Glenn Frey Quotes - the songs

For the Sake of the Song
On individual songs

A : B : C : D : E : F : G : H : I : J : K : L : M
N : O : P : Q : R : S : T : U : V : W : X : Y : Z

On After the Thrill Is Gone
"It's a sleeper. That record is a lot of self-examination, hopefully not too much. There was a lot of double-meaning and a lot of irony. 'Any kind of love without passion/Well, that ain't no kind of lovin' at all...' -- pure Henley." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On All Those Lies

"
Never cheat on your mate, especially when you're too high to cover your tracks. Lies beget lies. The nice thing about the truth is, it's the only story you have to remember." (No Fun Aloud Liner Notes 1982)


On Already Gone

"I got a tape of the song from Jack Tempchin [that] arrived in the mail. Jack was a songwriter we liked who was from San Diego, and he'd already written 'Peaceful Easy Feeling.' 'Already Gone' was one of the first songs we'd later do when we switched producers and started recording in Los Angeles. I had a very strained relationship with Glyn Johns. I think he got along better with all the other guys in the band. He was so intimidating, I was always afraid to be forthright and tell him what I thought. He was a taskmaster, and that was probably good for a young band, but the great thing for me about this song and record is that I left England behind and had a much more positive energy in the recording studio. The 'all right, nighty-night' at the end of the song was sort of typical of the spontaneous feeling we wanted on our records. It was at this time that we changed producers and started working with Bill Szymczyk. I was much more comfortable in the studio with Bill, and he was more than willing to let everyone stretch a bit. 'Already Gone' -- that's me being happier; that's me being free." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On The Best of My Love
"I was playing acoustic guitar one afternoon in Laurel Canyon, and I was trying to figure out a tuning that Joni Mitchell had shown me a couple of days earlier. I got lost and ended up with the guitar tuning for what would later turn out to be 'The Best of My Love.'" (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On Big Life
"You know, I’ve heard two phrases that have really stuck with me. One is, “Money is seldom accompanied by taste.” If you were to go into ten homes in Beverly Hills, I swear to God, nine of them would be horribly decorated, and you’d wonder, “What a waste of money.” And the other one is that “Money never cared who it hung out with” – which is also true. So I just started thinking... I’ve run into some people who I think give money a bad name. [Laughs] And so I just imagined this sort of obnoxious guy who was sort of a combination of Donald Trump and Ted Turner and George Steinbrenner and other media-type people who would be getting onto an MGM Grand flight from New York to LA and immediately, everybody in the plane hears what this guy’s talking about. You know, he’s “just been with Stallone, and I’m skiing in Aspen with Jack and Cher, and I own a baseball team, and by the way do you want to get into the movies, and what’s your name, and I’m going out to Hollywood, maybe you wanna come with me, we’ll just go in my limousine, we’re having a big party....”I’ve seen this thing play out so often, and I just decided to take a crack at writing this song called, “Big Life.” And so, I wrote this tune, and basically it’s this sort of braggadocious, obnoxious guy who gets on this airplane and is trying to impress this girl with this long list of why he’s cool.... all his money and his accomplishments and his investments and stuff. Actually, “Big Life” – the phrase “Big Life” – it’s funny, I’ve come to work.... my life has gotten more complicated in the last fifteen years. Life does get more complicated. I would just come into work sometimes and go [Huge sigh.] Like that. And Elliot would say, “What’s wrong?” And I’d go, “Nothing, just Big Life Syndrome.” You know, I’ve got a big life. So I’ve just been keepin’ that phrase. So that’s how that song came about." (Strange Weather Promo Interview 1992)

 

On Born to Boogie
"A perfect example of spontaneous combustion in the studio. Just break into some Canned Heat-ZZ Top-John Lee Hooker-sounding track. It's actually got a pretty good lyric. A little about the Pope in there. [grins] It's probably the next single." (Box Set Interview 2000).


