Plane crashes, John Lennon, and Viruses: the worst year of Don Henley’s life
We’ve all had bad years, haven’t we? 2020, for instance, was pretty terrible for the vast majority of people. For the most part, though, our bad years are characterised by illness, death, financial struggle and other personal problems. Performing in one of the world’s most successful rock bands, with legions of adoring fans and a mansion in Los Angeles, are things that probably don’t feature in many people’s ‘bad years’, but then again, most people aren’t in the Eagles.
The iconic California rock group first formed in 1971 and seemed plagued by in-fighting from the get-go. As the decade progressed and the band became infinitely more successful, these conflicts only grew more severe. The bulk of these arguments came as a result of the rivalry between guitarists Glenn Frey and Don Felder, but the rest of the group were pretty argumentative, too. Even throughout their most successful period, around the release of Hotel California, the group still found the opportunity for intense conflict; cocaine, endless riches and musical egos are not a good mix, it would seem.
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, these internal tensions soon boiled over. In 1980, during a concert at Long Beach in California, the conflict had become so unavoidable that Grey and Felder were issuing threats to each other while on stage. During the optimistic love and happiness of ‘Best of My Love’, in between lyrics like “My life has a better meaning, love has kissed me in a beautiful way”, the guitarists were threatening to beat each other up after the show.
The Long Beach gig proved too catastrophic to avoid, and the Eagles finally broke up soon after – thus beginning the worst year of Don Henley’s life. The break-up of the Eagles was not the only reason why 1980 went down as a “terrible year” for Henley. In fact, it likely relieved a lot of the stress he was living under, but it did provide the catalyst for a variety of other unfortunate events, as he revealed in a 1982 edition of The Age.
Chronicling the disappointment that 1980 provided, Henley shared, “The band broke up. I broke up with my girlfriend. I did a stupid thing and got into trouble with the law. Then I met the girl I’m with now, and we almost got killed in a plane crash in Colorado.”
Adding, “John Lennon got killed, and that devastated me for a while. And my girlfriend contracted a virus, and she has been practically an invalid for a year and five months.”
Although the above quote might elicit some sympathy for Henley, it is worth noting that some of the things on that list were entirely self-inflicted. For instance, the “stupid thing” that he alludes to was the incident in which he hired an underage prostitute and supplied her with cocaine and quaaludes before she overdosed in the bathroom of his Los Angeles home. The incident led to Henley’s arrest, though he was only charged with drug possession and given a fairly liberal punishment.
Deeply depressed with the break-up of the band, the death of his “biggest hero”, John Lennon, and the breakdown of his relationship, Henley managed to pull himself up by embarking upon a solo career. His debut solo work, I Can’t Stand Still, proved incredibly successful, reinvigorating the songwriter to continue in spite of the disasters that 1980 brought.
