All language subtitles for BBC.History.of.the.Eagles.original

This programme contains
strong language.

# There are stars

# In the southern sky

# Southward as you go-o-o

# There is moonlight

# And moss in the trees

# Down the Seven Bridges Ro-o-oad

Pretty close. Not too bad.

It's going to be about two minutes,
so come on.

Do what you got to do. We got to go.

I need a wrist band.

It's something that you
can't do for ever, you know?

This is not a lifetime career
that we can do, you know? So...

It's not?!

All right, let's go.

DISTANT CHEERING OF AUDIENCE

AUDIENCE WHISTLE AND CHEER

Thank you and good evening.
We're the Eagles from Los Angeles.

LOUD CHEERING

One, two, three, four.

MUSIC STARTS

# Well, I'm running down the road

# Trying to loosen my load

# I got seven women on my mind... #

People are always saying
things to me like,

"You're just like a normal person."

And I always say, "Of course!"

# Ooh, ooh

# Ooh, ooh! #

All right!

We might be a little more
world-wise, you know,

than some of those kids, that's all.

We just maybe have less innocence
than they do, but, I mean,

I eat, I sleep, I fall in love,
I fall out of love, I work.

You know, I do pretty much
the same thing.

# You got your demons
and you got desires

# But I got a few of my own

# Oooh someone to be kind to

# In between the dark and the light

# Oooh coming right behind you

# Swear I'm gonna find you
one of these nights! #

We saw a poster of us
when On the Border was made.

Everybody looked like little kids,
you know, like, early 20s and stuff.

And everybody didn't have
their wrinkles and baggy eyes.

Sort of like a president
when he first takes office.

THEY LAUGH

And then, like four or five years
later, you know,

he just walks out,
and his hair is grey,

and his eyes are drooping, and he's
just really, you know, real burned.

# Spent the last year
Rocky Mountain way

# Couldn't get much higher! #

The first thing that happens
is you get some kind of label,

then you've got to live up to it,
and then you just get caught in that,

and I forget
what the second thing is!

THEY LAUGH

# You know I've always
been a dreamer

# Spend my life running round

# And it's so hard to change

It's hard.
It's like living two lives.

You know, I have a family,
three kids.

And it's just hard to live
in between that line, you know,

of being out on the road
and being away for a month.

# Keep on turning out
and burning out

# And turning out the sa-a-ame

# So put me on a highway

# And show me a sign

# And take it to the limit

# One more time. #

Maybe we wouldn't want
to do this any more,

or maybe we can't
do this any more,

or maybe nobody will give a shit
if we do this any more.

# Take it to the limit

# One more t-i-i-ime. #

Thank you.

APPLAUSE

No, I insist. You first.

Hi, there.

Lock it up.

A hearty bunch out there. Oh, he's
not even here. Now lock it up.

Hey, driver, lock 'em up for us
tonight, OK?

Out of sight. You just don't know
what those kids will do.

Doggone.

How about a beer?
Is that what I heard?

You got it, brother.
Don't hurt yourself, young America.

Would you like one?
Yeah, I would like one.

I'm going to drink tonight.

I think they feel like
they're up there, you know,

like they're on the stage.

Cos we look like them.
We dress like them.

Part of it is that,
and part of it's the records.

I think they just
relate to the songs.

I think it's 50/50, I guess.

The thing is now
is to try to see how long

we can stay up
here at the top of the mountain.

It's very narrow and windy up here.

We can probably continue
doing what we're doing as long as
the songs keep coming.

That's the only thing
that frightens us,

is to not be able to do
that any more.

If we go to the well and nothing
comes up, we would be in trouble.
So far, so good.

I think we can maintain
this for a few more years.

I don't see why not.

Other people have. The Rolling
Stones and the Who and the Led...

and Led Zeppelin. I almost said
THE Led Zeppelin! ..Have done it.

Chicago's done it.

Groups last longer than they used
to, you know?

Shit don't float.

90% of the time, being in the Eagles
was a fucking blast.

You know, I was living the dream.

# He was a hard-headed man

# He was brutally handsome... #

We never in our wildest dreams
figured on being this successful
and lasting this long.

# She held him up... #

We were a bunch of guys out there
touring the country.

We had a little private plane.
We had parties after the shows.

We had a good time.
We were starting to make some money.

# They took all the right pills
They threw outrageous parties... #

We had three guitar players finally,
you know, so we could rock a bit.

So, it was a good time, a good
time for me, a good time for Don.

# Life in the fast lane

# Surely make you lose your mind... #

Everybody was really happy...

..then!

# Life in the fast lane

# Everything, all the time

# Life in the fast lane... #

It was going really fast,
and probably too fast.

There was turmoil within the band.

We put a lot of pressure
on ourselves.

As Glenn used to say,
"We made it, and it ate us."

It's hard to be in a group.
It's a bit like being in a marriage,

if you quadruple it or quintuple it,
in our case.

They asked Don when the Eagles broke
up, "What was that like for you?"

And he said it was
a horrible relief.

And I think that clocks it
pretty well.

You're a real pro, Don, all the way.

Yeah, you are, too.
The way you handle people.

Except the people you pay,
nobody gives a shit about it.

Fuck you. I've been paying
you for seven years, you fuckhead.

So much stuff just happened.

You know, there's a philosopher
who says, "As you live your life...

"..it appears to be...

"anarchy and chaos
and random events,

"non-related events
smashing into each other

"and causing this situation."

And then... then this happens,
and it's overwhelming,

and it just looks like,
"What in the world is going on?"

And later,
when you look back at it...

..it looks like
a finely-crafted novel.

But at the time, it don't!

And a lot of the Eagles'
story is like that.

I'm going to fuckin' kill you.
I can't wait. I can't wait.

We might as well
start at the beginning.

I grew up in Detroit, Michigan.
My dad worked in a factory.

My mother baked pies
at General Motors.

I started taking piano lessons
when I was five years old.

That alone could get you beat up
after school in suburban Detroit.

# And then she said...

# Just because you've become
a young man now

# There's still some things
that you don't understand... #

Detroit was Motown, and so
they played all the Motown hits.

# Keep your freedom
for as long as you can now

# My momma told me,
you'd better shop around.... #

And that was the kind of stuff
that we would listen to.

I stopped playing piano
when I was 12. It was too much.

I wanted to do other things,

and I think the girl thing
was starting to happen, as well.

THEY SCREAM

Then the Beatles came along,

and my aunt took me down to see
the Beatles at the Olympia.

THEY SCREAM

It was crazy.

I remember having a girl that was
standing on her seat in front of me

fall backwards into my arms,
delirious, going, "Paul, Paul!"

You know, and I thought,
"Oh, my God!"

I have a very vivid memory
of seeing the Beatles

with my parents on
our old Admiral TV set.

It was like a bolt of lightning.

It had a huge impact on me.
It was revolutionary.

And it was an impact
that would last a lifetime,

and I know that had
a huge impact on Glenn, too,

even though we didn't know
each other at the time.

Linden, Texas, is my hometown. It's
a small town in North-eastern Texas.

When I was growing up, the
population was about 2,500, 2,600.

# I can settle down... #

It's primarily an agricultural area.

Some people
worked at the steel mill.

It's just a typical
small Texas town.

There's an old courthouse
dating back to before the Civil War

and one stoplight.

It's kind of like
The Last Picture Show, you know?

It was a great place musically,

because it was kind of a cultural
crossroads.

It's really located where the
old South begins to meet the West.

Linden, Texas, was the birthplace
of Scott Joplin and T-Bone Walker.

# Yes, time is hard, baby... #

Both my parents loved music, so we
had a lot of records in the house.

I was exposed to music
of all kinds from an early age.

You know, Country and Western music,
Western swing music, gospel music,
Blues...

Johnny Cash, Hank Williams,
and Patsy Cline.

# More, more, more

# Gonna live it up and tear it down

# Get in the groove
and paint the town

# Got a lot of rhythm in my soul... #

There was a 50,000-watt
radio station in New Orleans,

and I heard things on that station
that I didn't hear anywhere else.

So, I had a lot of radio coming in.

And when I would go
to work with my dad,

he would listen to a station
in Shreveport, Louisiana. KWKH.

# Say, hey, good lookin'!

# What you got cookin'?

# How's about cooking
something up for me? #

And that station broadcast a radio
show called the Louisiana Hayride,

where Elvis Presley made his first
radio broadcast in 1954.

# Well, that's all right, Mama

# That's all right with you

# That's all right, Mama

# Just anyway you do

# That's all right

# That's all right... #

The very first rock'n'roll record
I bought was by Elvis Presley.

# Anyway you do... #

My playing the drums
was sort of an organic process.

I began by beating on my school
books with my fingers

and with pencils.

I would beat out little cadences,

and I used to drive my classmates
crazy doing that, until, I think,

one day, somebody said to me -

I think it was my friend
Richard Bowden - he said,

"Why don't you just start
playing the drums?"

I managed to cobble together
a drum kit from old drums

that I found stashed in the back
of the band hall at high school.

And then one day, my mom said,
"Come on, get in the car."

And she drove me to a town
about an hour and a half away

called Sulphur Springs, Texas,
to McKay Music Company.

Much to my surprise,

she bought me a set
of red-sparkle Slingerland drums

that I still have today.

So, I have to give my parents
a lot of credit.

They bought me that drum kit

even though they couldn't
really afford it.

The first band I was in
was a band with my high-school buddy

Richard Bowden and another
high-school friend, Jerry Surratt,

and we played Dixieland jazz music.
Nobody sang. We just played music.

MUSICAL INTRO TO SATISFACTION
BY THE ROLLING STONES

I went to a high-school party,
and there were four kids

who were freshmen in high school
who were playing.

I was a junior, and I had a couple
beers that night and said,

"Hey, you know, do you know
Satisfaction? Cos I can sing it."

So, I became the lead singer
of the Subterraneans.

# And I try and I try

# And I try... #

I played in the Subterraneans
for a while,

and then I played in another band
called the Mushrooms.

The most important thing
that happened to me

when I was in Detroit
was I met Bob Seger.

# Ye-e-e-ah

# I'm gonna tell my tale, come on! #

He took me under his wing.

He invited me to recording sessions
that he was having, you know,

so I could see how records
were made.

I was his mentor.

He was just so young,
and I liked him right away

because he was so funny.

He had a great sense of humour,
and, like me,

I could see he was really ambitious.
He really wanted to be on the radio.

He cut a song called
Ramblin' Gamblin' Man.

He let me play acoustic
guitar on the basic track

and sing background vocals.

# Ramblin' ma-a-an

# A gamblin' man... #

You can really hear Glenn blurt out
on the first chorus.

He comes out really loud.
Tremendous gusto.

Of course, that was a national
hit for us, so that was really cool.

Bob was the first guy that wrote
his own songs and recorded them

that I had ever met. He said,
"You know, if you want to make it,

"you're going to have to
write your own songs."

And I said, "Well, what if they're
bad?" he said, "Well, they're going

"to be bad." He says, "You just keep
writing and keep writing,

"and eventually,
you'll write a good song."

We were going to have
a band together.

He was going to get
rid of his other guys,

and I was going to
be his bass player.

It didn't work out.

My mom found me
smoking pot with a friend of mine

in somebody's basement,
and she called up Seger's manager,

Punch Andrews, and said,
"Just a minute, not so fast."

In the years leading up
to the Great Depression,

my dad had to quit school
after the eighth grade.