On Desperado
"It was only a day or two after we had been back from England with our first album. Don sat down at the piano and showed me this song he was working on, and it was the intro to 'Desperado.' Originally, it was written for a friend of his whose name was Leo. And so the song started out "Leo, my God, why don't you come to your senses. You've been out ridin' fences for so long now." We'd all been to the Troubadour to see Tim Hardin, and later the four of us, Jackson, J.D. Souther, Don, and myself went to somebody's house... it wasn't mine. I don't know if it was J.D.'s, but we went somewhere and started jamming. That's when the idea came together about us doing an album of all the angst-meisters [laughs]. It was going to be all of the antiheroes. James Dean was going to be one song, and the Doolin-Dalton gang was going to be another. The idea became 'Desperado,' and Don's Stephen Foster song acquired a new first line -- 'Desperado... why don't you come to your senses?' That same week we wrote 'Desperado' and 'Tequila Sunrise.'" (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On Disco Strangler
"I hate this song! I hate this album! God help me! I'm bumming!" (Rolling Stone 1979)


On Don't Give Up

"
Originally written as the theme for Monday Night Football, but somehow things didn't work out. I still practice my Howard Cosell impersonation during the intro." (No Fun Aloud Liner Notes 1982)


On Get Over It

"We were so sick of tabloid television -- and this was eight years ago! I was so tired of professional victims everywhere you looked, all over the media. Don said, "I have a title: 'Get Over It.'" I said, "That's a song -- let's write it!" We got together at his place up the coast and wrote it. Whether it's the best song we've ever written or not, it was the song that proved to use that we could write together again. During The Long Run our creative relationship became strained, perhaps just because we'd been going to the well for so long. We struggled to complete all the songs for The Long Run album. Let's just say that I was less than confident that Don and I could get back in a room together and get through a piece of work. 'Get Over It' showed us that we could get together and write again. For that reason it's an important song to me." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On He Took Advantage
"Well, on the surface, you would think it was about a guy who came in between a nice relationship – a third guy who was a no-good guy who sort of screwed things up for people. But you know, I kept thinking about Ronald Reagan and how we’re all living with the residue of Reaganomics. And he’s like, you know, riding off into the sunset, going to write his book, and everything is OK as far as he’s concerned. I just thought he was a horrible president. And I thought he got on the television and told us everything we wanted to hear, and then did nothing of what he said he was gonna do. He didn’t even take care of the rich, which was what we expected him to do! He didn’t even do that! I just think he was a really bad president, and I think we’ll be paying for the rest of our lives, and I just didn’t want to see him getting away with it without me at least saying, “Hey, you weren’t great as far as I was concerned.” So, I think he took advantage." (Strange Weather Promotional Interview 1992)


On Heartache Tonight

"The Long Run was a difficult record to make overall, but I loved 'Heartache Tonight.' Whenever Bob Seger was in L.A., he always used to come over and visit me, and he'd visit Don, too, and play us stuff he was working on -- and we would do the same. I seem to remember that I had the verse thing going on for "Heartache Tonight," and I was showing it to Seger, and we were jammin' -- I think we were jammin' on electric guitars at LaFontaine -- and then he blurted out the chorus. That's how 'Heartache' started. Then Bob disappeared, and J.D., Don, and I finished that song up. No heavy lyrics -- the song is more of a romp -- and that's what it was intended to be." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On Hole in the World
"We were supposed to start our record. We loaded in on Monday, September 10, to start the Eagles studio album in earnest. All the equipment was put in the day before, and we were supposed to go to the studio on the morning of 9/11, but after hearing the news we called each other up and said, 'What's the point? I don't think there's anything worth showing up for today.' So we stayed home. And then that night Don started "Hole in the World." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On Hotel California
"Don and I heard [Felder's demo] tape and said, 'Gosh, this is like Spanish reggae rock, this is really a bizarre mix of musical influences, this is great.' The music was entirely written by Felder, and Don and I wrote the chorus, and Don wrote most of the verses." (1988)

"The song began as a demo tape, an instrumental by Don Felder. He'd been submitting tapes and song ideas to us since he'd joined the band, always instrumentals, since he didn't sing. But this particular demo, unlike many of the others, had room for singing. It immediately got our attention. The first working title, the name we gave it, was 'Mexican Reggae.'

