The 2007 Eagles album Don Henley wanted to delete half of: “There are some weak spots”
It was impossible for Don Henley not to be a bit of a perfectionist every single time he made an Eagles album.
While his solo career was a way for him to exercise that songwriting muscle and make the kinds of tunes that Glenn Frey might not have wanted to make, it was a lot harder for him to be critical when he set his standards as high as the band did after Hotel California. Everything needed to be perfect to a certain degree, but that didn’t mean that every single song was how Henley envisioned everything in his head when he began working on his tunes.
Granted, every single Eagles album usually has one or two tracks that don’t technically work out that well. Henley already felt that the concept behind Desperado was more than a little bit flimsy when they got started on it after their debut, and if Don Felder wasn’t the kind of singer that the band wanted on their songs, chances are they only went through a tune like ‘Visions’ begrudgingly whenever they gave him the spotlight. But after working on their masterpiece, The Long Run was already going to be a bit of a dirge.
Everyone was absolutely exhausted from touring and couldn’t stand the idea of writing another tune, but they weren’t going to drop the ball, either. The music machine had to keep moving, and while it ultimately ended up destroying the band’s relationships after the touring stopped. But a few decades is more than enough to pick up the pieces, right? No one needs to hold a grudge for that long, so why not get the old band together?
It’s a fair argument, but even after Hell Freezes Over, it took a long time before the Eagles were completely comfortable to make another record. They had everything lined up for them on Long Road Out of Eden, but after spending so much time trying to refine their sound and make everything perfect, Henley realised that the only thing getting in the way of them making a stellar record was themselves.
Because when you have that many geniuses in one band, there’s always going to be arguments as to how many songs get on the record. They didn’t have to worry about Felder anymore, but even after making some of the greatest music of the 1970s and touring around the world, the fact that the album ballooned into one of the longest records of their career was half the reason why Henley had a problem with it.
The songs were still fairly decent, but Henley felt that the whole thing could have easily been pared down to a great single album if they were able to leave their egos at the door and drop some of the fat, saying, “The album would have been better if we had taken another six months. There are some weak spots. I still think it should have been a single album. But I lost that one. There were four or five more songs that were good but not finished. We’re not getting any younger, so we decided to let it go. But I wasn’t done.”
And considering that Frey is no longer with us, chances are those songs Henley is talking about are only going to exist on a few of his solo records, sometimes down the line. But even if there are a handful of tunes that don’t cut it compared to everything else, some of the longer pieces are the ones that actually sound the best, like the opus on the title track or even the borderline psychedelic atmosphere that Joe Walsh put together on ‘Last Good Time in Town’.
It’s a no-win situation trying to figure out which of your musical babies need to be left off the record, but Henley wasn’t about to try to go against what the rest of the band wanted. They had learned how to communicate with each other a lot better over those decades, and it was better to have a bit more Eagles songs out there in the world than trying to rock the boat too much.