He had to go home and work in the
fields with his brother and sister

to help support the family.

His fondest wish,
in fact, his life's goal,

was that I would go to college.

Every Saturday night,
he would bring home seven quarters,

and we'd put them in a piggy bank,
and when those quarters

amounted to $100,
he would take me to the bank

and we would buy a savings bond,
a United States savings bond,

and put that away
for my college education.

So, between what my dad had saved
and between what I was making

doing gigs all over Texas
and Arkansas and Louisiana

on weekends, I paid for
three and a half years of college.

They have a world-famous music
department in which I did not excel.

I took one music course.

I think it was beginning theory,
and I flunked.

I made an F.

But I didn't really care
because I was an English major.

Well, after the Mushrooms,
I got invited to join this band

called the Four of Us.

Started getting into some
of the California bands -

the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield,
the Beach Boys.

Always wanted to go to California.

And I got out there,
my mind was blown.

The vegetation -
I'd never seen palm trees.

You know, it was
just like a dream come true.

# So you want to be
a rock'n'roll star?

# Then listen now to what I say

# Just get an electric guitar...

The first celebrity
I saw was David Crosby.

# And when your hair's combed right
and your pants fit tight

# It's gonna be all right...

And he had on that flat-brimmed
hat that he wore

on the second Byrds album,
and he had a little leather cape on,

and I just looked and I thought,
"My God, there's David Crosby."

Zoom, and we went right by.

# And in a week or two
if you make the charts

# The girls'll tear you apart... #

And the first person
I met was John David Souther.

We wanted to get high
and play music.

There were two of us with guitars.

We were listening to a lot of that
sort of interface between

rock'n'roll and
country and western music that was

happening in Southern California
at the time with the Byrds

and Dillard & Clark
and the Burrito Brothers and Poco.

# When I last saw you

# I couldn't find a reason why

# I felt kind of blue...#

There was a lot of great music
of that sort going around then.

Longbranch Pennywhistle here.

I suppose you wonder what that name
meant, and John David and I -

It was a well-kept spring back
funky women.

The songs weren't very good.

I don't think Glenn and I were very
far along as songwriters then.

# Run, boy, run

# You gotta move... #

We were a funny little group,
but we got gigs.

We, you know, managed to play in
some of the folk clubs around LA -

the Golden Bear and the Ash Grove.

# Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah

# What condition
my condition was in...

We had a chance meeting with Kenny
Rogers in Dallas, Texas, one day.

He was coming through town with
the First Edition.

They were very hot at the time.

# I tripped on a cloud
and fell-a eight miles high... #

I remember this like it was
yesterday.

This little kid came up and said,
"Mr Rogers," he said,

"I'm Don Henley, and I'm with a
group called Felicity,

"and we're doing a show tonight, and
we'd love to have you come see us."

And I said, "You know, I'm really
sorry, but I don't do that.

"I don't just go to clubs
and watch groups."

He said,
"I really think you'd like us."

And I thought, "Well,
that's pretty cool," so I did.

# From the minute
that I met you, baby

# You were hanging your chains on me

# And I loved you so

# I nearly lost my mind... #

Kenny is a Texas boy, and he was
looking for groups to produce.

So, I brought them to LA,

and they literally lived at my house
for about four months.

We changed their name to Shiloh.

It was so much fun to take them
into the studio.

# Well, thank you
Mr Big Time Music Business Man

# For taking time
to listen to my song...#

With Shiloh, we made one album,
and it had a single called

Simple Little Down Home Rock And
Roll Love Song For Rosie.

Not exactly a short title!

# Just a simple little down home

# Rock'n'roll love song
for Rosie... #

We didn't know much
about the business at that point.

We were pretty naive.

# Going down to the swamp river
country some day... #

We kicked around in the LA clubs
for a while,

played the Whisky, played some of the
clubs down in the South Bay area,

and nothing really happened for us.

JD and I were looking for any
place to play.

We had heard about this guy
Jackson Browne.

He'd been playing the same
clubs we had,

but we never had seen him perform.

This is California. Mr Jackson
Browne. Ah, thank you, thank you.

'Then there were a bunch of gigs that
they had and some gigs that I had'

that they would show up at my gigs

and me at their gigs,
and we became really good friends.

And we'd start talking about, "Where
do you live, and what's going on?"

And Jackson said, "You know,
you should come down to Echo Park.

"Rent's real cheap."

Glenn got the apartment next
to my apartment,

and this apartment cost like $125 or
something a month, you know.

And I needed to economize,
so I moved into the basement

underneath Glenn's place, which
I could get into for $35 a month.

It only had one door. It was really
just kind of an illegal place,

just a cubby-hole, and that's where
Jackson lived,

with JD and I above.
You know, that was it.

There was a stereo, a piano, a bed,
a guitar, you know, a teapot.

KETTLE WHISTLES

We slept late in those days, except
around nine o'clock in the morning,

I'd hear Jackson Browne's teapot
going off,

this whistle in the distance.

And then I'd hear him playing piano.

I didn't really know how to
write songs.

I knew I wanted to write songs,
but I didn't know exactly -

you just wait around for
inspiration, what was the deal?

Well, I learned through
Jackson's ceiling

and my floor exactly how to write
songs cos Jackson would get up,

and he'd play the first
verse and first chorus,

and he'd play it 20 times until
he had it just the way he wanted.

And then there'd be silence.

And then I'd hear
the teapot go off again.

Then it'd be
quiet for ten or 20 minutes.

Then I'd hear him
start to play again,

and there was the second verse.

So, then he'd work on the second
verse, and he'd play it 20 times.

And then he'd go back to the
top of the song,

and he'd play the first verse, the
first chorus and the second verse

another 20 times until he was really
comfortable with it and,

you know, change a word here or
there, and I'm up there going,

"So, that's how you do it" -

elbow grease, you know, time,
thought, persistence.

# Doctor, my eyes
have seen the years

# And the slow parade of fears

# Without crying...

I wanted to kill him sometimes.

Jackson would play the same phrase
from Doctor, My Eyes for six weeks.

The same thing with The Pretender.
I just wanted to murder him.

# Doctor, my eyes... #

And it was during that
period of time that I met Glenn Frey

because we were on the same label,
called Amos Records.

Some of the things that struck me

when I first met Glenn were things
we had in common.

Both of our dads made
a living in the automotive industry.

Glenn and I loved old cars,
especially cars from the '50s.

He had a '55 Chevy that he
named Gladys.

And we drove
around Los Angeles in Gladys.

RADIO: Check out the new talent.

There's no better place in town to
catch those new singers

and songwriters than down at the
Monday night Hoot Night,

Doug Weston's world-famous
Troubadour, happening tonight.

'The Troubadour club was
the centre of the musical universe.

It was a very seminal place.
It was the place to see and be seen.

Every Monday night
they had an open stage.

It was called Hoot Night.

The Troubadour was the place to go
if you were young

and happening and trying to get
involved in the music scene.

It was happening there.

# California

# Oh, California

# I'm coming home

# Oh, make me
feel good Rock'n'roll band

# I'm your biggest fan

# California, I'm coming home. #

I saw a lot of great
acts at the Troubadour.

# So far away

# Doesn't anybody
stay in one place any more?

# It would be so fine
to see your face... #

I witnessed Elton John's American
debut performance in 1970.

# And it's good old country
comfort in my bones

# Just the sweetest sound
my ears have ever known... #

Everybody who was anybody at
the time played at the Troubadour.

Of course, Linda,

she still has one of my favourite
voices in the business, ever.

# Feeling better now we're through

# Feeling better
cos I'm over you...#

The Troubadour is really responsible
for the entire music scene.

I mean, everything I got, really,
was virtually through either

performing there onstage
or in the bar, you know?

# I'm telling you now, baby

# And I'm going my way... #

I was just started
managing Linda then,

and Linda was going to be a star -
that voice as big as a house.

There wasn't anybody in the room

that cared about anything
but that voice.

# I'm gonna say it again... #

One night,
we're down at the Troubadour,

and John Boylan comes to me -
he's managing Linda Ronstadt -

and he says,
"I'm taking Linda on the road.

"We need guys who can sing. You want
to play rhythm guitar and sing?"

I offered him $250 a week,
and he took it.

I went back to him, I said,

"Can you give me
some of that money right now?"

I think he gave me 50 bucks.

And then I found Don from this
band called Shiloh.

I heard him
playing at the Troubadour.

# I'm coming down... #

I was looking for a job.
Glenn introduced me to John Boylan.

I auditioned at this little
house in Laurel Canyon.

I had listened to her album
hundreds of times,

so I knew the songs backwards
and forwards,

and I guess I passed the audition,
because I got the job.

# I got a feeling called the blues
Oh, Lord

# Since my baby said goodbye

# And I don't know what I'll do

# All I do is sit and cry
Oh, Lord

# I've grown so used to him somehow

# But I'm nobody's sugar momma now

# And I'm lonesome

# Got the lovesick blues. #

I learned a lot from Linda.

It was a very formative
experience for me.

And she could hang with the guys,
you know.

She could drink tequila with
the rest of us and hold her own.

# Saving nickels, saving dimes... #

It was really very ad hoc.

We had a station wagon,
put the gear in the back.

We'd all get in it and drive to
the college and play there.

As a cost-cutting measure,
band members had to share

rooms in those days,
so Glenn and I were roommates.

What did you guys eat?
I had a bowl of Rice Krispies.

'Ladies and gentlemen,
Linda Ronstadt.'

It's funny. I seem to get people at a
critical stage in their development

and they build their chops.

I mean, there's nothing that
gets your chops up better than
playing every single night.

# If the same thing happened
to everybody

# That just happened to me... #

Linda and John Boylan really
like the way Henley and I play,

really like the way we sing with
her, and they start to get

a vision of putting together a super
group to back up Linda -

the best of the new country-rock
musicians,

and we were going to be
part of it.

I remember talking with Don,
and Don said,

"Well, you know, I'd rather,
like, just be in a band with you."

And I said, "Well, yeah, me too.

"You know, I'd rather just
be in a band with you."

So, we went to Linda and said,
"You know,

"we really appreciate everything
you've done for us,

"and it means a lot, and we love
playing with you,

"but we'd like to have
our own band."

# If you won't be
with me someday... #

Now, you know, I think
a lot of people, you know,

could get miffed by that, say,
"Well, wait a second.

"I brought you out here, you know.

"I gave you a paying job
when you couldn't afford

"your own drinks at the Troubadour
bar, and now you want to quit?"

# Smile... #

Linda was extremely gracious about
the whole thing, as was John Boylan.

They weren't resentful or
bitter at all. They were great.

They were supportive,
as a matter of fact.

# There you go and baby

# Here am I

# Well, you left me here

# So I could sit and cry... #

They started talking about putting
a band together,

and we told them
they should get Bernie Leadon.

I was in several bands in LA.
Early on, I met Linda.

Then I worked with
Dillard & Clark -

Doug Dillard, banjo player,
and Gene Clark from the Byrds.

And so, now I'm in an offshoot
of the Byrds world,

and then that turned into an
invitation from the Burrito Brothers

from Chris Hillman to come join them
for their second album on A&M.

# Since we got the older
guys to show us how

# I don't see why
we can't stop right now... #

And I was still in the Burritos,
but they had lost Gram Parsons,

and it had changed, and I wasn't
that interested any more.

Bernie was a very
accomplished banjo player,

and he could also play guitar in
what we called the Bindi lick style.

It was pioneered by a fellow
named Clarence White.

