‘It’s Your World Now’: The Eagles song Don Henley thought predicted the future
All good bands have an expiry date, and while some regroup to give themselves a second chance at one last hurrah, others don’t quite have the same fortune. Once it’s over, it’s over. For Los Angeles soft rock legends Eagles, many thought that due to the bitter and abrupt end to their initial run as a band in 1980, they’d never regroup to give themselves a proper sendoff after 1979’s The Long Run.
However, despite reforming in 1994, the extended period of studio silence meant that their 2007 album, Long Road Out of Eden, came as something of a pleasant shock to fans of the group.
As things stand, Long Road Out of Eden is the final album by the band, and although drummer and vocalist Don Henley still goes out on the road under the Eagles name, he’s the sole remaining original member still involved with the project and is unlikely to get his new recruits to record a follow-up to the album. Given the almost mournful laments of time having passed and things seeming different to the ageing group that we hear on Long Road Out of Eden, it’s probably for the best that it remains their final album.
The album functions as a knowing farewell from the group, having missed their opportunity to properly bid adieu to their loving fanbase, and would come nine years before the passing of co-founder and vocalist Glenn Frey. With Frey being such a crucial part of the band’s recorded output, any decision to continue writing and releasing new material without him would be sacrilege, and Henley believes that some of the contributions that Frey made to the album are perfect as a final offering.
Speaking to Rolling Stone in 2016, only six months after the death of Frey, Henley was questioned what he thought about the entirety of the band’s discography, and while his words on their first finale, The Long Run, are filled with negative emotions, he spoke fondly of the reunion to create Long Road Out of Eden almost 30 years later.
Referring to The Long Run, Henley claimed that “when we began the process of recording that album, we were completely burned out,” before adding that he believed the band “should have taken a one-year hiatus, but the Big Machine demanded to be fed.” In stark contrast, there were no external pressures to make Long Road Out of Eden, and there’s a palpable sense of freedom when he explains that “rather than try to go back in time or try to be flagrantly ‘progressive,’ we just wanted to be ourselves.”
“I think there is some really good material on that album,” he continued. “Some songwriting and playing that rivalled anything we’d done previously.”
While there are plenty of songs that stick out as being poignant and having an air of an emotional goodbye on the album, there’s one song in particular that Henley believed to have almost predicted the future of the band. With ‘It’s Your World Now’, Frey is addressing his family as they grow up, using lines such as “my race is run, I’m moving on” to illustrate his point.
Henley called this an “eerily prescient” track and a “beautiful philosophical valediction” for Frey’s wife and kids. “It’s almost as if we knew that record would be our last,” Henley said. “But our fans have been wonderful. They’ve been loyal to the end, and sadly, this is the end. But what a ride… what a crazy, wonderful ride.”
