The Eagles song Don Henley absolutely detested: “Nobody else wanted it”
No Eagles song would make it onto a record without passing the quality inspection of Don Henley and Glenn Frey. Throughout their years together, Henley and Frey had a workman-like way of creating hits, knowing that there would be no room for filler material when they made albums like Hotel California. Although Henley remains defiantly proud of most of his band’s material, there was one song he was never that fond of.
After the disastrous concept album Desperado, the band settled in to make their next album, On the Border, as a return to form with producer Glyn Johns. After tension brewed in the studio between Frey and Johns, though, the band were in the market for a new producer, which led to a fairly scattershot third outing.
With guitarist Don Felder in tow, though, the band could spread their wings more on the album One Of These Nights. Having been working as a four-piece for most of their career, gaining a fifth member gave the band a shot in the arm, resulting in the best material of their career cropping up on the title track and the Randy Meisner-led ‘Take It To the Limit’.
As the band continued to ascend, guitarist Bernie Leadon became increasingly out of step with the rest of the group. Since everyone was gung-ho about playing radio-friendly music, Leadon was more interested in playing a rootsier take on rock, continuing in the tradition of his stint in The Flying Burrito Brothers and working alongside Gram Parsons.
When the band had initially listed the songs they were working on, Leadon put his foot down and insisted that the song ‘I Wish You Peace’ be included on the album. Written with his girlfriend at the time, the tune was one of the final contributions Leadon would make to an Eagles project before leaving the band, replaced by Joe Walsh.
Though the group relented and recorded the song, Henley didn’t look back on the tune fondly, recalling in the book Life in the Fast Lane that the song was “smarmy cocktail music…Nobody else wanted it. We didn’t feel it was up to the band’s standards”.
That wasn’t enough for Leadon, who would retort, “I let it be known that if they didn’t record that song, I was going to break Glenn’s arm. It’s absurd, right? The song is ‘I Wish You Peace, but I’m gonna break your fucking arm if you don’t record it”. That wasn’t even the final time Leadon wouldn’t roll over during the sessions, either.
Coming out of the myriad of hits, the band’s producer Bill Szymczyk made Henley and Frey include the country-dominated ‘Journey of the Sorcerer’ instrumental to appease Leadon, knowing that he needed to have some spotlight on the final album. Even that didn’t satiate his ego, though, with Szymczyk recalling in History of the Eagles, “We had spent all night working on one track, and we couldn’t get it. I looked over and said, ‘Bernie, what do you think?’. And he stretched his arms and said, ‘I think I’m going surfing’, and he left.”
While ‘I Wish You Peace’ might seem like a harmless lullaby, its presence highlighted the deepening creative rifts within the group. Leadon, rooted in country-rock tradition, was increasingly disillusioned by the band’s shift towards slicker, more commercially driven material. His song, with its gentle, almost hymn-like cadence, clashed with the sharp edge that Henley and Frey were chasing.
To them, it wasn’t just about one song; it was symbolic of diverging visions for the band’s future. In hindsight, ‘I Wish You Peace’ functions as a farewell letter of sorts: a final, personal offering before Leadon bowed out entirely. While it remains one of the Eagles’ most polarising tracks, its inclusion marks a rare moment where creative compromise bled into conflict. And despite its soft tones, it triggered one of the most significant lineup changes in the group’s history, cementing the idea that in the Eagles, every decision came at a cost.
Though the writing was on the wall that Leadon had to leave, it didn’t take long for the band to bounce back, with Joe Walsh giving them a shot in the arm going into the recording sessions for Hotel California. The song may have had a mellow title, but the results of One of These Nights confirmed that nothing was peaceful in the Eagles’ camp.
