Don Henley names the three best songwriters of all time: “Genius”
Life is all about learning, and Don Henley has always been a student of phenomenal songwriters.
Even though he may have had a hand in penning some of the greatest American rock tunes of all time, Henley has always known the importance of learning from those who came before, internalising their sensibilities and making them his own. While Henley may have had an excellent track record working with the other members of the Eagles, his favourite writers come from the genre’s glory days.
By the time Henley started penning his own material, writing original songs had almost become expected. Ever since The Beatles crashlanded in America, a young, impressionable Henley was transfixed by what he was hearing, determined to one day write pieces that excited him the same way that he was excited by the Fab Four.
When he first picked up the drums, though, Henley was gravitating towards the sounds of Dixieland jazz, playing with various high school buddies before getting the idea of giving the rock band dynamic a shot. Although he may have greatly respected artists like Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones, the biggest artists in Henley’s life came from those who led with their lyrics rather than a guitar.
But, like every skilled songwriter, Henley has often found inspiration in a variety of places on the musical spectrum. The Eagles were certainly born out of the rock world, but Henley sought inspiration from other, gentler spots, too.
When talking about his favourite writers, Henley singled out three of the biggest names in the genre, recalling, “I think [Randy Newman’s] a genius. Randy Newman, Paul Simon and Leonard Cohen were IT for me; they’re the best songwriters.” Although all three icons may be worlds apart sonically, each has one common trait: working out the lyrics first.
Throughout most of Newman’s best work, it’s easy to see the lyrics as different pieces of poetry to satire about the modern world, whether it’s the send-up to the American south on ‘Rednecks’ or those who take someone at face value on ‘Short People’. Considering Newman’s background in jazz harmony, it wasn’t shocking to see Henley take a liking to his work, even performing with him on several occasions.
Whereas Newman looked at music from the angle of jazz, Simon had been a mainstay of the folk community before switching over to world music. Although many have heralded his work with Simon and Garfunkel as some of the finest songwriting of the 1960s, Simon’s way of thinking outside the box and working with different communities in need would also greatly influence Henley, going on to use different techniques in the studio and even turning to charity when founding The Walden Woods project.
Then again, anyone thinking about writing complex narratives in music has to take cues from Leonard Cohen. Compared to his contemporaries, Cohen felt like a poet first and a singer second, using songs like ‘Suzanne’ as atmospheric tone poems that just happened to have a subtle guitar playing in the background.
He was able to craft a song that soared like poetic birds of prey, ready to swoop down on an unsuspecting listener, lift them into the air and drop them into a new realm of consciousness. Before Cohen, nobody could come close to achieving such a thing. He set the benchmark.
More than anything, Henley found a kinship with each of these legends because of how much thought and care was put into their final lyrics. Many can be able to write melodies that make people want to dance, but Henley knew that if he wanted to get the proper reaction out of the audience, he had to be telling a story just as much as he was delivering a brilliant vocal.