And then Glenn told me about this
guy named Randy Meisner who

had been in a band called Poco.

Randy could sing really high,
and he also played bass.

# It's a good morning and I'm
feeling fine... #

So, Glenn just kind of asked me
one day

if I'd be interested in starting
a group with him.

And he had Henley and Bernie.
That was the first Eagles.

So, the plan was that Glenn
and I would try to recruit Bernie

and Randy, and then we would all go
to David Geffen and see

if he would give us
a recording contract.

In the '70s, Asylum Records was
considered the LA sound -

Joni Mitchell,
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young,

Jackson Browne.

David Geffen, who started Asylum,
is our patron, you know.

A Medici, Medici of rock'n'roll.

It's a very artist-oriented company,
and whatever they want to do,
we support them.

If we believe in them,
we'll stick with them,

whether they make it or not.

Jackson was our conduit to
David Geffen.

He was the first guy to get signed

by Geffen's new
Asylum Records label.

So, we all walk in Geffen's office,
and we basically said,

"Here we are."

Bernie Leadon just boldly
says to Geffen,

"Well, do you want us or not?"

They were dying to sign with me.

I think they were very ambitious,
particularly Glenn.

Glenn wanted to have a hit band.

I loved the way Don sang.

You know, we all had hopes for it.

All of a sudden, we were signed to
Geffen's new label.

They sent us
back to the drawing board.

They said, "You guys need to go
and rehearse some more."

They said, "You know, you need to
write some songs. You're not really
ready to record yet."

So, they packed us
off to Aspen, Colorado.

It could have been worse.

There were people who were way
higher than any of us had ever been.

It was a Wild West wide-open
town at that point.

MUSIC: "Tryin' " by the Eagles

We played at a club up there
called The Gallery,

which was located
right at the foot of Aspen Mountain.

# Tryin'

# Got to keep on tryin'

# Tryin'... #

We didn't have a big catalogue
of our own tunes at that point.

We were just getting started.

We needed to learn how to play
together as a band, and we did.

# The moon is a weeper

# The sun is your clown

# And his way of lovin'

# Is holdin' you down... #

And then it was like,
"OK, we need to make a record.

"Who are we going to get
to produce it?"

We wanted to
shoot as high as we could.

Glenn Frey came up with
Glyn Johns as an idea.

Glyn Johns was a name that kept
popping up on records we loved.

The first time I heard them
was in Aspen.

I was not at all impressed, really.

THEY PLAY GUITAR DUET

I thought they were confused.

Glenn Frey wanted to
be in a rock'n'roll band,

and Bernie Leadon, on the other
side, was one of the greatest

acoustic players, country players,
if you like.

And there was a bit of a confusion.

I didn't see what all the fuss
was about at all.

So I passed.

We're like, "God dang, what?"
You know, it's not what we expected.

He had worked with Led Zeppelin,
the Who, the Stones,

so he was coming from that, and he
said flat-out,

"You're not that, man."

It isn't always easy to spot what's
hot about an artist

if you go and see them play.
You can see them on a bad night.

You know, it's not necessarily
the fairest way of doing it.

So, I thought, "Well, the best thing
to do would be for me to see them

"in a rehearsal situation
where we could converse

"and they could play new stuff
and I could stop and start."

And they played the stuff that they
played in Aspen,

and it all sounded pretty
much the same.

Well, I was thinking, "I don't
get it. I still don't get it."

So, we decided to take a break
for lunch

and as we were leaving,

somebody said, "Oh,
why don't we play Glyn that ballad?"

# My daddy was a handsome devil

# He had a chain five miles long... #

And it just completely blew me
off my feet.

I mean, there it was.
That was the sound.

# From every link a heart did dangle

# For every maid... #

Extraordinary blend of voices,
wonderful harmony sound.

Just stunning.

And that was it.
I was in with both feet.

# Now I have loved you
like a baby... #

Except that Glyn Johns

didn't want to come to
the United States and work.

He wanted to work in London
in the recording studios

that he was familiar with, and
so they shipped us off to England.

I don't think that any of us
except Bernie had ever been out

of the country, so it was a little
bit like going to the moon for us.

# I'm hanging on to my peace of mind

# I just don't know

# I'm hanging on to
those good times... #

And I'm stoked.
You know, I'm thinking,

"I'm going to go to Beatle
country with Glyn Johns.

"I'm going to record in the same
studio

"where Led Zeppelin did
Rock And Roll.

"Oh, my God, I can't wait."

We were recorded at the famous
Olympic studios,

where a lot of legendary
records had been made.

Glyn Johns, he had a certain style
of recording,

which was very organic.

He would simply place a few mics
around the room, and off you go.

You know, rather than, for example,
placing a microphone on each

and every drum, he would just put
three microphones on the drum kit.

He was accustomed
to recording people

like John Bonham with Led Zeppelin.

And I said to Glyn, "I want
the bass drum to be louder."

And he said, "If you want it louder,
hit it harder," you know?

And I hit it as hard as I could,

but I couldn't hit
it as hard as John Bonham.

He had a bunch of rules that
really didn't suit me

and some of the other guys, too.

You know, no getting high in the
studio, no drinking in the studio.

I agreed wholeheartedly
with Glyn Johns

regarding drugs
and alcohol in the studio -

that we'd get more work done
and that it would be better work.

When I got the opportunity to
produce and therefore

be in the chair, I decided that
I would no longer put up with that.

Somebody said to me
the other night that

I was the designated driver
in the '60s and early '70s.

Glyn had worked with the Rolling
Stones at a time when they went

to the studio and did nothing except
wait for Keith, you know, to go down

in the basement and play his guitar
until he came up with some riff.

So, Glyn was impatient.

The Stones had burned him
out on the, you know,

"get high in the studio and wait for
something to happen" kind of thing.

'Let's go. We're rolling.'

'One, two, three.'

MUSIC: "Peaceful Easy Feeling"
by the Eagles

# I like the way
your sparkling earrings lay

# Against your skin so brown

# And I wanna sleep with you

# In the desert tonight... #

There were three hit
singles on the first album.

Peaceful Easy Feeling
was written by Jack Tempchin,

who is our friend
and frequent collaborator.

# Cos I got
a peaceful easy feeling... #

Peaceful Easy Feeling captures
the time, captures this attitude.

You can feel the wind
blowing across the desert.

# Oh-ohh

# What a feeling

# Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ohh. #

MUSIC: "Witchy Woman" by the Eagles

The second hit was Witchy Woman,
which I wrote with Bernie.

Witchy Woman
started as a guitar figure.

Then we were jamming it one day,
and everybody was digging it.

And then Henley came back the next
day with the lyrics.

# Raven hair and ruby lips

# Sparks fly from her finger tips

# Echoed voices in the night

# She's a restless spirit
on an endless flight

# Woo hoo, witchy woman

# See how high she flies

# Woo hoo, witchy woman

# She got the moon in her eye... #

During the time that the Eagles were
on the road for the first album,

we had just come through the '60s -
civil rights movement,

'68 - all the assassinations,
all the rioting.

The Vietnam War still winding up.
Nixon, Watergate.

I welcome this kind of examination.

I really think that
part of the reason that the Eagles

succeeded the way they did was
because the country

and people and young people needed
to feel like things were OK.

So, here comes this song
Take It Easy.

MUSIC: "Take It Easy" by the Eagles

# Well, I'm a runnin' down the road

# Trying to loosen my load

# I've got seven women on my mind

# Four that want to own me

# Two that want to stone me

# One says she's a friend of mine

# Take it easy

# Take it easy

# Don't let the sound of your
own wheels drive you crazy

# Lighten up while you still can

# Don't even try to understand

# Just find a place
to play your hand

# Take it easy... #

Jackson had this song called
Take It Easy.

He couldn't finish the song.
He was stuck in the second verse.

He had, "I'm standing on a corner
in Winslow, Arizona."

And so, I filled in,
"Such a fine sight to see

"It's a girl, my Lord
In a flatbed Ford

"Slowing down to take a look at me."

# Well, I'm a standin' on a corner
in Winslow, Arizona

# Such a fine sight to see

# It's a girl, my Lord
in a flat-bed Ford

# Slowin' down
to take a look at me... #

Girl, Lord, Ford - I mean,
all the redemption, you know -

girls and cars
and redemption all in this one line.

I mean, he's very mercurical.
You know...mercurial? Mercurial.

And he's mercurical, too.

# We may lose and we may win

# But we will never be here again

# So open up
I'm climbin' in

# So take it easy... #

All right!

Someone once asked
Stephen Stills about the Eagles,

and his response was,
"They just wanted to be us."

But when it came time to
do our album covers,

they suggested that we use
Gary Burden and Henry Diltz.

They had done the first
Crosby, Stills, Nash cover

and some stuff for Joni.

The one I really remember was

The Mamas & The Papas
all sitting in the bathtub.

That was one of their album covers.

So, these were, like, the cool guys
to have work on your album.

Gary Burden is about 40 years old,
full beard, long, greyish,

wavy hair, crystal-blue eyes.

Henry was a sort of magical,
noninvasive photographer guy.

For the Eagles,

it was the peyote spirits which
the American Indians, of course,

ate peyote and had a very, very
spiritual experience,

and they would maybe meet their
animal totem

or they would get their
quest for life.

My deal was always to take the bands
out of their comfort zone.

Take them away from their
girlfriends, from telephones,

from anything,
and have them under my control

so that I could get things to happen
without any interference.

And so, we would take trips.

Now, how this plan
came about exactly,

today you have to scratch your head,
but this was the plan.

OK, we'll all go to
the Troubadour,

and we'll stay there till
closing time.

And then we'll drive to Joshua Tree.

# This morning
I don't know... #

We had a bag of peyote buttons,
a bunch of trail mix,

some tequila, and some water,
and some blankets.

And the seven of us
set out for Joshua Tree.

We got there probably about 4.30 in
the morning, parked in this

special place that I don't
know how we found it in the dark.

We all took one peyote button,
put it in our mouths,

and started hiking up to the
place that we were supposed to go.

So, right around the time that
we're getting to the campsite

and we're starting to build the fire

and starting to cook some
peyote tea, and the first buttons -

everybody's chewing
the first button

and the drug starts
coming on just as the sun is rising.

MUSIC: "Earlybird" by the Eagles

I think everybody got higher than
they ever imagined

anybody could be,
and it was a good thing.

We were after getting
into life deeper

and better and more
and surrendering.

I had to go to the bathroom,
so I left the campsite,

and I hear the guys yelling from
the campfire, "Eagle! Eagle!"

I look up, and it's soaring
right above me. Huge wingspan.

I'm, like, scuffling to get my pants
back up, and I'm slipping.

I fall down, and the bird just
kind of goes,

"Eagles, huh?
Yeah, I don't think so."

The images of the first
album cover, I think,

really set the tone for visually
what Eagles are.

Gary designed the album cover
so that it would open up into a

whole poster, and at the bottom were
the Eagles around the campfire.

And then, up at the top, it would
go on up into the sky

and the eagle up in the sky.

But David Geffen thought
that would be confusing,

and without consulting us
or consulting Gary or the Eagles

or anybody, he told them,
"Just glue it shut."

And so, then, when they glued it
shut, you would get this -

this album, front and back,
and you'd open it up,

and it would be upside-down, which
didn't make any sense to anybody.

The fact was that the success of
the first album scared the
hell out of us.

Why me instead of some
guy down the street, you know?

