“He had left”: the song Eagles refused to release as a single
The Eagles might have been one of the most celebrated outfits of their day, but that’s not to say it was an easy ride. Inner band relations were famously tumultuous, as creative differences, drugs, egos, and economics impressed themselves upon the situation, making it a Herculean struggle at points to keep the ship sailing.
There were several junctures where the band hit the proverbial rocks. One of the most significant was when founding member and bassist Randy Meisner left the group. Not only was he key in forming the band, a brilliant musician and vocalist, and the songwriter of one of their best-loved songs in ‘Take It To The Limit’, but he understood what the Eagles were. For years, this provided them with an infallible spiritual rock that helped them keep their sound from veering into areas they had no right to.
However, Meisner’s situation changed during the extensive tour for the band’s best-selling album, Hotel California, in 1976 and 1977. Suffering from ill health and exhaustion—a mentally and physically debilitating partnership—the naturally shy Meisner, who was also different from his bandmates in this sense, struggled with being in the spotlight and hated singing ‘Take It To The Limit’ in the middle of the stage. It just wasn’t his bag.
This situation was exacerbated by the other struggles of being on a long, arduous tour, with Meisner’s unhappiness plummetting. When you add into the mix the pang of stomach ulcers and a marriage that was fast falling apart, this was an uncomfortable period of flux for the bassist, and change would soon come on the professional front, too.
A result of this black cloud hanging over Meisner was regular arguments with one of the band’s leaders and primary songwriters, Glenn Frey, over ‘Take It To The Limit’, as he struggled to sing the famous high notes due to his pain. At the band’s show in Knoxville, Tennessee, he decided not to perform his signature track as the encore because he had stayed up late and caught the flu. This led to a furious physical confrontation between him and Frey backstage. After that, nothing was the same again.
I did say that the Eagles are no strangers to ill-feeling, and this was one chapter where things were undoubtedly ramped up in this aspect. After the fight, Meisner was frozen out of the band, leaving him in personal and professional limbo. He would later state that that was the end: “I really felt like I was a member of the group, not a part of it.” After the final date of the tour, he formally quit, citing exhaustion, and returned to Nebraska to see his family. He was replaced by the same man who replaced him in Poco, Timothy B Schmidt.
In the years following his departure, Meisner expressed great relief that he escaped the constant arguing inherent to the Eagles and could return to a more normal life. While the ending of his tenure with the group was extremely painful for him, it also left a sour note for the others, particularly Frey.
In 1988, Frey explained that ‘Try and Love Again’ from Hotel California was Meisner’s final song for the band and that they would have released it as a single if he’d stayed. However, after his bitter departure, they refused to allow it to be released in any format other than an album track. The move and Frey’s comments about the song are tinged with bitterness.
He said: “‘Try and Love Again’ was Randy’s last track with the Eagles, and had he stayed in the band, we would probably have released that as a fourth single from the album. But he had left in order to do whatever it was that he wanted to do. It’s the song that’s probably the least like Hotel California. It’s just a straightforward love song.”
The Eagles simply wouldn’t be the same band without such moments. Their closeness with ill-feeling and bitterness has fed into a backstory that is one of the most substantial in rock history. It adds another dimension to songs such as ‘Hotel California’, which are already brimming with lived experience.