"For us, 'Hotel California' was definitely thinking and writing outside the box. We had never written any song like it before. Similar to 'Desperado,' we did not start out to make any sort of concept or theme album. But when we wrote 'Life In The Fast Lane' and started working on 'Hotel California' and 'New Kid In Town' with J.D., we knew we were heading down a long and twisted corridor and just stayed with it. Songs from the dark side -- the Eagles take a look at the seamy underbelly of L.A. -- the flip side of fame and failure, love and money. "'They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast' was a little Post-It back to Steely Dan. Apparently, Walter Becker's girlfriend loved the Eagles, and she played them all the time. I think it drove him nuts. So, the story goes that they were having a fight one day, and that was the genesis of the line, 'turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening' in 'Everything You Did,' from Steely Dan's The Royal Scam album. During the writing of 'Hotel California,' we decided to volley. We just wanted to allude to Steely Dan rather than mentioning them outright, so 'Dan' got changed to 'knives,' which is still, you know, a penile metaphor. Stabbing, thrusting, etc. "Almost everybody in my business can write music, play guitar, play piano, create chord progressions, etc., but it's only when you add lyrics and melody and voices to these things that they take on an identity and become something beyond that sum of the individual parts. I remember that Henley and I were listening to the "Hotel California" demo tape together on an airplane, and we were talking about what we would write and how we wanted to be more cinematic. We wanted this song to open like an episode of The Twilight Zone -- just one shot after another. "I remember De Niro in The Last Tycoon. He's got this scene, and he's talking to some other people in his office. He speaks to them: "The door opens...the camera is on a person's feet...he walks across the room...we pan up to the table... he picks up a pack of matches that says 'The Such-And-Such Club' on it... strikes a match and lights a cigarette...puts it out... goes over to the window... opens the shade... looks out... the moon is there... what does it mean? Nothing. It's just the movies.'Hotel California' is like that. We take this guy and make him like a character in The Magus, where every time he walks through a door there's a new version of reality. We wanted to write a song just like it was a movie. This guy is driving across the desert. He's tired. He's smokin'. Comes up over a hill, sees some lights, pulls in. First thing he sees is a really strange guy at the front door, welcoming him: "Come on in." Walks in, and then it becomes Fellini-esque -- strange women, effeminate men, shadowy corridors, disembodied voices, debauchery, illusion... Weirdness. So we thought, 'Let's really take some chances. Let's try to write in a way that we've never written before.' Steely Dan inspired us because of their lyrical bravery and willingness to go 'out there.' So, for us, 'Hotel California' was about thinking and writing outside the box." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On How Long
The story with "How Long" is my kids were watching YouTube one night about seven months ago and they said, "Dad, come here. You've got to look at yourself." [YouTube] took it down shortly after I watched it, but they were streaming this show called "Pop Gala," a television special we did in 1974 in Holland. I guess we did about eight or nine songs on this show and one of them was "How Long." My kids were laughing at how long my hair was, and there we were playing this J.D. Souther song. And my wife said, "You should do this song Glenn. This is classic Eagles." And I said, "You know, you're right." I think we learned it but we didn't record it back in '74 because J.D. Souther wanted to use it on his first solo album, if I'm not mistaken. So it just sort of sat there, but it was rediscovered and I thought, "I really think we should cut this, this would fit in nicely with some of the other stuff we have on the album." So we did. (Billboard 2007)


On I Can't Tell You Why

"Timothy joined the band and the real challenge, as Don and I saw it, was to get a piece of material for him that wasn't country. So we got him over to LaFontaine, and the three of us got down to work. I said, 'You could sing like Smokey Robinson. Let's not do a Richie Furay, Poco-sounding song. Let's do an R&B song.' He said, 'Sure, love to try!' Some of those crazy moments happen when you just go over to the piano and jam. There I was, brave as a Budweiser, going right to the piano and saying, 'Well, how 'bout something like this?' That's another one of my absolute favorite Eagles songs. It's got the mood. It's got the 'Ooh baby, baby' vocal. But, again, counterpoint -- with Don and I singing against he melody and the understated, brilliant guitar stylings of yours truly [laughs]. It's another song that people love in our live show. Since it is a ballad, we are not playing too loud and can hear the audience. Timothy starts, and there are thousands of people singing, 'Look at us, baby...'" (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On I Did It For Your Love

"The song is the end title theme for the film, "An American Murder." A straight ahead love song for a murder mystery seemed pretty twisted to me. After all, what is murder but love gone wrong." (Soul Searchin' Liner Notes 1988)


