There are two Eagles songs Glenn Frey would love to gift to future generations
I’m a conflicted music fan. I’m a defiant believer in the contemporary, someone who wants to rebut any lazy claims that modernity offers nothing appealing and that the heyday of music creation is well behind us. But as I step one foot firmly forward, the past tugs at my shirt like an old friend, playing records from bands who give me comfort today, decades on in 2025. No matter how hard I beat on, ‘One Of These Nights’ by the Eagles will still make it in my annual top 100 most played.
Admittedly, in the realms of classic rock rotation, the Eagles aren’t regular players. But that’s sort of indicative of the reputation they’ve amassed over the years; undeniably great and undisputedly influential, but perhaps remembered more for their individual songs than a wider artistic contribution.
But when you get past the misunderstanding and comical jibes, you find a band who can unravel melodies better than any other. On ‘One Of These Nights’, the band showcases that at their very best, soaring into the melodic sky with outrageously tight vocal harmonies, while driving the relentless beat of the band’s rhythm section. All these parts hypnotise the listener before Don Felder ripped into a solo that quietly rivals that of ‘Hotel California’, for it’s a more melodically coherent take from the guitarist.
It’s a song that epitomises the band better than any and highlights the creative synergy between the band’s creative drivers, Glenn Frey and Don Henley. Frey explained, “I’d go over to the piano and say, ‘Hey, what do you think of this?”
He continued, “I’d play something, and he’d go, ‘Yeah, I like that, I like that.’ Maybe just get up and start singing. That’s the way we wrote ‘One of These Nights.’ I just went over to the piano and I started playing this little minor descending progression, and he comes over and goes, (singing) ‘One of these nights.’ I go, yeah, yeah.”
The natural feel of the song’s creation oozes through the speakers upon listening, and despite it’s tricky composition, feels sonically at ease. Which is likely why Frey labelled it as a song he would place in a time capsule, saved for future generations who needed just a few songs to understand who the band were.
But it was accompanied by a more unlikely hit. Rather than picking a track from their 1977 opus, Hotel California, Frey looked a couple years ahead, to their ‘79 album The Long Run. The albums’ lead single ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’ presented itself as the second song for Frey’s capsule, but perhaps for more individual reasons.
Rather than it showcasing the best of Frey’s collaboration with the band, it instead shows him at his most unfiltered. For the sonic idea was one that came solely from him and had to be stewed over, before being presented to the band given its inherent feel towards his personality.
“It was co-written by me and Don (Henley) and Glenn (Frey). I did bring a portion of that song, unfinished, to them back then, because I was new in the band and they wanted to introduce me on a good note, no pun intended. And I had this little piece of a tune that they really liked. It was loosely based on my own experiences.”
Frey was indeed the beating heart of the band, and so ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’ could suitably be put forth as a representative of the band, but it didn’t have that same synergetic feeling that ‘One Of These Nights’ had, and that was,s in essence, what made the band so appealing.
