hard to imagine any woman wanting to stone him, like the bed-hopper in “Take It Easy.” Pretty, rural, and warm, “Peaceful Easy Feeling” paints romantic word pictures with the first verse, those earrings and skin “beneath a billion stars,” but it’s not just a come-on. Rather, it’s the earthy overture of a longhair in denim seeking communion with another soul—which just happens to occupy a comely physique. Frey’s tender vocal also marks the beginning of his lifelong association with Tempchin, who became his writing partner after the initial dissolution of the Henley-Frey team.
 
33. “Those Shoes” (The Long Run). It’s a shame Frey and Felder developed such animosity toward each other, because when those two joined forces with Henley (and sometimes Souther), the collaboration worked. Telling a dark story about a young woman enduring the indignities of the singles scene (“You’re so smooth and the world’s so rough”), “Those Shoes” blends a menacing groove with fierce attacks of electric and slide guitars to create a frightening Looking for Mr. Goodbar vibe. Whereas the other nihilistic cuts on The Long Run have distracting shortcomings, “Those Shoes” represents the apogee of the band’s nadir, if you will—only songwriters intimately familiar with the shame of prowling for empty gratification could express this specific piece of the human experience so truthfully. Written by Felder, Frey, and Henley, the song captures the Eagles at their most supple—the call-and-response section pairing Henley’s vicious lead vocal with otherworldly Greek Chorus harmonies—and their most cruel. The talk-box guitar stuff at the end has a wonderfully evil quality, even when you discover that the voices blending into the guitar notes are singing repetitions of “butt out.” (Felder and Walsh play in tandem for a while, and Walsh handles the big solo.) Delivering some of his strongest percussion on the Long Run LP, Henley adds dark edges throughout the song with clanking ride-cymbal hits and strafing-run tom fills.
 
32. “Good Day in Hell” (On the Border). In his score-settling memoir, Felder describes being welcomed to the Eagles by his old buddy Leadon, who whispered: “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” By all reports, the pickup sessions for this track—during which Felder played blazing slide licks, his first contributions to the group’s recorded output—echoed the song’s title. If life among the Eagles was hell when the musicians fought with each other, this was indeed a good day. The excitement of a “late arrival,” as Felder was billed on the resulting album’s sleeve, made for a break from the torments of the damned. Even though it’s greatly elevated by Felder’s quicksilver playing, the basic track is terrific, a darkly funny twist on “Take It Easy.” Whereas the protagonist of that song hopes for salvation in the form of a kindhearted woman, the guy suffering through a “Good Day in Hell” accepts his lot in life, with the recurring line “tomorrow I’ll be glory bound” coming across like some small-town dreamer’s empty promises that, tomorrow, damn it, he’ll finally leave for the big city. (Some reports indicate that, like the same album’s “My Man,” this tune was inspired by Gram Parsons.) Throughout the song, the countrified funk of the melody reflects the seedy appeal of living below one’s moral standards. Underscoring how cohesive a music-making unit Henley and Frey had become, they not only wrote the song together but also sang the verses in unison, an effect they didn’t repeat until “King of Hollywood” several years later.
 
31. “Certain Kind of Fool” (Desperado). Like “Take It to the Limit,” this was a Meisner song fragment that Henley and Frey helped complete, and it’s a fine synthesis of their abilities. Drawing, perhaps, on his own heartland upbringing, Meisner, who sings the lead, tells a vivid story about a young man dazzled by the six-shooter—or the Les Paul, depending on how you read the number—that he spots in a store window. Practicing until “he knew he could stand with the best,” the boy sets out for glory, little suspecting how closely notoriety and infamy are linked. The key line, “It’s a certain kind of fool who likes to hear the sound of his own name,” could just as easily be said about a rocker as an outlaw, so this tight track hits the album’s theme with the precision of a bullet blasting through a target. The song’s measured pace, which picks up speed during the chorus, supports Leadon’s emotive guitars just as strongly as it supports Meisner’s plaintive wails, giving the brief tune memorable widescreen impact.