On I Dreamed There Was No War
"I thought, 'Gosh, what song can follow that?' We needed a link to clear your mind, the equivalent of looking at a sailboat or trees. I wrote this piece around the time of our millennium show. I always wanted to do something with Stratocaster and orchestra." (USA Today 2007)


On I Found Somebody

"It's something that happened to me about four years ago where I had split up with a girl that I was in love with, and after the smoke had cleared, I sat down and said, 'Well, you know, Glenn, as long as you're touring, and leading this charmed and glamorous life, maybe you shouldn't have a girlfriend. Maybe it's just not in the cards. You don't have much time to devote to it and there certainly is a lot of temptation any time you're away from that person.' So I said, 'Well, I'm just gonna stay uninvolved.' And just as soon as I said that, I met this girl, and just fell head over heels. You know, she became my best friend and just happened to be somebody that just fit right in with what I was doing. And gave me a little room to move and had outside interests but was totally fascinating when we were together. So the whole song was just, yeah, as soon as you tell yourself you can't do this, love will jerk you by the arm and say, 'Hey, you're walking this way.' And just kind of yank you whether you like it or not. So you really can't make those kind of determinations, I don't think. Mentally you can, but in matters of the heart, there's a place where the heart just takes over. And of course I just immediately threw that philosophy right out. All that thinking after the smoke had cleared all turned out to be a bunch of crap." (Jim Ladd Innerview 1982)


On It's Your Life

"The title says it all, I wish everyone luck, love and happiness." (Soul Searchin' Liner Notes 1988)


On I've Been Born Again
"I've always loved this song, originally recorded by Johnny Taylor in the early 70's. This version features the Heart Attack Horns, Tom Nixon and my Trans Am." (No Fun Aloud Liner Notes 1982) "My girlfriend suggested that I do that song. It's on a lot of my R&B cassettes that I always listen to in the car, and at home, or on vacation, whenever I'm listening to tapes I make. And that Johnny Taylor song has always been one of my favorites. What I was telling her - actually, this is funny - the words that came out of my mouth were, 'If I ever produced Bob Seger, I'd show him that tune and ask him if he wanted to cut it.' And my girlfriend said, 'Well, why don't you cut it?' 'Well, I don't have that much gravel in my voice - I don't know if I can do that!' And then I started to think about it. And then one day when I was by myself, I just put on Johnny Taylor's version and kind of started singing along, to see if it was in my range, and it was pretty close. So I said, 'yeah, let's do that.'" (Jim Ladd Innerview 1982)


On I've Got Mine

"I'll be the first person to tell you that it's a lot easier to think about the world's problems when you've got money in the bank, can put food on the table and you're not worried about where your next paycheck is comin' from. [...] It just became apparent to me that, although I know a lot of people who are committed to many charitable causes, there are also really a lot of people out there who are committed more to running their personal empires and don't really care enough about other people." (Los Angeles Times 1992)

"People thought I was hypocritical for writing a song about the haves & have nots. Hey - it's just a song." (San Diego 1992) "Rich people don't give a damn. Nine out of ten don't care - and it bugs the shit out of us. [...] It's amazing how the world is such a wonderful place once you get your first million." (Washington DC 1993)


On James Dean
"Again, all from that same night when we'd gone to see Tim Hardin. As Desperado became a concept album with an Old West theme, 'James Dean' got shelved. When it came time to do On the Border, we got 'James Dean' right off the shelf and said, 'Let's finish this.' I always thought the best line in 'James Dean' was 'I know my life would look alright if I could see it on the silver screen.' You just don't get to do that." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)

"James Dean was the first rock'n'roll casualty. He's the guy who trademarked blue jeans, white shirts, and a light spring jacket. Jimmy Dean, he's my first hero, that first angry young man, rebel without a cause. I had a lot of heroes, a couple of high school friends but Dean... [sighs.]" ("The Eagles" 1975)


On The Last Resort
"'The Last Resort' is probably one of the biggest pieces of musical literature we ever tackled. We wanted to pull the whole idea together, so we thought of this girl from Providence and we took her on an epic journey across America, through Colorado, where they laid the mountains low, through California, where they polluted the sea, to Hawaii, where they were ruining paradise. Really that song embodies the whole spirit of Hotel California and is Don Henley's greatest lyrical achievement to this day. He wrote 90 percent of the words to that song, and it's a classic. It's slightly depressing, but it's a classic." (1988)

