Don Henley and his longtime Eagles collaborator, Glenn Frey were known for their seemingly endless quest for perfection in the studio. So it’s not surprising to learn that there are some moments that he wishes he could revisit and one song in particular that he has a hard time listening to now.
While it’s hardly unique for songwriters to have regrets on how something turned out, many of those same songwriters would sacrifice a limb to write a song like “Desperado.”
For Henley, it was his first official collaboration with Frey. “I’d rented this little cabin up at the top of Laurel Canyon. And he came over,” the Eagles cofounder remembered in a recent interview on CBS Sunday Morning. “I had an old upright piano in there, and I had the beginnings of the song that I had started back in [the late ’60s].”
“I showed him the bits and pieces that I had and he sat down at the piano,” he continued. “It was sort of based on an old American songwriter who, at one point in time was America’s most popular songwriter, a guy named Stephen Foster who died penniless in New York City. But it was based on his songs that my grandmother used to sing in her rocking chair.”
“And Glenn knew who Stephen Foster was and just sort of picked up the thread and went with it. He was great. We used to call him the Lone Arranger, because he was so good at arranging songs.”
That’s the thumbnail sketch when it comes to the story behind the beginnings of how Henley and Frey crafted “Desperado” together. It sparked a creative partnership which clicked immediately in his recollection. The pair would of course, go on to write many more songs together — and numerous hit records that have become timeless classics.
Listen to Eagles’ ‘Desperado’
How ‘Desperado’ Was Recorded
Legendary producer Glyn Johns helped the band find their sea legs in the recording studio, overseeing production duties for their first two albums. The relationship between the two camps eventually fell apart when Eagles began work on what would become 1974’s On the Border.
Henley’s recollections of working on the Desperado album the prior year shed some additional light on the reasons for the divide between the two sides. “[Glyn] wanted to make the album in an economic fashion that would not [cost] a whole lot of money,” he explained. “Because that was what the record company wanted, and that was also his methodology of making records. Just get in there and get it and get out.”
They tracked the album in two weeks and he found the process of singing the title track “very intimidating,” because members of the London Symphony Orchestra were in the studio as well. As he remembers it, the players were “bored silly” while they waited for their next session to begin, playing chess between takes.
READ MORE: Eagles Channel Classic Influences for ‘Desperado’
Why Don Henley Still Can’t Listen to ‘Desperado’ Now
Though he admits moments like the orchestra musicians playing chess are funny now — and praises the string parts, written by his old college classmate Jim Ed Norman, he wishes he would have had more time with “Desperado.” Because unlike those musicians, it was more than just a job for him personally.
“I think I got to do about four takes, maybe five and I still have a little trouble with the intonation on the lead vocal to this day,” he admits. “I don’t listen to it.”
He Doesn’t Listen to Much Music These Days
The drummer and vocalist also shares that it’s not unusual for him to not listen to his own music. “Why would I, [when] I have to play it every night?,” he questions. “I don’t listen to much of any music anymore. Once in a while, I’ll turn on the radio, or I’ll put on a classical record. Maybe, I listen to audiobooks. But anything can get old after a while.”
But if he does go back and listen, the memories come flooding back. “I hear the flaws and what we should have or could have done in a particular instance.”
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Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
