How Bob Seger popped up with an iconic 1978 Eagles lyric: “His eyes lit up huge”
The Eagles were always a band that captured the imagination of listeners with every album they released, but their most popular record was certainly Hotel California.
It was a commercial success and is still considered one of the best pieces of music they ever put out. From the opening track to the closing, it’s hard to escape this record’s excellence. It was a lot heavier than some of their other records, but they managed to tap into this slightly altered sound without losing sight of what fans loved about them in the first place, which is difficult for a lot of acts to do.
So, they had their commercial success, but now they had to follow the album up, which was a lot easier said than done. Their next album, The Long Run, didn’t come about too smoothly, as the band were stuck trying to work out what kind of direction they wanted to go in with this newfound fame. There was no right answer, but each band member had their own independent ideas.
“It had stopped being fun. Going to the studio was like going to school, I simply didn’t want to go,” said Glenn Frey when talking about the album, “But most importantly, during the making of The Long Run, Henley and I found out that lyrics are not a replenishable source. It is a very polished album, as well it should be after all that, and has some excellent moments, but none of us wanted to go through that again, so we figured it was the right time to call it a day.”
More people were brought into the writing and recording process as ideas weren’t coming quite as quickly. The album was certainly collaborative, which can be a good thing, but that doesn’t apply when the ideas don’t align with one another. The album as a whole felt a bit haphazard, but when you judge the songs based on their own individual merit, you realise that there are some moments of brilliance in there.
One of these moments of brilliance comes in the form of ‘Heartache Tonight’, a track that was a collaborative effort between Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Bob Seger and JD Souther. It was Souther and Frey who initially got the song off the ground, as they took inspiration from Sam Cooke when putting together the verses.
“Glenn Frey and I had been listening to Sam Cooke records at my house,” said Souther, “So we were just walking around clapping our hands and snapping fingers and singing the verses to those songs. The melody sounds very much like those Sam Cooke shuffles. There’s not much to it. I mean, it’s really just two long verses. But it felt really good.”
They were both happy with the way that these verses were coming about, but they didn’t have any ideas for a chorus. As Frey admitted, lyrics were not a replenishable source, and the well seemed to have run dry when they cast their bucket in and tried to scoop up some words. Lucky for them, they had been working with Bob Seger on and off for a while, and he had ideas aplenty. All it took was for him to hear the verse and sit with it for five minutes, and the rest is history.
“Glenn had the verse: ‘Somebody’s gonna hurt someone before the night is through’,” said Seger, “We hadn’t been sitting down for more than five minutes, and I just blurted out, ‘There’s gonna be a heartache tonight!’ His eyes lit up huge.”
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