What was the first Eagles song Don Henley and Glenn Frey wrote together?
As Eagles lead guitarist Don Felder said in the 2013 documentary History of the Eagles, “The magic ingredient that made the band successful was the relationship between Don and Glenn”. He was, of course, referring to the group’s co-leaders, lead vocalists and main songwriters, Don Henley and Glenn Frey.
Yet that relationship hadn’t always involved a close songwriting partnership. The Eagles’ self-titled debut album includes three songwriting credits for Frey and one for Henley, but none of the album’s songs were written in collaboration between the two.
That all changed once the two became neighbours in the Laurel Canyon district of Hollywood Hills. Frey would visit Henley’s house to write, and one day, the Eagles drummer plucked up the courage to bring out an unfinished piece he’d kept in his back pocket for the previous four years.
Henley explained what he thought the song was and how he wanted to finish it. He described it as “Southern Gothic” music because it borrowed the introduction from Ray Charles’ ‘Georgia on My Mind’, but suggested he and Frey “make it more Western”. Without hesitation, Frey “leapt right on it”, fleshing out what his bandmate had into a fully-fledged song.
So, what was the song?
As its lyrics took shape, the track turned into ‘Desperado’, a gun-slinger of a title track for the Eagles’ second LP. It soon became a staple at live sets and featured on the band’s best-selling compilation album, and is now one of the band’s best-known and most loved songs.
From that point on, Frey and Henley never looked back, co-writing their first Eagles single together, ‘Tequila Sunrise’, that same week. Those songs marked the beginning of a creative surge that carried them throughout the recording of their fifth album, Hotel California, in 1976.
“I think I brought him ideas and a lot of opinions,” Frey told Cameron Crowe in 2003. “He brought me poetry,” he added in relation to Henley. “We were a good team.” That might be understating it some.
Henley and Frey were arguably the most equal-rights prolific songwriting partnership of any band anywhere in the world during their heyday in the mid-1970s. They wrote eight top-ten singles and four number one albums together, including one of the best-selling records of all time.
Eagles fans should be thankful they neighboured up in Laurel Canyon. And raise a glass to ‘Desperado’, too. The start of it all.