Why me and some friends of mine
who are just as good of musicians

as I am, you know, but it happened
to me and it didn't happen to them?

I don't know.

Success can sometimes be
just as disconcerting

and frightening as failure,
especially

when you have questions about your
own worthiness and your abilities.

It came time to do another album.

Don and I decided we'd try to write
some songs together.

I had been sitting
over on Aqua Vista.

I was living on the couch,

and I'm just laying there playing
the guitar, and I started going...

# Ding-digga-ding digga...#

You know, I'm thinking,

"Yeah, that's pretty cool, kind
of Roy Orbison, kind of Mexican.

"Yeah, I like that."

So, I showed him, you know,
that guitar riff.

I said, "Maybe we should write
something to this."

# It's another tequila sunrise

# Staring slowly across the sky

# I said goodbye

# He was just a hired hand

# Workin' on a dreamy plan to try...#

Songs like Desperado and
Tequila Sunrise,

that's when Glenn and I began
collaborating, and that's when we
really became a song-writing team.

# Every night when the sun goes down

# Just another lonely boy in town

# And she's out runnin' round. #

Earlier that year,

someone had given Jackson Browne
the book of gunfighters.

It had all the big
outlaw groups, Frank and Jesse,
the Doolin-Dalton gang.

We were all just fascinated
with those guys,

and we thought it would make
a great analogy.

Well, for example, we live
outside the laws of normality.

Also, you usually, because of
records or bank robberies,

you usually heard about these
guys before you ever saw them.

They had posters that were wanted
posters up for people.

There just seemed to be some
parallels.

It wasn't really like we were
outlaws,

but I think they did
have their nobler characteristics.

# A life on the road is the life of
an outlaw, man. #

We started talking about it.

Then we said, "Well, maybe we
should do, like, an album
all about the rebels."

We got to doing this outlaw album,

and we had eight songs finished,
and we needed two more.

An idea Randy came up with
was how the guy became an outlaw

and how he became a guitar player.

# He was a poor boy
Raised in a small family

# He kinda had a craving
For something no-one else could see

# They said that he was crazy
The kind that no lady should meet

# He ran off to the city then
wandered around in the street... #

I kind of started it,
and that's what usually happened.

I'd get a verse or two,
and then I'm done,

and they would help
fill in the blanks.

# Oh, yeah. He wants to see
the lights a-flashing

# And listen to the thunder ring. #

Nobody expected there to be a concept
album with western cowboys music.

Don Henley was from Texas.
He was a cowboy.

Glenn was from Detroit.
He wanted to be a cowboy.

Because I knew all these guys had
a little cowboy inside of them,

I took them to Western Costume and
just said, "Pick out your persona."

Their premise was that,
if they had lived 100 years ago,

in like 1872, they probably would
have been gunslingers.

Everybody's going to be firing
in the direction of this
building right here.

Jackson, JD, Boyd, you all got
to be in the picture more.

We're going to be in there.
You ready? One, two, three!

And we fired so many blanks that it
was a cloud of smoke hanging

over this western town,

and the fire department came
Cos they thought it was a fire.

Keep firing!

We were just a bunch of kids.
We were just playing around.

The picture that's on the back
of the album,

there's a lot of reality in it.

All of the agents and managers
and road managers, all the guys

who didn't play are standing up,
alive with badges and guns,

and the four Eagles at the time and
Jackson and I are all dead, bound

up the way they used to do when
they'd catch outlaws in those days.

They'd stand them up for display.

People never tired of looking
at the corpse of a bad boy.

We all felt, when we were doing it
and as it was delivered, that it

was another really remarkable
record on the part of the band.

I mean, it was pretty extraordinary.

The band and I were enormously
thrilled with it.

They literally carried me
out of the control room.

They chaired me
out of the control room.

# Desperado

# Is there gonna be
anything left...#

Desperado comes out, and it bombs.

Jerry Greenberg was the
Vice President of Atlantic Records.

They were excited to get
the second Eagles album.

We played him
Desperado, and he said,

"Hmm, that's, yeah, that's nice,
that's good, that's nice."

And turned around and said, "God,
they made a fuckin' cowboy record."

# Desperado

# Oh, you ain't gettin' no younger. #

I was extremely flattered that
Linda recorded Desperado.

It was really her that
popularized the song.

Her version was very
poignant and beautiful.

# And freedom, oh, freedom

# That's just some people talkin'

# Your prisoner is walking through
this world all alone. #

There have been a lot of articles
and things that identify me
with the LA sound.

It's sort of, like, me
and Jackson Browne and the Eagles.

All of us are reaching out for other
musical influences all the time.

The so-called southern California
sound was developing.

It was fresh, it was different,
it was unique.

It was a melting pot, people moving

here from all over the United States
to pursue their dream.

Actors, musicians, wannabe managers,
agents, wannabe, you know, like me.

I picked up the phone cold
and called David Geffen,

who was just starting
Asylum Records.

Long story short, I took
a job as a manager with Asylum.

I was intrigued.

I wanted to know about the Eagles
and meet the Eagles

Cos I was a fan.

Emergency?

I get a phone call.
Glenn Frey's on the phone.

"We need money for Christmas.
Can you book dates?"

I book some dates.

So, I get on a plane
and go out to meet them.

First of all,
the show was fantastic.

Crowd was nothing like I'd seen
a year, year and a half earlier.

Good evening. Welcome to the
Portland version of... Spread Eagle.

Spread Eagle. Tonight,
the promoter gave us chopsticks.

I don't think
we ever checked in a hotel.

We went from there to
a party at a sorority house.

One thing led to another, and I'd
never seen anything like this.

They wouldn't give us
any booze in the bar.

We tried to get some booze,
but they fucked up,

so we may burn the fucking place
down. We're not sure.

I don't think we went to sleep.

It was Eagle mania.

And then they went off to England to
record On The Border
with Glyn Johns.

They were quite open to
being produced.

Understandably, that changed.

They began to be more opinionated
and less insecure, perhaps.

We wanted to play rock'n'roll
or at least a more rock'n'roll

version of country music,
and Glyn Johns

was of the opinion that we weren't
really capable of that.

I think he had been
bombarded by loud,

aggressive rock'n'roll for
many, many years.

At that point in his life, he wanted
mellow people and mellow music,

and we weren't exactly at the same
stage in life.

Frey sort of took over more.

He had this desire to be
something that

I didn't really feel that they
were capable of doing.

He and Glenn Frey were like oil
and water. They clashed frequently.

In the studio, Glyn Johns was
pretty much a schoolmarm.

He'd push, push, push, you know?
And then he'd say, "That's it.

"That's good enough. We're moving
on. You're not a rock'n'roll band.

"The Who is a rock'n'roll band,
and you're not that."

After each of those records,
the band freaked out and said,

"We've made a huge mistake.

"Glyn Johns missed it."

We actually had conversations.

You know, Desperado hadn't
done as well as the first album.

None of them were thrilled with
the way the record sounded.

We wanted more input into how
our albums were being made.

We wanted more input
into the recording process itself.

Don and I thought that the vocals
were too wet.

There was too much echo on them.

And he definitely told us,
"Excuse me, that's my echo.

"It's my signature.
It's my bloody echo. It stays there.

"You don't tell me what to do."

We needed to make a change.

I joined the Navy at the height
of the Cold War.

One of the main things they were
doing was looking for Russian

submarines,
and you do that by using sonar.

When I got out, I had a lot
of electronics education, obviously.

And I got a job in a recording
studio here in New York.

The first session I ever saw,
like day one, day two,

was a Carole King demo.

She sat down and played piano,
and it was like, "Boy, this is fun.

"These people are having fun here."

I worked my way up through
the ranks, and then, of course,

after engineering for four or five
years, I was like,

"Well, I can produce better than
some of these guys I'm working for."

At the time, I was managing
Joe Walsh, so I played them

Walsh music that I thought was an
example of how it could be edgier.

Joe and I had just finished
an album called

The Smoker You Drink,
The Player You Get.

And they heard that and said,
"That's what we want to sound like."

So, Irving arranged for us to have a
meeting with Bill Szymczyk.

We really only had two questions
that we wanted to ask him -

do you mind if we have some input
about how much echo is on the
vocals?

And we wanted somebody who would put
a microphone on each

and every drum so we could have more
control over the mix.

He said yes to every question, and
so we knew he was the guy for us.

I said, "OK, under one condition.

"I have to call Glyn
and make sure it's OK with him."

So, I called him,
and I said, you know,

"Glyn, the Eagles want me
to produce them."

"Better you than me, mate."

That's pretty much how I felt.

I mean, it had come to
a fairly unpleasant end.

Well, OK, you know, so much
for Beatle country with Glyn Johns.

Let's have a warm round of applause
on a hot afternoon for the Eagles!

# James Dean, James Dean

# So hungry and so lean

# James Dean, James Dean

# You said it all so clean. #

Along about the third album,

I was having some difficulty
in communicating, I felt, in the

band, and I was starting to think
maybe I should go at some point.

They still had this unfulfilled
desire to be a mainstream

rock band and not just a vocal band,

but I think they wanted to
go in a tougher direction.

Bernie Leadon was a country-based
guitar player, but every time

I wanted to do a rock'n'roll song,
he was the lead guitar player.

# Cos I'm already gone. #

Every time we wanted to do something
country that Bernie sang,

I was supposed to be
the lead guitar player,

and I wasn't a country
musician by any stretch.

It always felt like we needed
a third guitar player.

We had met this friend of Bernie's,
this guy named Don Felder.

We were playing in Boston, and he
came back to visit Bernie,

and we were jamming upstairs in the
dressing room,

and this guy was all over the neck.

What he brought was great chops.

I mean, we called him Fingers,
Fingers Felder,

because he was an incredible player.

We did that session. I think
it was like three hours.

And then I packed up and went home,

not thinking anything more about it
than it was just another session.

And the next day, Glenn called me
and asked me

if I would like to join the band.

I said, "Absolutely."

All right, let's do...I'm in heaven.

Let's go another one.
All right, do it right!

The banter that would go
on in between takes was hysterical,

and so I took to running a two-track
to pick up these silly things.

We were young men with raging
hormones and something to prove.

In the context of the times
and the profession,

the way we behaved wasn't really
all that remarkable.

The creative impulse comes from the
dark side of the personality,

so we worked it good, you know.

We did a lot of stupid things,
said a lot of stupid things.

It was the '70s.
There were drugs everywhere.

# Cactus sunrise was in my face
Everyone was dying

# Everyone was lying and trying

# Well, rub your belly in
the linseed oil...#

There you go.

Well, the heartbreak of psoriasis
has once again descended upon

the adolescent experience,
and we'll see you later.

See you at the show
later on tonight.

The question was, you know, who
could handle it? Who could function?

Who could show up?

# One of these nights

# One of these crazy long nights

# We're gonna find out, pretty mama

# What turns on your lights

# The full moon is calling

# The fever is high

# And the wicked
wind whispers and more

# You got your demons

# And you got desires
But I got a few of my own

# Ooooh, someone to be kind to

# In between the dark and the light

# Ooooh, comin' right behind you

# Swear I'm gonna find you
One of these nights

# One of these days... #

There were always girls.

There were a lot of opportunities
out on the road to entertain

ourselves with one thing or another.

So, we started to perfect
after-show partying,

and we invented a place called
the Third Encore.

We did two encores in our show,
so the third encore was the party.

Everybody in the band and everybody
in the crew was given a bunch

of buttons, and all we said was,
"No weirdos, no strange people, OK?

