The single note that forced Randy Meisner to leave Eagles: “Fine, don’t sing the song”
When dreaming of becoming a swashbuckling guitar hero or spotlight-drenched singer, aside from making music, most fans are dreaming of one thing and one thing only: the lifestyle. The truth is, living the life of a rock star isn’t always as glamorous as it seems. From the moment a band sees success, they are put on a roller coaster ride where all they know is recording and touring with little wiggle room. It’s never easy to squeeze in time for oneself, especially for the Eagles in the mid-1970s.
After riding the success of their first few records, the California legends had momentum like a rocketship on the album Hotel California. As they travelled worldwide, Glenn Frey and Don Henley had developed a body of work where 75% of the setlist could be filled out with solid gold hits. Trudging out your classic tracks is something that has left even the greatest artists unhappy.
David Bowie was famously reticent to play his poptastic hits when he took to the stage. Bob Dylan is notorious for refusing to breach the back catalogue in any way his fans might actually recognise. And, when it came to Eagles playing their old numbers, not everyone was happy to play the same songs over and over again.
As the tour went on, Randy Meisner mentioned getting frustrated with the song ‘Take It to the Limit’, which features him singing amazing high notes. As mentioned in The History of The Eagles, Meisner often said that his trepidation with the tune came from fear of what would happen, recalling, “It was mainly fear. I kept thinking ‘What is I don’t hit it?’. It’s a really high note”.
After asking to take the song out of the setlist, Frey confronted Meisner about leaving the fans empty-handed, saying, “I remember coming to Randy and saying, ‘there’s thousands of people that have been waiting for years to hear you sing that song. You just can’t say ‘Fuck ‘em I don’t feel like it’. We just got fed up with that. It was like ‘Fine, don’t sing the song. Why don’t you just quit?’”.
Despite Meisner’s fear of not hitting the note, Joe Walsh remembered the song always going off without a hitch whenever he did sing it, remembering, “Whenever it got to the end, we’d crank the volume knob and go ‘WHAT?’. Randy could do it, but if you made him do it he was always nervous”. Walsh clearly misunderstood the situation for Meisner, though, as the note would play on his mind as the tour rolled on.
As the band hit one of their major tour stops, their encore number was ‘Take it to the Limit’, which Meisner shot down immediately. He refused to take on the track at all. After a few minutes of trying to coax it out of him, Don Henley remembers a huge scrap going on between Frey and Meisner, culminating in Frey walking away yelling, “Well fuck you then”.
After some security got involved, the writing was on the wall that Meisner would leave, taking one of the band’s golden hits with him. Although the band took a break from the road, they soldiered on with bassist Timothy B Schmidt. Schmidt had been a veteran of the California music scene and was known as the lead singer of Poco, ironically taking over Meisner’s spot in the band when he joined Eagles in the early ‘70s.
Schmidt had to face some backlash from fans, though, remembering a tepid reception to him in the first few gigs, saying, “I went on the road in the late ‘70s as the new guy. I remember hearing a few people saying ‘Where’s Randy?’ from the audience”. Schmidt was always a professional, serving his role in the band and even thanking Meisner during his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech for leaving the door open for him to join the band.
Though Meisner might have left the band behind, ‘Take It To The Limit’ remained a fixture of the Eagles’ setlist, sung by Frey until his death in 2016. Compared to the fresh-faced Meisner singing the tune, Frey’s version finally feels worn-in, almost reminding himself to take it to the limit in the face of old age.
