The “completely burned out” Eagles album Don Henley detested recording
None of the magic in the Eagles’ catalogue was done by accident. The group may have felt as cool as a summer breeze, but they were a delicately planned outfit.
Throughout their time together, Don Henley and Glenn Frey intended for their records to sound as perfect as possible, usually spending hours in the studio until they felt they had something they could be proud of. Although the results paid off most of the time, Henley said he didn’t have the best time working on one of the band’s later albums.
Coming out of the first few records, Henley would say that the band still found their feet. While every group member had become a significant player in the LA rock scene, there were more than a few moments on the record where they seemed to falter, going so far as to call the song ‘Earlybird’ corny because of its stock sound effects.
With every subsequent album, the band would try to push themselves one step further, creating a lofty concept out of their second record, Desperado, and dipping their toes into the sounds of R&B and soul music on One of These Nights. By the time they got to creating Hotel California, though, they knew they had to deliver much more than a solid album.
When talking about the album in History of the Eagles, “Everyone was going to look at the next record and pass judgment. Me and Don looked at each other like, ‘Man, this better be good’”. Even though everyone brought their best material to tracks like ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ and the title track, the fatigue wouldn’t set in until one record later.
Since tensions had been boiling since the Hotel California sessions, the early sessions for The Long Run became a slog. Since they had spent all of their great ideas on their last record, no one came to the studio with any songs, leading to most of them painstakingly taking shape during the record processes.
Recalling those times in the studio, Henley said that he was not in the right headspace to make a record, telling Rolling Stone: “When we began the process of recording that album, we were completely burned out. We were physically, emotionally, spiritually and creatively exhausted. Our collective tank was empty…We were not happy campers, but The Beast needed feeding. Momentum had to be maintained, so we were fooled into thinking”.
Despite the creativity being at an all-time low, the group was also burned out on substances during the sessions. Arriving high on cocaine during most of the sessions, Frey explained, “Coke started to be used as a creative tool. Do a couple of bumps and start talking and get idea for a song. But in the end, cocaine brought out the worst in all of us”.
Even though the band couldn’t be asked to go the same distance as Hotel California, the sessions did have one diamond in the rough. Working with new bassist Timothy B Schmidt, ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’ would be a late-career hit for the band, telling the story of a bitter breakup amid the other melancholy tracks. Though the album did have its fair share of hits, it would be bittersweet just a few months later when the band broke up following a benefit concert. Henley may not have liked recording the final product, but if they had pulled themselves back for a little bit, the California rockers might have never had to break up.
Ultimately, The Long Run stands as both a cautionary tale and a reluctant time capsule—an album forged in the friction of greatness unravelling. For Don Henley, it was less a creative endeavour and more an act of survival, a laborious slog through exhaustion and egos that nearly incinerated the band from within.
Yet, beneath the strained veneer, one can still hear the echoes of a band grappling with its own mythology, trying to outpace the shadow of its past. In that tension lies a strange alchemy: the sound of brilliance burning out in real time. Henley may have detested the making of it, but The Long Run remains a haunting, imperfect swan song to an era already fading.
