The 1974 song Don Henley thought gave Eagles credibility: “I was proud to do it”
The Eagles spent much of their career battling misconceptions about who they were as a band. While they became one of the defining acts of the 1970s and eventually evolved into polished arena-rock superstars, their foundations were deeply rooted in country music.
As their sound broadened and commercial success arrived, some critics questioned whether the group had drifted too far from those origins.
Every artist has run into the problem of selling out at least once in their lives. As much as you might think that what you’re doing is true to your life, people have lined up for ages to say that artists aren’t actually playing the authentic version of their style of music and that some random unknown artist is doing things a thousand times better.
While the Eagles never considered sticking to one genre, Don Henley admitted that getting the song ‘Midnight Flyer’ on a record helped them regain their credibility.
Granted, there’s no doubt that the Eagles fall pretty squarely into the realm of country rock. As much as people might like to complain about how they are the death of good taste as they drink their shot next to ‘The Dude’, there’s actually a lot more variety in their albums than many people would think.
Compared to the other country rockers of the day like Gram Parsons, hearing the band harmonise on songs like ‘Take it Easy’ was half why the rest of the world fell in love with them almost instantaneously. Even though works like ‘Desperado’ were great slices of Americana music, they weren’t going to hear much praise from the masses, who cast them out as being one of the first major flameouts of their generation.
But it’s not like Desperado was a bad record. The songs were there, but they needed a change of scenery, and On the Border was where that metamorphosis started. Outside of the singles like ‘Already Gone’, you can hear the band toying with every sound they could think of on the record, including the brilliant ballad ‘The Best of My Love’ and the soulful stomp of the title track.
Despite the surreal weirdness of including a Tom Waits song on an Eagles album, ‘Midnight Flyer’ was an opportunity for the band to get back to their roots. They were still proud to represent country and rock together, so hearing them bounce off each other on a bluegrass-tinged tune is actually a fairly inspired choice.
According to Henley, he believed part of the reason why the song worked so well was because of how much it played to their strengths as country players, telling The Very Best of the Eagles, “I was happy to do something in that vein because I was a big bluegrass fan. [Guitarist] Bernie Leadon was one of the top banjo players in the country, so I was proud to do a bluegrass tune — thought it lent a certain amount of authenticity and credibility to our band. It showed versatility.”
Henley’s voice works fine alongside the harmonies, but Randy Meisner’s voice is far better suited to this genre of music. Whereas Frey and Henley had warm, inviting deliveries every time they sang, Meisner had a searing quality once he reached into his higher register, almost predicting where he was going to go once he wrote ‘Take It To the Limit’.
The band got their country credibility back, but they didn’t bother staying in that vein for too long, eventually working on everything from rock to soul to country to folk on albums like Hotel California. Still, ‘Midnight Flyer’ is still a decent look at what the Eagles would have been like had they been born in the Deep South rather than the West Coast.
Although it remains one of the lesser-discussed songs in their discography, ‘Midnight Flyer’ captures an important aspect of what made the Eagles successful. It balanced respect for their roots with a willingness to explore new territory, proving that commercial success and musical authenticity did not have to be mutually exclusive.
