The one song that Glenn Frey wanted on his tombstone
No one growing up around the same time as Glenn Frey was necessarily worried about their legacy.
The Eagles had already come out of one of the biggest movements rock and roll had ever known, and even if Flower Power didn’t last as long as they had hoped, there was always going to be room for them to make a name for themselves as songwriters. But after a few too many times around the sun, Frey began to take inventory and wonder what people would think about his music once he was gone.
Because as much as people adored singing along to ‘One of These Nights’, it’s not like there weren’t a fair share of Eagles haters out there in the world. There were bound to be people who were up there with Jeff Lebowski in terms of hatred for tunes like ‘Already Gone’ and ‘Hotel California’, but Frey never let that affect him. All he knew was that he wrote songs that people could relate to, and even as the 1990s began, the coldness he had for his bandmates did end up mellowing.
It’s unfortunate that he and Don Felder never managed to make up towards the end of Frey’s life, but he had bigger problems to worry about. The Eagles had been known as a decent touring act for years on end, and while they sold out everywhere, they had to leave their audience with something more than your typical farewell single. ‘Hole in the World’ was a great tune to help everyone recover from 9/11, but it was time for them to turn their voice up a little more by the time they made Long Road Out of Eden.
And while the album is a touch too long, it does give a decent look at what the band would have looked like had they stuck around past 1981. Those harmonies still soared as high as ever, and listening to Frey’s songs, a lot of them were far more openhearted than before. Henley was still up to his usual social commentary tracks, but the minute that Frey got on the mic, he channelled his inner hopeless romantic.
A lot of the tunes do have a more downtempo feel to them, like ‘I Love To Watch a Woman Dance’, but by the end of the album, Frey was thinking about what life would be like for his kids. He may not have intended this to be the final note of music he laid down in the studio with the Eagles, but he knew that he had struck gold when closing the record with a song like ‘It’s Your World Now’.
Henley already felt that it acted as a brilliant farewell to the fans, but Frey said that he would gladly use the title as his parting words. When asked about what he would want on his tombstone, Frey said that he would be fine with that kind of message, saying, “Maybe just ‘It’s your world now.’” And when looked at in the context of the song, it’s actually a fairly sweet sentiment to leave things off on.
The tune itself is already a nice slice of soft rock, but along with Frey’s performance, this feels like it could have easily doubled as a lullaby for someone as well. He knows that the world can be rough on even the nicest of people, but he knew that he could rest easy knowing that it was a little bit brighter thanks to the tunes that he had given to the world.
And even if we never hear another song from the Eagles again, the fact that Frey got to see his career out on his own terms with that beautiful of a sentiment really works for what the Eagles stood for. They were out there to have a good time, and even if not everything was perfect from back to front, it was better for them to try and make people happy than worry about following the trends.