"One of the primary themes of the song was that we keep creating what we've been running away from -- violence, chaos, destruction. We migrated to the East Coast, killed a bunch of Indians, and just completely screwed that place up. Then we just kept moving west: 'Move those teepees, we got some train tracks coming through here. Get outta the way, boy!' There were some very personal references in the song, including a girl from Providence, Rhode Island, who Don had dated for some time. She had taken an inheritance from her grandfather and moved to Aspen, Colorado, in search of a new life. Look where Aspen is now. How prophetic is 'The Last Resort' 28 years after it was written? Aspen is a town where the billionaires have driven out the millionaires. It was once a great place. Look at Lahaina; look at Maui. It's so commercial. It's everything Hawaii was not supposed to be. Whether we're carrying the cross or carrying the gasoline cane, we seem to have a penchant for wrecking beautiful places." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On Life in the Fast Lane

"'Life in the Fast Lane' also starts out with a kind of glamour as the song opens up; it looks kind of groovy with this couple who love sex. The song starts out where it's all beautiful; the hills, the L.A. basin. Then when you examine it closer, you see the decadence." (Crawdaddy 1977)

"One of my favorites. This is a phrase that we have injected into society." (1988)

"This began with a Joe Walsh riff -- he had that signature guitar part. I had the title. The true story is: I was riding in a car with a drug dealer -- a guy we used to call 'The Count,' because his count was never very good [laughs]. We were driving out to an Eagles poker game. I was in the passenger seat. He moved over to the left lane and started driving 75-80 miles per hour. I said, 'Hey, man, slow down.' He goes, 'Hey, man, it's life in the fast lane.' And I thought, 'Oh, my God, what a title.' I didn't write it down. I didn't have to. "Joe started playing a riff at rehearsal one day, and I said, 'That's "Life In The Fast Lane.'" So we started writing a song about the couple that had everything and did everything -- and lost the meaning of everything. Lifestyles of the rich and miserable. I think the best line is 'We've been up and down this highway, haven't seen a God-damn thing.' That pretty much summarized the journey these people were on -- rich as hell, gettin' high, got everything they want, and yet they're living in a spiritual ghetto. That's good news to the common man! Rich folks who are absolutely miserable -- and most of them are. I really like this record. Plus it made a statement: Joe Walsh was officially in the band." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On Livin' Right
"My anthem to fitness. Jack [Tempchin] and I both started working out, eating right and generally tightening up our acts. Having tried nearly every other way to feel good, we've wound up back in gym class. Who'd of thunk it!" (Soul Searchin' Liner Notes 1988)


On The Long Run

"We'd had the idea for about six or seven years. The title of the song was apropos, and it seemed to be a good title for the album -- let's see who'll last. I think it was a lot about longevity, and it was also about me just lovin' Tyrone Davis' record 'Turning Point.' We had done some slicker production like the Philly sound, but 'Long Run' was more like a tribute to Memphis with the slide guitars playing the parts of the horns." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On Lyin' Eyes

"The story had always been there. I don't want to say it wrote itself, but once we started working on it, there were no sticking points. Lyrics just kept coming out, and that's not always the way songs get written. I think songwriting is a lot like pushing a boulder up a hill. I'd love to get the legal pad for 'Lyin' Eyes' again, because I think there were verses we didn't use." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On New Kid in Town
"It was a ham and eggs deal, where Don and J.D. Souther and myself all had a good hand in the lyrics and the chords. That was a three-man song." (1988)

"We won a Grammy® for Best Vocal Arrangement for 'New Kid In Town.' I'm quite proud of that." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On No More Cloudy Days

"I wrote that after I listened to David Gray's album, the album that had 'Babylon' on. It was the first big album for him. I was listening to that song and just started thinking about that kind of style. He was a little bit of the inspiration for that tune." (Undercover 2005)


On Ol' 55
"David Geffen played me a tape of Tom Waits in his office. 'Ol' 55' was the first song on a demo that had maybe three songs on it. I loved the song, got Tom Waits' version, and took it to the band. I played it for Don and said, "I think we should do this. We can split the vocals, it could be really cool, and we could do oooohs in this section here." I really liked the song. Still do. It's such a car thing. Your first car is like your first apartment. You had a mobile studio apartment! 'Ol' 55' was so Southern California, and yet there was some Detroit in it as well. It was that car thing, and I loved the idea of driving home at sunrise, thinking about what had happened the night before." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On On the Border