"If you're going to give a button to
somebody, you know, make it count."

Totally sick. There's some real
warped shit coming on now, ladies
and gentlemen.

A member of Andy Warthog's pop-bowel
movement has just tried to crash our
party.

What the? Welcome to Pittsburgh
Spread Eagle.

We want to just ask these
girls why they think they have to
leave now that it's 2:00.

One thing, he smells like beer.

We'd fill the bathtubs up
with Budweiser,

and we'd have a party
after every show.

Your name, please. Tammy Farley.
Tammy, Tammy, Tammy.

Here we have Karen.
Karen is 20 years old.
Is that correct?

Yeah. What's your name, dear?
Fuck it, man. Pardon? Fuck it.

Her name's "Fuck it, man."

I want to talk about sex and drugs.

Who wants to go first?

I'm not lost for words on either
subject.

Sex and drugs kind of came as a big
package in the '60s.

You know, it seemed like everybody,
the sexual revolution

and the drug thing, I guess,
probably started out together.

Didn't they?

Don and I both tried to have
relationships while we were members

of the Eagles, but it was always
like the Eagles trumped everything.

When the Eagles became successful,
we challenged all the rules.

Like when David Geffen
left Asylum Records

and sold everything to Warner Bros
and started his new empire.

Let's be frank. When we signed
that contract, we were idiots.

We knew nothing about the business.

We had poor legal representation,
nobody looking out for us.

Remember, bands don't really get
record royalties usually ever.

So, they get money from touring,
but they get publishing money.

So, in the very beginning,
one thing that Geffen did

that I thought was great. He had
us form a band publishing company.

All the band's publishing
went in that.

The problem was Geffen
had the other half.

Half the Eagles' publishing,
half of my publishing,

half of all the artists that he
signed went to Warner Bros, but

he got them to return mine.

Jackson turned me on to the Eagles.

He had turned me
on to a lot of artists,

and I felt I owed him something.

And that, not surprisingly, was not
acceptable rationale to the Eagles!

There's a certain amount of ire,
like, real, you know, like,

"What the fuck?

"I mean, we didn't get
our publishing back!"

So, it was the publishing issue and
the fact that the business managers

and the lawyers were all shared
common guys,

and did they have a conflict when an
issue came up and which side to take?

Well, it just makes you
feel like meat, you know?

It started out as such a personal,
nurturing endeavour, you know,

with Mr Geffen saying,
"Oh, I'm going to protect you guys.

"That's why I'm calling
my new label Asylum.

"It's going to be
a sanctuary for real artists."

He once said to Irving Azoff,

"You know, Irving,
this would be a great business

"if there weren't artists."

Irving was the one guy who
really believed in us,

that I thought could do
something to help us.

I basically hired a lawyer
and went in

after I said, "The Eagles would like
their publishing back,"

to which the obvious response was,
"No".

He sort of drew a line in the sand
and declared war,

so I felt, for my survival,
as their manager,

I needed to prove to them
that I wasn't afraid of Geffen

and would stand up and, you know.

The lawsuit was filed
as a last resort.

I don't think David liked
reading his name in the lawsuit.

I thought it was incredibly
ungrateful

and they misrepresented the facts,
but so be it.

Ultimately, we settled out of court,

and I don't believe it took
very long.

He just wanted to get rid of us.

This is our new record contract.

Just paper!

So, then we headed off,
for parts unknown

with Irving Azoff at the helm.

This card game is called
Eagle Poker.

It's a bastardization of Red Dog.

I invented it in Detroit, Michigan,
in 1947...

one year before I was born.

We were big gamblers. We played
poker all the time.

Oh, boy. They should have never
given me money!

So, we decided we'd go to
the Bahamas to gamble.

Everybody but Don was holding.

I had like four joints in a baggie,

stuffed down my sock
in my cowboy boot.

Durkin, the pilot, has a joint.

Irving had about 30 Valiums
in a sugar pack.

There was a couple
of customs officials there

that asked us to collect
all our luggage and come over,

and they wanted to search us
cos we looked terrible.

We had really long hair
and patches on our jeans

and a beard and not slept.

Now, I'm freaking out.

Bernie's freaking out.
Irving's freaking out.

Henley's pissed off.

Don't touch me.

Well, the guy proceeds to put us
all in a room together,

and they start searching us
one by one.

My greatest fear is that I'm going
to be locked in a jail cell

with Bernie Leadon.

So, at this point,
Irving steps in and takes

one of the Bahamian customs guys
over to the side

and has a chat with him.

I'm not sure, to this day,
what Irving said to him.

The next thing I knew,
they let us pass with no problem.

It was sort of miraculous,
really, it was,

because I thought for sure
we were going to be in the slammer.

It was dumb luck that this guy
bought my line

and didn't search them.

That was the day I decided,
Irving Azoff

was the greatest manager
in rock'n'roll

and I would never do anything
without him by my side.

I had the only seat in a major
championship fight...

to be sitting there when, you know,
when a lyric was thrown out

and then hear a track.

# My, oh, my, you sure know
how to arrange things... #

I've watched the creative
process with lots of people,

but I've never seen it the way
it fell in place with them.

I remember watching
Lyin' Eyes written.

Glenn just had a way of coming up
with a phrase, you know?

He had written some kind of a tune,
and they were sitting in Tana's

one night and looking at some young
girl with an older guy at the bar,

and Glenn said,
"Look at those lyin' eyes."

And just...just like that, wow,
there's the song.

# You can't hide your lyin' eyes

# And your smile is a thin disguise

# I thought by now you'd realise

# There ain't no way to hide
your lyin' eyes... #

It was just about all these girls
who would come down to Dan Tana's

looking beautiful, and they'd be
there from 8:00pm to midnight

and have dinner and drinks
with all of us rockers,

and then they'd go home
because they were kept women.

# On the other side of town
a boy is waiting

# With fiery eyes
and dreams no-one could steal

# She drives on through the night
anticipating

# Cos he makes her feel
the way she used to feel... #

You know, when we were doing the
One Of These Nights album,

we'd gone through three albums,

and the only people who'd sung on
any hit records were Don and myself.

And Randy always felt like,
you know, he was a lead singer, too.

And I actually felt that way, too.
I liked his voice.

So, he brought in the beginnings
of Take It To The Limit,

and it became the Eagles'
first number-one single.

# Take it to the limit, come on

# And take it to the limit

# One more time

# Take it to the limit... #

The line Take It To The Limit
was to keep trying

before you reach a point in your
life where you feel, you know,

you've done everything
and seen everything sort of feeling.

You know, a part of getting old,
and just to take it to the limit

one more time, like every day,
just keep punching away at it.

And that's all that I really...
that was the line,

and from there, the song took
a different, you know, course.

# Take it to the limit

# Ah

# Take it to the limit. #

I think everybody in the Eagles
did the level best we could.

You have to remember
how young we were,

the fact that nobody had anything
when we started,

and you got all this stuff
coming at you.

Meanwhile, you're touring
all the time. It's a lot.

To Bernie, success on any scale
was synonymous with selling out.

He wanted us to remain
sort of an underground band.

We had our problems with Bernie,
and Bernie had his problems with us.

Some of it was based on him being
able to have a voice in the Eagles

and record the songs he wanted to,
the way he wanted to.

We were getting more
and more rocked out,

and I think Bernie was less
and less happy about that...

to the point that, one time,
we had worked on a track all night.

I mean, it was a rocked-out track,

and we're all sitting
behind the board the next day,

listening to the various takes
of it, trying to decide

which take we liked the best.
Bernie hadn't said a word.

So, I asked him over the board,
I said, "Bernie, what do you think?"

There's a long pause,
and he gets up, and he stretches,

and he says,
"I think I'm going surfing."

And he left.

I was caught in the middle
a lot of times.

And sometimes
I would agree with Bernie,

but most of the time,
I would agree with Glenn.

Glenn and I always wanted
the band to be a hybrid,

to encompass bluegrass and country
and rock'n'roll.

There was a part of Bernie
that really resisted that.

After a while,
it became a real problem,

particularly between Bernie
and Glenn.

Finally, we were at the Orange Bowl
in Miami.

We were backstage, and we were
talking about what our next move

was going to be, what our plans
were supposed to be,

and I was animated and adamant
about what we needed to do next

here, there, and everywhere,
and Bernie comes over

and pours a beer on my head and
says, "You need to chill out, man."

I have no idea.
It was a spontaneous thing.

I mean, I take that incident now
quite seriously.

That was a very
disrespectful thing to do.

Obviously, it was intended
to be humiliating to him,

I would say, and is something
I'm really not proud of.

It did illustrate a breaking point.

During that time,
we got a couple shows

opening for the Rolling Stones,
and Irving was managing Joe Walsh.

Joe Walsh was a bona fide
rock'n'roll guitar player.

So, for a couple of those shows,
just for our encores,

we'd put Joe Walsh in a road box,

and we'd come back to do an encore,
and we'd roll the road box out,

and just like the model jumping out
of a cake,

we'd open the guitar case,
and there would be Joe Walsh

with his Les Paul, and he'd climb
out of the box and plug in,

and the Eagles...we would play
Rocky Mountain Way.

I loved the way he played.

I'd loved the James Gang
when I was growing up in Detroit.

Now I started thinking,
"Joe Walsh for Bernie Leadon."

# Spent the last year
Rocky Mountain Way

# Couldn't get much higher... #

OK, maybe the vocals
won't be quite as good,

but, boy,
are we going to kick some ass!

# Time to open fire

# And we don't need the ladies cryin'

# Cos the story's sad... #

I think one of the things
that I brought into the band

that was good for the band was

to bring it up a notch
when we played live.

Just keep kicking it in the butt
a little bit, you know?

All right, DC,
come on, give it up!

I went to a show,
maybe eight months later,

and the band are interacting
with each other

exactly like we did with me onstage,
except instead of me,

Walsh was up there, and it just was,
like, really, really odd, you know,

to be watching it
and not be part of it.

So, I actually left that show.
I was just like,

"This is, like, too weird."

So, we got Joe Walsh in the band.
That's another adventure,

because Joe was an interesting
bunch of guys.

Hey, I tell you what.
If you got firecrackers,

just wait until you get home,
lock yourself in the closet,

and light everything you got, OK?

APPLAUSE

Thank you, Joe.

He brought a lot of levity to
just about everything that happened,

which was needed at that time.

Heads or tails? Heads.

Well, I could use a little head
myself.

In those days, you didn't know
what he was going to do next.

It was fun most of the time,
although not all the time.

It was fun, depending on how much
you'd had to drink,

to see a television go sailing off
the 14th-floor balcony

and into the pool,
as long as nobody got hurt.

Joe Walsh was the American King
of room trash.

He had studied under
some of the best.

One of the most terrifying things
that ever happened to me

was that Keith Moon
decided he liked me.

All those Keith Moon stories
are true.

This guy was full-blown nuts, and you
never knew what was coming next.

Keith was my mentor at chaos,
getting arrested,

practical jokes, pranks, room damage.

# I live in hotels
tear out the walls

# I have accountants pay for it all

# They say I'm crazy
but I have a good time... #

One year, we gave him a chainsaw
for his birthday as a joke.

# Life's been good to me so far

# Yeah, yeah, yeah... #

By this time,
we were eating in nice restaurants

and buying expensive wine
and staying in great hotel rooms.

There were a lot of hotels that
we weren't allowed to go back to.

We were in Chicago, and we were
staying at the Astor Towers.