Every Eagles Song Ranked: Songs 50-41

 

50. “Business as Usual” (Long Road Out of Eden). Henley spent the first decade of his solo career transforming righteous indignation into an art form. Accordingly, it’s no surprise that one of the best tracks he contributed to Long Road is a snarling screed, cowritten with Smith, about the cross-pollination between business, money, and politics. Sonically, “Business as Usual” is yet another Long Road track that seems to have emerged from an earlier time; the tune would have fit perfectly on Henley’s 1989 The End of the Innocence LP, right down to the beating-a-dead-horse repetition of the phrase “soul-sucking.” (Once Henley gets his teeth into a juicy aphorism, he’s loath to let go.) Giving the tune extra muscle is an intense tempo and a ground-assault arrangement—heavy drums, moody harmonies, and slashing guitars cohere with the tough lyrics to form a bleak but powerful statement. Whereas too many Long Road rants resemble sloppy carpet-bombing, this one’s a lethal drone strike.
 
49. “Take the Devil” (Eagles). Anyone doubting Meisner’s versatility need only listen to the three cuts he sings on the band’s first LP. Interpreting Frey’s “Most of Us Are Sad,” he’s a high-lonesome troubadour. Delivering his own “Tryin’,” he’s a blue-collar rocker. And in his best moment on Eagles, he’s a storyteller nearly of Henley’s caliber. Written by Meisner, the song itself isn’t fantastic, another spooky grind pulled from the same poisoned well the band tapped for “Witchy Woman,” but, together with his buddies’ big-canvas performances, Meisner’s singing elevates the piece to something eerily beautiful. Bearing a resemblance to CSN’s “Wooden Ships,” the tune starts small and gets big, suggesting a vessel sailing into foreboding waters before getting swallowed by an apocalyptic storm. Meisner’s vocals are emotional and authoritative, climaxing with a chilling high note before the track settles into a minute and a half of fierce vamping.
 
48. “Do Something” (Long Road Out of Eden). Lost amid the vapid love songs the band threw Schmit’s way while chasing the success of “I Can’t Tell You Why” is this earnest country ballad about exactly what the title suggests—making the most of life because “you’re not ready for the rocking chair.” While not the most challenging song, “Do Something” expresses a poignant theme for middle-aged musicians tackling new material instead of simply coasting on their old hits. Written by Henley, Schmit, and Smith, the tune has a pleasing blend of lyricism and twang. Better still, the give-and-take vocals between Henley and Schmit toward the end convey camaraderie while also juxtaposing the band’s gentlest voice with its toughest.
 
47. “The Disco Strangler” (The Long Run). The title alone makes the song dated, but it’s not as if the Eagles dove wholeheartedly into late-’70s dance-floor fashion the way that, say, ELO or KISS did. Exactly the opposite. Except for the snapping hi-hat, this one’s all about sticking it to disco—and the debauched culture it represents. Felder steers the song with one of his most blistering hooks, as nasty as it is nocturnal, while Henley supports the guitar with a groove as twitchy a tweaker’s heartbeat. Henley’s lead vocal is all slap and slice, mercilessly describing the seductive powers of avarice, lust, and narcissism all the way to the lethal climax. Songs like “The Disco Strangler” contribute to the band’s not-undeserved reputation for biting the hand that feeds, since they enjoyed partying so much that it’s disingenuous for them to judge others for doing the same, but the attitude works for “The Disco Strangler” in a way it doesn’t for “King of Hollywood.” Rather than using an outside-in perspective, “The Disco Strangler” captures the late ’70s with such immediacy you can almost see the jittery band members gnashing their teeth as the blow hits their systems.
 
46. “Most of Us Are Sad” (Eagles). After Frey died, Leadon expressed his admiration for “Most of Us Are Sad,” a deep cut from the band’s first album that Frey wrote and Meisner sang. While the melancholy ballad’s lyric is self-explanatory, Leadon correctly noted that it reflects a simple truth—we all get blue sometimes. On a deeper level, the song reveals something about Frey that he rarely expressed in his music. He generally played the roles of the cool observer, the party animal, the smooth-talking stud, and the tough guy. By penning “Most of Us Are Sad,” he showed unadorned vulnerability. One could easily play pop-culture shrink by postulating that he stepped away from the mic when the time came to record the song because he knew that he’d exposed a nerve, though the real explanation is probably more mundane, something to do with making sure band members had parity on the first LP. In any event, “Most of Us Are Sad” is an affecting track that Meisner serves well.
 
