The Eagles song that is a “kiss off” to Richard Nixon
Due to the perpetual in-fighting and the distinctly Californian, cocaine-fuelled essence that courses through their best-loved music, fans would be forgiven for thinking that the Eagles are not a political band. However, for all of the hollow trappings of superstardom that they are often associated with, the group could be particularly political when they wanted to be. After all, they emerged from the counterculture, a generation that sought to change the world in its image.
Take a comment from Eagles songwriter and drummer Don Henley when welcoming The Byrds into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, for example. He aptly described the excitement of the late 1960s, a period when every band member would find themselves both philosophically and musically.
He said: “We perhaps take it for granted now, but it was a wonderful, magical time. Music was playing, hair was growing. There were throngs of people in the streets, and the counterculture, which was the offspring of The Beat Generation, was being born, and the ethereal, mystical sound of The Byrds washed over them, washed over an entire nation and on to Britain and other parts of Europe. It was a wake-up call for a new generation and a new era in rock ‘n’ roll”.
Given this deeply political background, when the Republican President Richard Nixon was mired in the Watergate scandal between 1972 and 1974, the Eagles addressed it in one of their best early tracks. The song is ‘On the Border’, taken from the album of the same name, their third studio effort. Written by Henley alongside Glenn Frey and Bernie Leadon, as an example of the band’s clashing personalities, it turned out differently than Henley originally envisioned.
In the liner notes for The Very Best Of The Eagles, he clarifies: “There was a clash of styles and influences in that song, and I’m not sure it ever became what it could have been, musically.”
Despite the internal tension the song caused, the band’s intention of addressing the Watergate scandal and the end of Nixon’s tenure still came through with subtle comic brilliance. It emphatically puts John Lydon’s notorious claim that the group had “no humour” to bed.
At the end of the track, Glenn Frey is heard whispering, “Say goodnight, Dick”, a line made famous by the comedian Dan Rowan, used this time to refer to Nixon’s coming resignation, which materialised five months after the album was released.
Explaining why they included the line, Don Henly later explained that they did it as a “kiss-off” to the corrupt Republican. He said: “We were addressing Nixon, because at that time it was pretty clear that he was on his way out, so that was our little kiss-off to Tricky Dick.”
Listen to ‘On the Border’ below.