In Chicago, here's what happened.

There was a knock on the door,
and in walked John Belushi.

John wanted to show me
the finer restaurants of Chicago.

So, we went to the restaurant,

and they wouldn't let us in because
we had jeans, and he got

the maitre d' up to
like a $300 bribe

and still they would not let us in.

And John said, "I know what to do.
I know what to do."

And the next thing I knew,
we were standing in the alley,

and he spray-painted my jeans black
and made me do his,

and we went back, and we got in.

We were sitting in these
Queen Anne-period chairs that had

needlepoint, and when we stood up,
that was all black,

and the butts of our pants
were jeans again,

so, we had to kind of back
out of there and leave fast.

But that was the beginning of it.

And so that night, with much glee,

Joe set about to set the
world record for room trash.

John and I did $28,000
of room damage.

Glenn and Don didn't really ever
approve of the room trashing,

but they understood it.

They wanted respect as
rock'n'rollers,

and Joe brought that respect.

I was insecure always and afraid,

so I hid behind all of my
hang-ups with humour.

I was totally in awe
of Don and Glenn.

I was intimidated by Don and Glenn
because they sang so good,

and they were writing stuff
I could never come close to writing.

After we've just had a bunch of hit
records on One Of These Nights,

we were under the microscope.
Everybody was going to look at

the next record we made
and pass judgment.

Don and I were going,
"Man, this better be good."

Look at that. It's going to be quite
a nice guitar.

Felder, you see this?
Who, uh, who tuned this?

Well, it has no nut.

With Joe in the band with me,
I wanted to write something,

musically, that would fit
two guitar players, that we

could play off of each other.

So, I was sitting on a sofa
in Malibu at this rental house

that I had on the beach. I was
playing this acoustic guitar

and this introduction came out,
that progression.

I kept playing it three
or four times.

I had an old reel-to-reel
tape recorder,

so I went back and recorded that
introduction to that song and

laid down that progression, made a
mix of it, and put it on a cassette

with, I don't know, the other 14
or 15 pieces of music that I had

assembled, and I gave a copy of the
cassette to Don, one to Glenn.

Don Felder used to send Henley and
I instrumental tapes, song ideas.

95% of them were cluttered
with guitar licks,

and we would listen to these things
and go, "Well, where do you sing?"

As Don and I were listening through
one of the Felder cassettes and this

song came up, we both sort of said,
"Hmm. Now, this is interesting."

The music sounded to me like some
sort of a cross between

Spanish music and reggae music, and
that one really jumped out at me.

So, we set out to write a song
to that progression.

I'm pretty sure it was Henley's idea
to have a song called

Hotel California.

I think Henley's and Glenn's lyric
writing really came to a head.

They became real honest-to-God
songwriters then.

During the recording of it,
I thought that we

were on to something.
I knew we were on to something.

We were in a really creative phase,

and it just so happened that
Bill Szymczyk pushed record.

Thank God!

# On a dark desert highway

# Cool wind in my hair

# Warm smell of colitas

# Rising up through the air

# Up ahead in the distance

# I saw a shimmering light

# My head grew heavy
and my sight grew dim

# I had to stop for the night

# There she stood in the doorway

# I heard the mission bell

# And I was thinkin' to myself

# This could be heaven
or this could be hell

# Then she lit up a candle

# And she showed me the way

# There were voices
down the corridor

# I thought I heard them say

# Welcome to the Hotel California

# Such a lovely place
Such a lovely place

# Such a lovely face

# Plenty of room at the Hotel... #

We've been asked a million times,
"What does that song mean?"

Don and I were big fans of hidden,
deeper meaning.

You know, you write songs and you
send them out to the world.

# So I called up the Captain

# Please bring me my wine

# He said

# We haven't had that
spirit here since 1969... #

And maybe somewhere in that song
is some stuff that's just yours,

that they're never going to
figure out.

# Far away

# Wake you up in the middle
of the night

# Just to hear them say... #

There has been a great deal
of ridiculous

speculation about that
song over the years.

I mean, it's really taken on a life
or a mythology of its own.

It's sort of like the "Paul is dead"
thing, or "Who was the walrus?"

# Bring your alibis... #

It's been denounced by Evangelicals.

We've been accused of all
kinds of wacky things,

like being members
of the Church of Satan.

People see images on the album
cover that aren't there.

Just lunatic stuff.

# And in the master's chambers
They gathered for the feast

# They stabbed it with
their steely knives

# But they just can't kill the beast

# Last thing I remember

# I was running for the door

# I had to find the passage back
to the place I was before... #

My simple explanation is it's a
song about a journey from innocence

to experience. That's all.

# You can check out
any time you like

# But you can never leave... #

Whereas Felder was technically very,
very good, Walsh brought spontaneity

to it, and the two of them playing
off each other was just brilliant.

Out of great respect for each other,
there was always a little

competition between Felder and I.

We always tried to
kind of one-up each other, you know?

And that's really healthy.

It always made the song better
when we were kind of,

"Oh, yeah? Listen to this."

We got to the end, where now is
the harmony guitars that are

playing together, and Joe said, "We
should do something that's like...

" # Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. # "

The ending of Hotel California -

that's one of my high points
of my entire recording career.

To have a seven-minute single be
number one - that was unheard of.

The record company said, "You got to
do an edit. You got to do an edit."

And we all said, "No. Take it or
leave it." And they took it.

We had no idea that that song
would affect as many

people on the planet as it did.

Thank you.

The rest of the album
kind of developed around that song.

The album, you could loosely say, is
a thematic album, a concept album.

Not unlike Desperado,
Hotel California

was our reaction to what was
happening to us.

On just about every album we made,
there was some kind of a

commentary on the music business
and on American culture in general.

The hotel itself could be
taken as a metaphor not

only for the myth-making
of Southern California,

but for the myth-making that is
the American dream because it's a

fine line between the American dream
and the American nightmare.

# When you're out there on your own
Where your memories... #

All the songs we write for this
album can fit inside this concept.

# You were lost until you found
out what it all comes down to... #

Once the rest of the guys in the
band understood what the song

Hotel California was about,
it became kind of a theme,

and they started to customise
their writing to fit in with it.

# Day by day
It's only fair to wait... #

I think that the Eagles
started breaking up

during the recording of
Hotel California.

There were creative tensions, but
there was always tension tensions.

By the time we got to recording
Hotel California,

if the song wasn't good enough to
survive the amount of time

we were working on the record,
it didn't make it on the record.

Perfection is not an accident.

'Our goal was just to be the best
we could be.

'We wanted to get better
as songwriters'

and as performers,
and we worked on it.

Don and I felt like there was
no space now for filler, and

Don Felder, for all of his talents
as a guitar player, is not a singer.

Felder wanted to write more,
sing more, and Felder had kind of

demanded that, "I'm going to sing
two songs on Hotel California."

We were all alphas,

and we were all very assertive
and powerful in our own way.

You could bring in a great
track to Don and Glenn

and be really excited about it.

This happened to Felder.

I wrote the track for
Victim Of Love.

It was going to be a follow-up
song on the Hotel California

record for me to sing.

# Victim of love... #

I have no recollection of anybody
being promised anything.

Victim Of Love was not brought
to the band as a complete song.

It was simply another chord
progression that Don Felder
brought in.

It had no title, no lyrics,
and no melody.

Glenn and I and JD Souther

all sat down
and hammered out the rest of it.

We did let Mr Felder sing it.

He sang it dozens of times over
the span of a week, over and over

and over again.

It simply didn't come up to
band standards.

Victim Of Love had been recorded
with Felder as the lead vocalist,

and my job was to take
Don Felder out to lunch or dinner

while they went in the studio
and put Henley's vocal on it.

# What kind of love
have you got? #

Irving took me out and said that
everybody in the band

thought that it was better
if Don sang that.

And it was a little
bit of a bitter pill to swallow.

I felt like Don was taking
that song from me.

I'd been promised
a song on the next record.

But there was no real way to argue
with my vocal versus

Don Henley's vocal.

There was no way to argue with
anybody's vocal in the band

compared to Don Henley.

Felder demanding to sing that
song would be the equivalent of me

demanding to play lead guitar on
Hotel California.

It just didn't make sense.

If you look at my vocal
participation in the Eagles

over the course of the 1970s,
I sang less and less.

It was intentional.
We had Don Henley.

Don and Glenn's position was, "This
is the best thing for the Eagles."

And Don Felder never forgot that.

# What kind of love have you got? #

Get it! Get it! Run! Run! Run!

Shit!

This is a real healthy thing.

It promotes good feelings,
you know, among...the guys,

and it keeps us
from killing each other.

Where's my glove?
Who's got my glove?

If we can yell at each other
on a baseball field,

then we don't have to yell
at each other when we're working.

Get all my frustrations out.
What frustrations?

I haven't been getting laid.

We try to get out and play softball
with the crew if we have a day off.

Swing, batter! Oh, it's gone,
it's gone. It's gone.

'Something to help release
the tension.'

That's really what
I do to keep from going crazy.

How do you keep from going crazy,
Joe?

Well...

I tell you, I just, uh...

'In the press and the media,
it was presented that we were

'constantly at war, and I can't say
that's exactly the case.

'We were interacting
and we were all intense.

'Glenn said to me one time,'

"I get nuts sometimes
and I'm sorry."

Hey, Joe.

'But that tension
had a lot to do with'

fanning the artistic fire.

Having that dynamic was
important in making the music.

Well, we're rehearsing now,
and before we're even playing

and guys are just noodling around
and getting their amps going

and stuff, we hear Joe go...

..# Do-do-do-do-do. #

You know, and everyone would
kind of go, "What did you play?

"Play that again."

That was an exercise I was doing
because it's a coordination thing.

You know, it's like one
of these deals.

So, I was doing that to warm up,
and they said, "Well, what is that?"

And I said, "Well, that's just
something I have, you know?

There you go.

That's the lick.

That's what we should build
the song around.

I was riding shotgun in a Corvette
with a drug dealer on the way

to a poker game,
and the next thing I knew,

we were going about 90 miles an hour,
holding big time.

I was like, "Hey, man.
What are you doing?"

You know, and he looked at me,
and he grinned.

He goes, "Life in the fast lane."

And I thought, immediately,
"Now, there's a song title."

# Life in the fast lane
Surely make you lose your mind

# Life in the fast lane... #

Then they put out the greatest hits.

There was a period where we sold
a million records

a month for 18 months.

It's a little-known fact that the
Eagles had the biggest-selling

album of the 20th century.

But the music business never ever
got honest of its own volition.

No record company ever went to
an artist and said,

"You've done a great job.

"We're going to increase
your royalties."

So we created our own
promotion company.

We created our own
management company.

We had our own booking agency.

Stop any time.

# Take it to the limit... #

We achieved an amount of success
beyond our wildest imagination,

and Randy really had
trouble with it.

Bam! Bam!

'Randy used to have trouble singing
the high note at the end of
Take It To The Limit.'

# ..Come on and take it to the limit

# One more time

# Take it to the limit... #

Oh, yeah, I was always
kind of scared, basically.

"What if I don't hit it right?"
It was a pretty high note.

And in the middle of the fade,
you crank the volume knob and go,
"What?!"

Randy could do it, but if you made
him do it, "Oh, no, man, I, uh..."

# One more time. #

Thank you. Randy Meisner.

He'd call the road manager and say,

"Tell Glenn I don't want to do
Take It To The Limit any more.