"We decided to get completely liberated on gin and tonics in order to do that little Temptations bit in the break. We had to be totally uninhibited where we didn't feel like we were going to sing the blues or anything, but like we were white, stoned punks, drunk out of our minds. We were just gonna go out there and have a good time!" (Classic Rock Stories)


On One of These Nights

"We had Don Henley's voice, which allowed us to go in a more soulful direction, which made me exceedingly happy. [...] A lot of things came together on One Of These Nights -- our love of the studio, the dramatic improvement in Don's and my songwriting. We made a quantum leap with 'One Of These Nights.' It was a breakthrough song. It is my favorite Eagles record. If I ever had to pick one, it wouldn't be 'Hotel California'; it wouldn't be 'Take It Easy.' For me, it would be 'One Of These Nights.'" (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On The One You Love

"
Jack and I were on a roll. We had 4 or 5 good songs written and 3 more started. Sometimes when you're going good there are unwritten songs out in the cosmos who get jealous of the songs you're writing and say, 'Hey, why don't you write me too!' This song came knocking in just that way." (No Fun Aloud Liner Notes 1982)


On Partytown

"
For all my friends at the Jerome Bar and diehard party people everywhere. Hopefully, you all know that you can't party all the time, but when you do, play this song. By the way, you got any?" (No Fun Aloud Liner Notes 1982) "I just thought about this guy, some guy workin' someplace in the mid-East or something, you know, sayin', 'Boy, I'm tired of this. I ought to go out to [Aspen] Colorado and get wild.' It's the same guy from Out of Control. He still hasn't learned." (Jim Ladd Innerview 1982)


On Peaceful Easy Feeling
"Peaceful Easy Feeling" had a happy, country-rock quality but a bittersweet irony about it that I thought was really great. I still love that song. Love singing it. (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On Please Come Home for Christmas

"We were in the middle of The Long Run album, and we weren't going to finish anytime soon. So we cut a Christmas record in Miami. It was a fall day, by the way, and it was hot as hell. Perfect for a Christmas record." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On Pretty Maids All in a Row
"'Pretty Maids All in a Row' is interesting. Joe Walsh always loved the Beach Boys and always loved the Eagles, and he wanted to do something sweet or bittersweet. So this was Joe's opportunity to present an Eagles/Beach Boys type song to us for us to sing with him.


On The Sad Cafe
"The title comes from the book by Carson McCullers. I love the title, which didn't have anything to do with the song, other than it was a great title. The line that really resonates for me in that song is "I don't know why fortune smiles on some and lets the rest go free." There were so many of us aspiring musicians hanging around at the Troubadour. Some nights when Doug Dillard got drunk enough, and Gene Clark got drunk enough, and Harry Dean Stanton got drunk enough... near closing time... they would all start singing. There would be these unbelievable impromptu versions of 'Amazing Grace' -- all sorts of Ozark spiritual things with the whole bar singing... That stuff never really happened. We were getting older (when we wrote the song), and there was a sadness because we had seen, close-up, that everybody's dreams don't come true. Or, at least, not in the way they think they're gonna come true." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On Sea Cruise
"Woke up with a minor hangover in Muscle Shoals, needed to feel better. Took 3 Excedrin, opened a beer and said, 'We're doing Sea Cruise today with live horns.' Felt better right away." (No Fun Aloud Liner Notes 1982)


On Seven Bridges Road

"We had heard Ian Matthews, from Matthews' Southern Comfort, and he'd recorded that song on this album. We listened to his version and then modified our arrangement from that. Sometimes we start our show with it. It's something we do well -- four voices, a cappella. I think the bottom line is, that's a style that comes very easily and naturally to us. It's also something that our fans really love. It's Americana." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On She Can't Let Go

"There was somebody that I knew, a girl, who was going with a musician, and when they broke up, it's like she could never get away from his memory. His name would always come up at a party because it was the same circle of friends, or she couldn't turn on the radio without having to hear this song that she identified with him. And it was a kind of thing where she just couldn't quite ever say it was over. There were often late-night phone calls. She was kind of torn between....you know, she still couldn't give this guy up." (Jim Ladd Innerview 1982)


