The song Eagles made when “drunk out of their minds”
The Eagles were never going to put any record that they considered merely “good”. No one goes into a band with that level of vocal harmonies and is going to just phone it in once they hit the studio. Sometimes, you do need a little time to loosen up in between takes, though, and Glenn Frey remembered the sessions for the song ‘On the Border’ being absolutely debaucherous.
Then again, the band had a bit of an uphill battle when it came time to make their third record. Their attempt at getting fans to take them seriously on Desperado pretty much fell on deaf ears, so there was no way that people were going to just accept another record that was nothing but cowboy songs and stories about forgotten outlaws.
While songs like ‘James Dean’ were left over from their last project, the band came forward with some of their sturdiest songs in ages, including the excellent ‘Already Gone’ and underrated gems like ‘My Man’. For the title track, the band needed a bit more energy to complete the backing vocals.
Since they were known as the kind of band that made bright, country-leaning rock and roll, this song felt like it could have been used on a soul record. Despite trying their best to emulate the Temptations when they were in the vocal booth, Frey admitted that they had a bit of liquid courage to get the song done.
According to Frey, the band were completely off their faces recording it, telling Classic Rock Stories, “We decided to get pretty liberated on gin and tonics in order to do that little Temptations bit in the break. We had to be totally uninhibited where we didn’t feel like we were going to sing the blues or anything, but like we were white, stoned punks, drunk out of our minds. We were just gonna go out there and have a good time”.
Given how much they hated working with producer Glyn Johns on the first pressing of the album, though, this might have been a bit of a celebration. Johns did get one hit out of the deal when the song ‘Best of My Love’ made it onto the final record, but working on their own with Bill Szymczyk was just the kind of freedom they wanted.
Despite doing great things behind the scenes, the band’s work without Johns resulted in some of their greatest material, going on to release One of These Nights directly after this album before moving onto Hotel California. Granted, none of those records could have been as uninhibited as this one, with Henley and Frey eventually steering the band towards iconic territory, even if it meant stepping on people’s toes along the way.
Still, given all of Henley’s messages throughout his discography, ‘On the Border’ is one of the last times that the band felt like they were having fun in the studio. It’s a bit rough around the edges, but that’s what gives the whole thing character.