"Take it out of the set."
I confronted him about this.

I called him up, and I said,

"Randy, there's thousands of people
waiting to hear you sing that song.

"You just can't say, 'Fuck them.
I don't feel like it.'

"Do you think I like singing
Take It Easy

"and Peaceful Easy Feeling
every night?

"I'm tired of those songs,

"but there's people in the audience
who've been waiting

"years to see us do those songs."

We just got fed up with that
and just said, "OK, don't sing it.

"Why don't you just quit?
You say you are unhappy, quit."

Randy never knew how great he was.
He wasn't alpha.

Confrontations were really
hard for him.

All I want to see is five guys
happy playing together, you know,

and that's what makes the music.

We were backstage
and the crowd was going wild.

And our encore number was
Take It To The Limit.

People loved that song,
they went crazy when
Randy hit those high notes.

But Randy didn't want to do
the song that night.

He'd been up partying all night
with a couple of girls

and a bottle of vodka, and Glenn
kept trying to talk him into it.

He said, "Man, the people want to
hear that song. You've got to do it."

And Randy kept saying no.

So after about the third or fourth
time that Randy refused, Glenn

just backed up a couple of steps
and said, "Well, fuck you then!"

There were police officers standing
backstage and when they saw us

about to go at it,
they started to move in

and Henley turned right to the cops
and said, "Stay out of this!

"This is personal and it is private,
real fucking private!"

The writing was on the wall
and Randy was going to leave.

There was only one person to ever
replace Randy Meisner in the Eagles

and in my mind it was
Timothy B Schmit.

He replaced him in Poco, and plugged
in and sang the same parts.

And I remember sitting with
Irving and saying, "Irving, I think

"we should get Timothy Schmit."
He said, "Well, I just saw Timothy.

"I was out on the road when the guys
in Poco were in the hotel bar

"and Timothy was smashed
out of his mind, he was jacked up.

"You sure about this?"

I said, "Irving, if you had
been in a band for 11 years

"and you were still making $250
a week working 40 weeks a year,

"maybe you would be a little
smashed up yourself."

They asked me to join their band
before I had even played

a note of music with them.

I just said, you know,
"Where do you want me? When?

"I am definitely in."

We want to introduce you to the
newest member of our band.

He is our new bass player and we got
him from a really fine band, Poco.

Please give a nice Houston, Texas
welcome to Timothy Schmidt.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I went on the road with them
in 1978 as the new guy.

# Your smile is
a thin disguise... #

And I heard a few, "Where is Randy?"
From the audience.

But I knew it was a good
move for them and me.

There were a lot of decisions
business-wise that needed to be made

in a secret session, Glenn and Don
and Irving in the back of the plane.

I didn't like that
I wasn't part of that,

but I knew that it was
good for the Eagles.

Don Felder REALLY did not like it.

Glenn and I saw ourselves as the
leaders of the band

but other people saw us dictators.

You just cannot have five leaders
in a band. It does not work.

People have to do what they do best.

There is all this undercurrent
and resentment and plotting

and complaining and I'm sure
Timothy thought,
"What have I got myself into?"

I was just really happy to be there
and all these tensions, it is

not that I did not feel it,
but I had no idea how deep it was.

In my experience, all rock'n'roll
bands are on the verge of

breaking up at all times.

The band at that point had begun to
split up into factions.

Don Felder, in an effort to gain
more control,
had co-opted Joe Walsh,

so much of the time it was Felder
and Walsh against me and Glenn.

And at that point, even Glenn
and I were beginning to
have our differences.

It was tearing the band apart.

The magic ingredient that made
the band successful was

the relationship between
Don and Glenn.

Through years of touring,
years in the studio, all of that

friction really started driving a
wedge in between that relationship.

It reached a point where we were
just tired of each other.

Tired of the hoopla,
tired of touring,
tired of pretty much everything.

At that point, song-writing was
becoming very difficult.

How much sleep did you guys get?
When did you get finished loading up?

Two o'clock? 5.30.
530 this morning? Yeah. OK.

After the success of
Hotel California -
Grammy winner, mega sales -

top that, and we show up at the
studio and nobody has one song done.

I don't know what
we will do first but...

I had enough of a piece where they
both went "That's great.

"Let's develop that," and I was
really pleased that they wanted to

develop that one because it came out
more as an R&B song.

And it is very simple.

Very simple instrumentation,
very simple arrangement.

There's a lot of air in it.

That's why it works.

# Look at us baby
Up all night

# Tearing our love apart

# Aren't we the same
two people who live... #

About halfway through, Don comes up
to me and says, "There's your hit."

# Every time I try to walk away

# Something makes me
turn around and stay

# And I can't tell you why... #

We are on top of the world. We are
young. We were overdoing everything.

There was a lot of chemical
dependency going on within

the band and that was rough.

During all of that time of writing
and recording The Long Run,

and all the time on the road that
we were on the road doing

The Long Run,
we were all using cocaine.

When we first started snorting coke
it was like a writing tool.

Do a couple of bumps and kind of
get started talking about stuff,

get yourself going and launch
into some sort of idea for a song.

But in the end, cocaine brought out
the worst in everybody.

Yes, this half hour of the show is
brought to you by cocaine,

the makers of hits.

# In the long run

# Ooh, I want to tell you
it's a long run... #

Making that album was excruciating.
We were just completely burned out.

We had driven ourselves really
hard for almost a decade

and we were just fried.

It was long too. I mean, the days
and hours would drag on, it would

feel like we were not
getting anything done.

It was more painful than
Hotel California.

It was more of a painful birth,

because all the stuff was going on
and we were getting pretty frazzled.

And the record company didn't care
if we farted and burped.

They would put that out.
They didn't care.

"When can we have it?" Because that
was their whole corporate quarter.

# Who can go the distance?

# We will find out
in the long run

# In the long run... #

At that point, we inked in
The Long Run as the title.

I think Henley said, "I know what to
call this one. Look at us."

# We can handle
some resistance... #

MUSIC STOPS

Hold it. Stop.

That is it.

Eagles, The Long Run,
song two, take one.

It was a struggle, an endless start,
stop, start, stop.

We called it The Long One.

It was the beginning of the end.

Even though I don't think
I saw it right then.

There were a lot of things
building up

and a lot of things I tried to
overlook for the good of the band,

and ultimately I just couldn't look
past some of this any more.

And it festered because we didn't
talk about these things.

It finally came to a head
in Long Beach.

We were doing
a benefit for Senator Alan Cranston.

He was concerned about a lot of some
of the same issues

we were concerned about,
including environmental destruction

and the war,
so we wanted to support him.

Felder didn't like us doing benefits,

he just thought that was money
that should be going into his pocket.

"Why are we doing it for
Jerry Brown or anti-nukes?"

# Are you willing to sacrifice? #

Alan Cranston and his wife are coming
around to personally thank

every member of the Eagles
for doing this.

I was very uninformed about
politics, I could care less

about politics, I didn't even know
or care who Alan Cranston was.

Senator Cranston went up to Felder
and said,

"I want to thank you," and Felder
looked at the Senator and said,

"You're welcome," and then as he was
turning away he said, "I guess."

"I guess."

"I guess." And Glenn heard it.

And I just...got really mad.

I was drinking a long-necked Bud
and walked into the tuning room

while Walsh and Felder was
and took the beer bottle

and threw it against the wall
and smashed it.

I stormed out.

I got more mad and more mad.
By the time we went on stage,
I was seething.

I wanted to kill Felder.

Thank you again very much
from all the Eagles,

and for Senator Cranston for coming
out here and checking it out.

One, two, three, four.

A lot of tensions between
Glenn and Felder

and the real manifestation of it
came that night.

# Somebody is going to hurt someone
before the night is through... #

So now we are playing the show

and trying to act like everything is
OK and we get through the songs,

and I just keep looking over at him,
"You ungrateful son of a bitch."

# There's going to be
a heartache tonight

# A heartache tonight, I know... #

Just seeing that, I really saw how
serious it was at that show.

They were fighting on stage,
there's audio of it.

You are a real pro, Don, all the way.

Yeah, you are too, the way
you handle people, except for
the people you pay.

Nobody gives a shit about it.

Fuck you, I have been paying
you for seven years, you fuckhead.

So it starts getting towards
the end of the set

and I am looking at him going,
"Three more songs, asshole."

And I am looking at him
and I am ready to go.

I can't wait to get my hands on him.

"When we get off the stage,
I am going to kick your ass."

Fucking kill you. I can't wait.

Whoa! When that kind of stuff is on
stage and you're in front of people,

you've got problems.

Thank you very much.

We got through the show and it just,
all hell broke loose backstage.

When the set ended, he was out ahead
of me, took his cheapest guitar...

..busted it in a million pieces,
jumped into his limousine
and drove off.

And that was it. That was really the
straw that broke the camel's back.

# Well, baby, there you stand... #

Someone wrote the Eagles went out
with a whimper not a bang,

which was true.

# Oh, my God, I can't believe
it is happening again... #

I didn't want to hear it. This was
like my super dream had come true.

# And it looks like the end... #

So I called Glen and I said, "What
is the status? What is going on?

"Is this thing really broken up?"
He said, "Yeah, it is over."

We were beat and it was really
affecting the foundational core,

the soul of the band.
We hit the wall.

You work, work, work,
you get up to a peak

and then it is almost invariably
people head-butt and,
"Whose band is it?"

And, "I am in charge." And, "No,
you are not." And there you go.

# You never thought you'd be alone
this far down the line... #

We had always said that we wanted to
step off the wave just before it

crashed into the beach and we did.

# You're afraid it's all
been wasted time...

# The autumn leaves have got
you thinking... #

The Beatle guys say
they never thought,
McCartney never thought that

band was going to last more than
two years, because no pop band did.

I think it's part of it. It comes
together, it's magic

and it falls apart.

But how cool...
that it even happens at all.

# I could have done
so many things, baby... #

It was magical.

# If I could only stop my mind... #

They wrote a lot of great,
great songs that will be celebrated

and listened to
and loved for a long time.

We managed to represent that
period of time in the '70s,

Southern California, which was
very artistically creative.

I hope that is remembered
like the roaring '20s are, you know?

Our generation and what we did.

# ..You can get on
with your search, baby

# And I can get on with mine

# And maybe some day we will find

# That it wasn't really
wasted time. #

We set out to become a band for
our time, but sometimes

if you do a good enough job,
you become a band for all time.

# One of these nights
One of these crazy old nights

# We're going to find out,
pretty mama... #

A funny thing happened right
when we broke up.

1980 is when the format
"classic rock" hit American radio.

So, even though the band broke up,

they kept playing our songs
all the time.

It was like we never went away.

We were still on the radio.

# Well, I'm a-running down the road
Trying to loosen my load

# I got seven women on my mind... #

Somebody once told me people didn't
just listen to the Eagles.

They did things to the Eagles.

They went on fandangos

and drove across the country with
three of their high-school buddies.

# Take it easy... #

People broke up
with their girlfriends.

# Every time I try to walk away

# Something makes me
turn around and stay...

# Cos I'm al-l-l-lready gone

# And I'm fee-e-e-eling strong... #

People quit their jobs
or changed their lives.

They did things to the Eagles.

# Hey there, how are you?

# It's been a long time... #

Songs from that album have even
been played in outer space.

And they used to pipe the music
up to the space shuttle to wake

the astronauts up in the morning.

'Shortly after having a breakfast
of steak and eggs and toast,

'he then put on his space suit...'