On Smuggler's Blues
"Smugglers are the last pirates. [...] Every time you look in a paper it seems you read about a drug story with people sailing in or flying in huge quantities of cocaine. In the old days it used to be gold bullion, but coke has become a new kind of currency. People are even prepared to kill for it." (1985)


On Some Kind of Blue

"I always wanted to do a song with no snare drum, just hand claps and finger snaps. As soon as I wrote the drum program, the song came in and wrote itself." (Soul Searchin' Liner Notes 1988)


On Soul Searchin'

"Here's the message, folks. You can't change the world but you can change yourself. Coach John Wooden said you shouldn't concern yourself with people's perception of you but rather concern yourself with your character which is the true measure of who and what you are. I buy that." (Soul Searchin' Liner Notes 1988)


On Take It Easy

"Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, and I all lived at 1020 Laguna in Echo Park. J.D. and I shared a $60-a-month, one-room apartment -- a couch and kind of a bed with a curtain in front of it. Right underneath us in an even smaller studio apartment was Jackson. He had his piano and guitars down there. [...] That's when I first heard 'Take It Easy.'" I told him that I really liked it. "What was that, man? What a cool tune that is." He started playing it for me and said, "Yeah, but I don't know -- I'm stuck." So he played the second unfinished verse and I said, "It's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowin' down to take a look at me." That was my contribution to "Take It Easy," really, just finishing the second verse. Jackson was so thrilled. He said, "Okay! We cowrote this." But it's certainly more of him. Sometimes, you know, it's the package without the ribbon. He already had the lines about Winslow, Arizona. He'd had car trouble and broken down there on one of his trips to Sedona. He spent a long day in Winslow.... I don't know that we could have ever had a better opening song on our first album. Just those open chords felt like an announcement, 'And now ... the Eagles.'" (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On Tequila Sunrise

"I love the song. I think the goal of any songwriter is to make a song appear seamless, to never show the struggle. Nothing should sound forced. "Tequila Sunrise" was written fairly quickly, and I don't think there's a single chord out of place." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On That Girl

"A straight forward love song from two native Detroiters, featuring a beautiful string chart by Jim Ed Norman. For Janie." (No Fun Aloud Liner Notes 1982)


On Try and Love Again
'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." (1988)


On Victim of Love
"That's an Eagles track with no overdubs. It's five pieces, live. For a band that did a lot of overdubbing and a lot of editing, it was a neat thing to do. We just said, 'Look, let's just cut this thing live and this will be it. It'll be what it is.'" (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On Walk in the Dark
"A love song for a vampire."

 

On Wasted Time
"'Wasted Time' is one of Don Henley's finest moments as a singer. [...] 'Wasted Time' is one of my personal favorite ballads that we've ever written." (1988)

"It's a Philly-soul torch song. I loved all the records coming out of Philadelphia at that time. I sent for some sheet music so I could learn some of those songs, and I started creating my own musical ideas with that Philly influence. [...] We did a big Philly-type production with strings -- definitely not country rock. You're not going to find that track on a Crosby, Stills & Nash record or Beach Boys record. [...] Jim Ed Norman, Don's old college buddy and former bandmate -- and now President of Warner/Reprise Records/Nashville -- wrote all of our string charts. He was right there with us in terms of wanting to do something like Thom Bell. It was definitely us loving Thom Bell." (Very Best Liner Notes 2003)


On Wasted Time (Reprise)
"We decided that when they flipped the album over we would start with where we left off, so they didn't forget it, and I've always liked little links in between songs. I don't do it all the time, but again, because this was a concept album, it seemed like a nice thing to do." (1988)


On Working Man

"I originally wrote this song for the ill-fated feature film, 'Let's Get Harry,' but it's for working men and women everywhere, like my dad, Eddie, and my brother, Alan." (Soul Searchin' Liner Notes 1988)


On You Are Not Alone

"[My teenage daughter Taylor] was going through a tough patch, and sometimes you can say in a song what you can't in a sit-down conversation. I was thinking about how alienated and isolated a lot of kids feel." (USA Today 2007)

 

Quotable Frey Index