The 2007 song Don Henley wanted to be Eagles’ last: “A crazy, wonderful ride”
Most people like Don Henley don’t really know when it’s time to quit.
As much as people like to hear every single Eagles song whenever they come to town, there are bound to be a few times where people would have to start wondering how long they could keep everything up before everything started to look a little bit sad onstage. The band already went through some of the darkest moments of their career in the 1980s, but even if the band has gone through God knows how many reunion tours ever since the 1990s, Henley had a good idea of where he wanted his studio career to wrap up.
Because in case you haven’t noticed, it’s not like Eagles fans are aching for new material by any stretch. A lot of their best records were behind them even when they got back together on Hell Freezes Over, and when it comes to Henley’s own solo career, he’s much more happy to make the kinds of records that he would want to hear than try and cater to whatever is happening on the pop charts and the similar-sounding stuff that he’s hearing out of Nashville every single time he heads down South.
There’s still a lot more that he has to offer, but a lot of what he’s doing seems to be more about quality over quantity. He knew that there was no way for him and Glenn Frey to write the same kinds of songs forever, so when working on Long Road Out of Eden, Henley had the idea of making that one record that could close that chapter of their career in glorious fashion. Did he succeed? Well, after years of the album being out, I can report to you good people that the answer is: maybe.
That’s not to say that the record is all bad or anything, but it’s definitely underwhelming, especially considering how much material is on it. The double record idea might have worked well back in the day, but since the band were still working on their solo projects, there are some tunes where it’s clear that we’re getting the most sanitised version of what Eagles used to sound like in their early days.
‘How Long’ is a decent blast from the past and even some of the other ballads on the record like ‘I Don’t Want to Hear Any More’ are fantastic, but Henley was right on the money when he said he wanted to pair the whole thing down to a single album. If we did play the game and see what the album would have sounded like with the fat trimmed, though, Henley still would have felt that ‘It’s Your World Now’ should be the closer.
The whole record feels like the band coming full circle, and as Frey sang the song, Henley felt that he was singing both to his kids and also the fans as they pull the curtain down one last time, saying, “[It’s] Glenn’s beautiful philosophical valediction to his wife and kids. It’s almost as if we knew that record would be our last. 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.”
Does that mean that the record would be Henley’s final statement as well? Well, no. There’s a good chance that he could work something up with Vince Gill since he’s been a member of the band for so long, but even after Cass County came out later, most of Henley’s greatest stuff feels more suited to the Americana category rather than serving up anything that was put into the ‘heritage’ channel on most radio stations.
But even if this is the last bit of music that Eagles ever make, it’s hard to think of a better message for them to leave off on. They had introduced themselves to the world by telling their fans to take it easy, and now they were looking at how the world has gone by and leaving everything up to the next generation to look after the rock and roll world after they make that long run around the globe.
