The Eagles song inspired by Sam Cooke
The Eagles were always more than just a traditional country rock and roll band. Throughout their time together, the group were known to indulge in any kind of music that they thought fit their songs, from the soulful sounds of ‘One of These Nights’ or the odysseys that they got into with tracks like ‘Hotel California’ or ‘The Sad Cafe’. While the countrified sounds of ‘Desperado’ followed them around for ages, one of the giants of R&B music left his mark on one of their final hits.
Looking back on the band’s evolution, they had already hit their creative apex with Hotel California. After four years of hard work, the band’s magnum opus would feature some of their most creative comments on the American Dream, from the cautionary tale of ‘The Last Resort’ to the ode to the musicians that would ultimately replace them on ‘New Kid In Town’.
After the band won a Grammy for the album and finished a massive world tour, they returned to the studio with hardly any new material to work with. Complete with new bassist Timothy B Schmidt, the band settled into the studio for what would become The Long Run, which would turn into the most appropriately titled albums of all time given their schedule.
For months, the band would be working on different material before they found the makings of a song. While Schmidt would rise to the occasion to create one of the album’s central tracks, ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’, Glenn Frey followed his muse when listening to the work of Sam Cooke.
Known as one of the greatest soul singers ever to live, Cooke’s way of inhabiting every number he sang wasn’t lost on Frey, who would use his rhythmic side for one of the album’s greatest tracks. When working with his songwriting partner JD Souther, Frey would take the basis of Cooke’s best material and channel it into the song ‘Heartache Tonight’.
According to Souther, things started with the backbeat first, telling Songfacts, “Glenn Frey and I had been listening to Sam Cooke records at my house. So we were just walking around clapping our hands and snapping fingers and singing the verses to those songs. The melody sounds very much like those Sam Cooke shuffles. There’s not much to it. I mean, it’s really just two long verses. But it felt really good.”
The track would ultimately come together after fellow rock legend Bob Seger added his extra spice into the mix, throwing together different lines before Frey put his signature soulful wail onto the final verses. While the song could have easily featured the silky smooth sounds of Don Henley’s voice, Frey’s rocking voice is much more suited to the recorded version, screaming at the top of his range and never letting up until the tune ends.
Although the track was enough to give them another hit on the charts, it wouldn’t be the song that brought the group back together. Coming to the end of one of their tours, the band would eventually implode after Frey came to blows with Don Felder while onstage for a benefit concert. By the time the 1980s had dawned, the band had splintered, leaving millions of hearts aching in their wake.
