The deeply personal 1989 song Don Henley was “especially proud of”
It’s no surprise that Don Henley is best known for his role as the singer, primary songwriter, and drummer of the Eagles. As the pioneers of country rock, they were always going to be a touch act to follow.
He played a pivotal role in the Californian band’s ascent to become one of the most successful groups of all time, with credits on timeless classics like ‘Hotel California’, ‘Witchy Woman’, ‘Desperado’, ‘Life in the Fast Lane’, and many more fan favourites.
However, during the Eagles’ 14-year hiatus (some might call it an exorcism) starting in 1980, Henley also launched a highly successful solo career, further cementing his status as a musical icon. “It was pretty frightening,” he later reflected, “because as we all know, when large, famous groups breakup, a lot of the members don’t survive in solo careers.”
Of course, the most famous Henley release during his solo years is the hit 1984 rock and synth-pop fusion of ‘Boys of Summer’. It’s a nostalgic slice of crossover that reflects on lost youth, ageing, and the songwriter’s feeling that the countercultural generation had sold out. He presents this premise in a style tailor-made for the stereo system of a convertible sports car in California.
Taken from his second album, Building the Perfect Beast, it typified Henley’s force as a solo artist, with the music written by Mike Campbell, the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist, who would go on to assist him throughout his solo career. Yet, it was a little further down the road when Henley would find a niche that truly made him feel confident as a solo star.
A new chapter for the Don
Despite ‘Boys of Summer’ and the album being some of Henley’s finest solo work, for many, ‘The Heart of the Matter’, the 1990 single from the previous year’s End of Innocence, is one of his most significant. Written by himself, Campbell and sporadic Eagles collaborator JD Souther, it is one of the Eagles legend’s most honest moments.
Henley penned the lyrics with Souther, a man he had known for years, and strangely, their lives mirrored each other at this moment in time. The song tells the story of a man who finds out that his ex-lover has found someone else, which is what both were experiencing at the time, adding a realistic dimension to the opening lines: “I got the call today, I didn’t want to hear / But I knew that it would come”.
Within the previous year of writing the track, both men had broken up with their fiancées, which occurred just months apart. They knew it wasn’t easy to hear that their exes had moved on, but at the time, it seemed like fitting material to write a song about due to its universal appeal. Souther explained to Songfacts: “The only way to really survive your first reaction to hearing news like that or having those kind of feelings is to remember that the first person to benefit from forgiveness is the one who does the forgiving.”
He credited Henley with making this notion central to the song. Although Souther didn’t get the chorus that focuses on this at first when it sunk in, he realised the gravity of what his old friend was singing about.
According to Campbell, Henley is “especially proud of” ‘The Heart of the Matter’. Not only is it a deeply personal song, but he also succeeded in conveying the universal message. He told the same publication in 2003 that after he cut the track at his home studio, Henley and Souther wrote the lyrics. They then changed the key to fit his voice, and re-recorded the demo in this new version, which astounded the trio.
Campbell explained: “I know he was especially proud of that one. He told me that lyric was something he had been trying to write for a long time and it finally came out the way he liked it, something he really wanted to sing. A lot of people like that song. A lot of girls like it.” But most importantly, Henley liked it, and liberated him from the sense of being a ‘former Eagles’, ironically, just in time for him to return to the “hell” of the band.
While we can often fixate on Henley’s work with the Eagles and their constant infighting, his solo efforts provide more of a taste of the man behind the music and his prowess as a songwriter. Even former bandmate Don Felder, who had a protracted legal dispute with the band after leaving, is in no doubt that Henley’s a “fabulous poet.”
And you can certainly argue that this 1989 track finds him writing in his own voice, devoid of the shadow of the Eagles. They were a touch act to follow, but the success of this ballad set him up as a freewheeling solo star.
