Don Henley’s best song for Eagles, according to Don Henley: “Big difference”
Every singer will want to have a little bit of a challenge whenever they step up to the microphone. Artists like Bob Dylan may just want to tell his story from behind his guitar, and many others pray that they simply stay on key, but the veterans of the medium know how to push themselves just enough too far to make something interesting.
Don Henley didn’t really need to prove himself as that kind of singer in the Eagles, but he still considers one of his finer moments with the band to come on ‘One of These Nights’.
Then again, if there was anyone in a group like the Eagles who couldn’t sing, chances are they’d get fired. The California rockers always wanted to follow in the footsteps of the great harmonising kings that came before them, and when Henley, Glenn Frey, and Randy Meisner’s voices joined together, that was practically the entire appeal of the band.
Frey had the traditional ‘everyman’ cadence to his voice, but Henley’s croon sounded like it was touched by God. It was a bit rough around the edges, but hearing him sing on ‘Desperado’ or ‘Witchy Woman’ is the musical equivalent of a fine cognac: gruff but still going down smoothly all the same.
That distinctive quality in Henley’s voice wasn’t just about tone—it was about control and intention. Even at his most rugged, there was a precision to his delivery that allowed him to navigate more demanding vocal passages without losing the emotional core of a song.
This balance between grit and finesse is what set him apart from many of his contemporaries. Rather than relying solely on power, Henley understood how to stretch his voice into new territory, making moments like his falsetto work feel less like a risk and more like a natural extension of his style.
There was a lot that they could do other than just country rock, though, and Henley figured that he would get in touch with his disco side on ‘One of These Nights’. He had already considered the R&B-tinged ‘On the Border’ a bit of a missed opportunity, but every piece of this song was pretty much bulletproof, from the opening bass line to the backing vocals so high they could have been ripped off a Donna Summer record.
Those high vocals were always going to be tough to compete with, but Henley was up to the challenge, telling Rolling Stone, “Singing the title track was a really big moment for me – particularly the falsetto parts. But I’d been singing in basically the same way since I was 17 or 18. The fact that I was singing original material was the big difference.”
Since Henley had already been a backing vocalist for Linda Ronstadt and had fronted his own band, Shiloh, for years, he had a firm background in great harmony singing. Just being able to match what The Everly Brothers do wasn’t exactly good enough, though, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that Henley was actually a disco diva if you only heard some of his crazy ad-libs towards the end of the tune.
Henley may have had the main melody, but Frey was the one who considered the song one of their best efforts, even calling it one of the ultimate Eagles pieces next to tracks like ‘Take It Easy’. Even though the band were still licking their wounds on this album following the results of their concept album Desperado, you can still hear their hunger as they kept clawing their way to Hotel California.
They may have gotten there with Joe Walsh in tow, but ‘One of These Nights’ falls into that amazing middle period right before the band hit iconic status. Their rock and roll chops may have been muted, but it was still a kickass tune, no matter what genre you called it.
