The true meaning behind Eagles hit ‘The Last Resort’
A hallmark of any good songwriter is the ability to successfully weave a story into a melody and tell it in an effective and engaging way. While some may choose to take a simple approach of telling it as it is, others may choose to squeeze hidden meaning into their lyrics, and disguise their true intentions behind clever wordplay and metaphor. When it came to writing from the heart and with a certain tenderness, Eagles were masters of the art.
Between their two principal songwriters, Don Henley and Glenn Frey, they would write many memorable and easily relatable lines in their songs, often touching on themes of love, life and death in their lyrics while also vividly describing their surroundings. ‘Desperado’ is a great example of Henley’s wisdom shining through and encouraging someone to open up to those around you, while ‘Most of Us Are Sad’ is Frey laying his emotions bare for all to see, albeit delivered through the voice of Randy Meisner.
On the other hand, they were great at writing more complex songs that tackled bigger subjects. ‘New Kid in Town’ tackles the idea of the band having to face the turning tides of fame and fortune, and accepting that other artists will come onto the scene to take their place in the spotlight if they’re not careful, and ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’ is a more elaborate musing on the fragility of relationships and what happens when couples endure a breakup.
However, one of their most moving and narrative-driven songs has to be the Hotel California cut, ‘The Last Resort’, where Henley spends close to eight minutes taking the listener to a place that one might mistake for being paradise, only to have his hopes and dreams crushed by what he was actually confronted with. Tackling themes of consumerism and capitalist greed and the effect that they have on indigenous communities, Henley’s view of ‘paradise’ becomes more and more despairing.
With lines such as “they called it paradise / I don’t know why / somebody laid the mountains low / while the town got high” hit hard as Henley goes to great lengths to express his frustration at the collapse of culture, while “cause there is no more new frontier / we have got to make it here” is a truly hopeless line that emphasises a need to act quickly before everything that’s good about society disappears.
Speaking on what he wanted to express through the track, Henley claimed that it was one of his favourite songs he had ever written. “I care more about the environment than about writing songs about drugs or love affairs or excesses of any kind,” he claimed. “The gist of the song was that when we find something good, we destroy it by our presence – by the very fact that man is the only animal on earth that is capable of destroying his environment.”
“The environment is the reason I got into politics: to try to do something about what I saw as the complete destruction of most of the resources that we have left,” the singer and drummer continued, before concluding: “We have mortgaged our future for gain and greed.” It’s a powerful statement on the album, and one where you can truly feel Henley’s pain and frustration at those around him who are too blind to the sickness they have brought upon society.