45. “Outlaw Man” (Desperado). Speaking of Frey the tough guy, take a few steps back out of respect for this badass number written by David Blue because “Outlaw Man” is a key part of the six-gun symphony that comprises the band’s only outright concept album. Whether you take the song literally, a frontier robber warning a woman not to get close because he could die any minute, or whether you take it metaphorically, the rock star as high plains drifter, it’s an attitudinal jolt, with the heavy reverb on Frey’s vocal lending a suitably mythic quality. A dissenter could quibble that the group-harmony flourishes unhelpfully soften the track. Yet once Frey leads the band charging out of the second chorus like they’ve just knocked off the First National Trust—Meisner’s throbbing bass notes echoing racing hoofbeats—the tune approaches the excitement of a Howard Hawks oater.
 
44. “Is It True?” (On the Border). Calling this attractive song typical of Meisner’s early output isn’t exactly a compliment, and it’s not exactly a condemnation. A mid-tempo number about the girl who got away and the man who’s matured enough to realize it was his fault, the song is straightforward country rock executed by the genre’s most polished practitioners, with Frey’s nimble slide-guitar accents lending scope. In many ways, this is the most satisfying solo composition Meisner brought to the band short of “Try and Love Again,” as the cut benefits from not only economy but also execution. “Is It True?” makes its point in three minutes and change, just long enough to tell the story but not long enough to demand more complexity. Better still, the band was in such a good pocket when they cut On the Border that the playing couldn’t be smoother.
 
43. “On the Border” (On the Border). Despite featuring the band’s muddiest lyrics this side of “Take It to the Limit,” the title track from the Eagles’ strong third album—the symbolic end of their twang time—has so many interesting feels and hooks and turns of phrase that it’s a great listen. (Frey, Henley, and Leadon share writing credit.) The groove combines funk and soul elements into something loud and rude, the sound of the guy you bumped into on the street who’s ready for a fight. However, the track’s also filled with humor—the mid-song stretch during which each Eagle sings a line in succession conveys playfulness and unity, two qualities in short supply during the band’s darkest periods. Henley leans into the R&B side of his musical persona with a vengeance on this one, and by the time the song settles into the vamp-and-trill outro, the Eagles let a little Booker T. & the M.G.’s grit into their usual please-don’t-spill-crumbs-on-the-carpet vibe.
 
42. “Too Many Hands” (One of These Nights). The only Meisner-Felder composition, “Too Many Hands” would have benefited from a Henley lyric pass, but the central idea is so cogent and the musicality is so powerful that the track overcomes its verbal shortcomings. Meisner’s springy bassline and Felder’s all-over-the-neck pyrotechnics amplify the anguish of the song’s observations about a beautiful woman transferring her affections from one unworthy lover to the next, even though “her heart is still yearning to be found.” Meisner delivers an authoritative lead vocal, Henley’s percussion helps give the song its sinister propulsion, Frey trades squawking electric figures with Felder during the dual-guitar solo, and all five Eagles circa 1975 contribute spooky harmony refrains. Casting its spell for nearly five minutes, “Too Many Hands” is one of the group’s most atmospheric deep cuts.
 
41. “Get Over It” (Hell Freezes Over). What a thrill to hear Walsh’s revving-engine opening licks on the radio in early 1994, confirmation that the impossible had finally happened, that hell had indeed frozen over. Featuring one of Henley-Frey’s chattiest lyrics and, as Frey has said, straight-up Chuck Berry guitars, “Get Over It” is a middle finger not only to the self-involved whiners pilloried in the song but also to the haters. The critics who never got behind the idea of the Eagles as rockers. The detractors who cheered when Mojo Nixon sang “Don Henley must die—don’t let him get back together with Glenn Frey!” The gripers who consigned the Eagles to the corporate-rock slagheap. With its punchy verses, confrontational choruses, and pedal-to-the-metal guitars, “Get Over It” announced the Eagles were back and ready to rumble, with something to say about a whole new generation of self-involved jerks. Kinder and gentler? Not quite. “I’d like to find your inner child,” Henley snarls, “and kick its little ass.” Preach!