The song the Eagles wrote about their troubles with women: “We were typical, frustrated young men”
Heartache has always been a close friend of songwriters everywhere. Even though most people can try telling stories every time they pick up their guitar, it’s sometimes easier to pull from that one relationship that went sour or the one that got away that still leaves a gaping hole in their chests. While the Eagles have been no strangers to writing love songs throughout their career, one of their greatest ballads actually served the sour side of love much better than any of their typical slower numbers.
Then again, not many of the country rockers’ songs were strictly about The Beatles’ approach to silly love songs. Don Henley had always wanted their music to mean something more than the stereotypical ‘I love you’ songs, and in every one of their tunes, there’s a certain melancholy or a dark twist he puts on every one of them, like the dejected couple on the rocks in ‘The Sad Cafe’ or a woman pining for her outlaw man to come home in ‘Desperado’.
When someone sings too many of those downtempo songs, though, they usually get the label of being too soft for rock and roll. No one was going to claim the Eagles were the heaviest band on Earth, but when looking at the number of slower-tempo songs they landed on the hit parade, they were one notch away from sharing stages with The Carpenters as one of the most lacklustre rock acts in history.
That is, until On the Border. Aside from the political bent of some of the lyrics, tunes like ‘Already Gone’ set them on a different path towards rock and roll. It didn’t hurt that they had hired new kid Don Felder on guitar, but throughout the rest of the album, you can hear them trying to craft songs that had a little more meat to them than the stereotypical country songs they were known for.
And even when things grind to a halt on ‘Best of My Love’, Henley is still looking to take things further. While the title sets everything up to be this wistful tune about Henley giving everything to his other half, there’s a certain sadness that comes with it, as if he knows that their time is short and that there’s hardly any reason for them to continue on for much longer.
Even though many breakup songs landed on the hit parade, Henley said that these lyrics weren’t that far removed from the band’s daily lives, either, saying, “That was the period when there were all these great-looking girls who didn’t really want to have anything to do with us. We could be cocky at times, but we weren’t very sophisticated or confident. We were typical, frustrated young men. We wanted the girls to like us, but we had all the immature emotions that young men have. At the same time, however, we were also becoming quite adept at brushing off girls who showed any interest in us.”
When looking at the next albums as well, Henley seemed to cover each part of that heartache that he could. ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ was Glenn Frey’s attempt at dissecting he girls that came to the bars they frequented, but nothing provided the same gut punch that comes with a song like ‘Wasted Time’, especially when the harmonies come in and sound like they’re crying right along with Henley.
But that doesn’t mean that ‘Best of My Love’ is necessarily a depressing song from start to finish. There are parts of it that may hit a nerve with some people, but the beauty of this kind of music is that it tells the kind of story that makes everyone look at themselves and find comfort in knowing someone else has dealt with those problems as well.