# And heroes,
they come and they go... #

# He was a hard-headed man,
he was brutally handsome

# She was terminally pretty...

# On a dark desert highway

# Cool wind in my hair... #

That song has really gotten around.

# ..Rising up through the air

# Up ahead in the distance

# Saw a shimmering light

# Head grew heavy
and my sight grew dim

# I had to stop for the night... #

There's been a lot
of conjecture about how

and why we got back together.

We began to realise that
we'd been away for 14 years.

Maybe we could have that rarest
of things in American life,

which is a second act.

You know, a second chance.

CHEERING

Thank you.

When we stopped, I was really sad.

Like, "What are we going to do?"

# I sleep all day, out all night

# I know where you're going

# I don't know, you act that way

# You don't think it's showing... #

I was pretty devastated.

I had only been part of it
for barely three years,

and I'd loved it.

# When we're hungry
Love will keep us alive... #

We created this monster, and it
took its toll on all of our lives.

# Maybe some day we will find

# That it wasn't really
wasted time... #

Somebody was quoted as saying
the Eagles would get back together

when hell freezes over.

So, hell froze over.

# Mmm-m-m-mmm mm-mm-mmm. #

WOMAN: We're all ready.
The gentleman in blue over there.

After the acrimony
and the bitterness that marked

the demise of the band, it must
have been a long road to reunion.

Can you just take us through
the steps that you went through

on the road to reunification?

No.

LAUGHTER

SCATTERED APPLAUSE

Anybody want that one?

No, really, it's a fair question.

From the time that
we disbanded in 1980,

there were always offers on the
table for us to get back together.

It started with
the first US Festival,

and Steve Wozniak wanted to pay us
a million dollars.

I said no.

I needed to do something else.

# The heat is on

# It's on the street

# The heat is... on! #

I called my first solo album
No Fun Aloud because I was having

so much fun.

It was so liberating to know
that whatever I did

was going to be more fun than what I
just did for the last three years on

The Long Run album.

I knew I wanted to have a
songwriting partner, so I

asked my friend Jack Tempchin if he
wanted to write some songs together.

And Jack's a very bright guy
lyrically,

and so I started working with him.

He had become a disciplined
co-writer with Don Henley,

and when the Eagles broke up,
he just wanted to let go

and have some fun with music,
you know?

So we were fiddling around with
some grooves, and one of us said,

"You belong to the city."

And then we're going,
"Oh, yeah, yeah. That's it."

# Cos you belong to the city

# You belong to the night... #

You just show up
and good things happen.

# I make my living off
the evening news... #

Henley's solo career was really,
really successful.

Going solo was the scariest
part of my life.

# All she wants to do
is dance, dance... #

The whole MTV thing was a difficult
transition for me to make.

You know, the Eagles, at one point,

had been accused by some
critic of loitering onstage.

So it was difficult for us
loiterers to make

the transition to the world of
choreography and costume and acting.

# She wants to party
She wants to get down... #

Did I benefit from MTV? Yes, I did.

You know, I made a couple of videos
that won some MTV awards.

Nevertheless, I would just as soon
have skipped the whole thing,

because I considered myself,
first and foremost, a songwriter

and a recording artist.

I didn't really want
to be an actor, too.

Nice, huh?

The guy who sold it to me
said it was a lemon.

But I'm telling you,
it may look like a cow,

but she runs like a stallion.

I always like to take a good-bye
look at America.

Just in case it's my last.

I acted in television, in movies.

I wasn't thinking about getting
back together with the Eagles.

The guy's got an attitude problem.

Yeah, well, he listens to me.
I can help you with that.

'Cameron would call me up and say,

'"Glenn, I gotta find somebody
that's not going to take'

"any shit off Tom Cruise,
and I think you're the guy."

We have history, Dennis.

Oh, yeah.
We got history all right, Jerry.

No, no, no. No, no, no. Dennis!
Dennis! Dennis! Don't! Don't!

# Nobody on the road

# Nobody on the beach

# I feel it in the air

# The summer's out of reach... #

I signed Don Henley
to Geffen Records.

Now, you might say,
since the Eagles sued me

at Asylum Records, why he did come
with me at Geffen Records?

Well, David uses the same
pick up lines

every time he comes a-courtin'.

"You know how much
I care about you as an artist.

"You know what a big fan
I am of yours."

And so I bought it a second time
and I signed with him.

And then things started to
fall apart.

I produced several hits, but I could
feel the support somehow waning.

Don got into arguments with them
over things like budgets,

videos, artwork, things like that.

I recall Don starting to write
letters to them

referring to them as
"Nickel and Dime Records".

When you feel like your label
is not supporting you,

it's completely deflating.

I used to call him "Golden Throat".

I thought he was
an incredible singer.

But, by nature, he's a malcontent.
He's always been a malcontent.

And, you know, that's just life.

So I just said one day, "I'm not
going to record for you anymore.

"I'm leaving." And so
he sued me for $30 million.

# Happily ever after fails

# We've been poisoned
by these fairy tales

# The lawyers dwell on
small details... #

My wife has MS,
and they deposed her,

dragged her all the way from Texas

to Los Angeles to sit her down in
front of his attorneys and ask her

a bunch of pointless questions,
because she didn't know anything.

I thought that was really low.

I said to Irving
over the Henley contract,

"I'd sooner die than let
you fuck me.

"You'd better win this case."

It was settled, you know, and that
was the end of that relationship.

# Offer up your best defence

# This is the end...

# This is the end

# Of the innocence. #

I've realised now that we have
adult rock stars.

You don't have to give this up
when you turn 30 or 35 or 40.

I'll always make records and
write songs. I've got to do them.

Otherwise, I'd go nuts.

This is a tune that was written
with my new friend Mike Campbell

and my old friend
John David Souther.

'When the band broke up,

'Glenn started writing songs
with Jack Tempchin.

'I guess the rift between Henley

'and Frey probably spread
to between Frey and me.'

Glenn and I had had some
outrageously fun times together.

And then Don and I
did for a decade or so.

# Been trying to get down
to the heart of the matter

# But my will gets weak
and my thoughts seem to scatter

# But I think it's about forgiveness

# Forgiveness, even if, even if,
you don't love me anymore. #

How have you changed
as musicians over the years,

both as a group and individually?

Well, your whole mandate
is just to improve.

You know, life is about improvement,

whether it's as a musician or
as a singer or as a songwriter or

just, you know, all the other
different hats we all wear.

So, hopefully,
we're just getting better.

We've been doing this quite
a long time now on and off,

and we feel like we've got
it down pretty good.

And, in fact, we've had five
days off, and we're ready to go now.

When the Eagles first broke up,

I wasn't quite sure what
I was going to do with myself.

So I just hustled.

I went just as a singer with Toto,

I played bass for Jimmy Buffett,
I went out with Warren Zevon

and Dan Fogelberg, and stuff
I wouldn't have necessarily done.

I sang on Poison records
and Twisted Sister,

although you'll never see my name.

They never gave me credit.

That was more like yelling.

It's not all going to be the
greatest thing in the world.

But if you can work and support
yourself and your family, it's good.

WOMAN: OK, next question. Gentleman
in the front here, Richard.

What position do you think
rock'n'roll takes now about drugs?

Oooh.

SCATTERED TITTERS

We came from a generation that
experimented with all kinds

of substances, of course.

I think our message is that...
you can be a damn good rock band

without all that stuff.

I'd like to propose a toast to
dedicate this song to you, to us.

The drinking man's musician,
Joe Walsh!

CHEERING

I ended up an alcoholic.

And very fond of cocaine.

If I was awake, I was...

I was doing that stuff.

Good morning, rock fans.

'In the very early years,
it had briefly worked.'

And then you chase it
when it doesn't work anymore.

And I chased it for years and years.

# If you look at your reflection

# In the bottom of the well

# What you see is only on
the surface... #

"Could Hemingway have written
like that if he was sober,

"or could Hendrix have
played like that

"if he didn't experiment
with hallucinogenics?

"Well, probably not."

I used that one for years and years,
and it never occurred to me

that all those people are dead.

They got further
and further away from reality.

Should I look at you or the camera?
Look at me.

I ended up...in bad shape.

# I wanna live with a cinnamon girl

# I could be happy
the rest of my life

# With a cinnamon girl

# A dreamer of pictures
I run in the night... #

'I had hit bottom.'

And I knew that I was done
and that...

..I would probably die
if I kept going.

# Mom, send me money right now
I'm gonna make it somehow

# I need another chance... #

Joe was a mess.

He was around a bunch of people
that were really just enablers.

Nobody wanted to intervene.

Nobody wanted to tell him he had a
drug problem or a drinking problem.

Everybody was just
going along with Joe.

I remember what we all did
when it was an art form, you know?

And I'd like to fight
to get it back to that.

And I was very,
very happy in the Eagles.

I was just going to say I'm sorry
we broke up, but we didn't break up.

We just stopped, I think.

We just said, you know,
"The heck with the '80s."

Song three, take six.

In 1990, we tried to get
together to refuel it.

Everybody was in on that,
but Glenn wasn't involved yet.

Irving got us together - Timothy,
Joe, myself, and Don Henley.

Glenn was supposed to join us
in the studio,

and he was going
to bring some songs in,

and we were going to start
making another record.

So, we started rehearsing,
the four of us, then we got a call,

I think about the third or fourth
day in the studio, saying that

Glenn had refused to come be
part of it, to join the party.

So we just stopped.

He was still, "I'm not doing this."

Well, you know,
to tell you the truth,

I was having a fine time
doing what I was doing.

I mean, there's more to life
than being in the Eagles.

The moment was always
going to be kind of

when Glenn was ready to do it again.

I think Henley would have been
more willing than Glenn.

For me, personally, I think
that I had proved pretty much

everything that I needed to prove
in my solo career.

I had won a couple of Grammys
and had a few hits

and some successful tours.

And I had founded
the Walden Woods Project.

When you're a solo artist,
you have to take responsibility

for everything - every mistake,
every bad record, every sour note.

But when you're in a band,

you get to share the praise
and the blame with your bandmates.

So, I was OK with
the notion of maybe going back

and being in a band again.

The thing that sort of turned my head

was the release of the
Common Thread album.

Irving and Don went to Nashville

and they talked a bunch of people
into recording some Eagles songs,

with the royalties going
to the Walden Woods Project.

# Well, I'm a-running down the road
trying to loosen my load... #

I don't know who asked me,
but they said,

"Travis Tritt's going to do
a video of Take It Easy

"and he wants to know
if you guys will be in the video."

I said, "Well, OK."

# Take it easy

# Take it easy... #

Never really talked to Travis
about whose idea it was.

I think Irving probably had
a hand in that whole thing.

Was I trying to put the band back
together by doing Common Thread?

No.

Was I waiting for the moment? Yeah.

# ..Understand,
just find a place to make your stand

# Take it easy... #

In the Travis Tritt video, there
was a little bandstand scene

and we all picked up our
instruments and started playing.

I was thinking, "Guys, come on!"
You know?

'You know, it's interesting -
after years pass, you know,

'you really sort of remember
that you were friends first.

'You have a lot of common
history together

'and a lot of shared experiences.'

I remembered mostly the good stuff.

I didn't really
think about the bad stuff.

I just remembered how much
we genuinely had liked each other

and how much fun we'd had.

We realised, after the success
of the Common Thread album

that there were still
a lot of people out there -

a whole lot of people -
who wanted to see us play again.

You know, sometimes there's
a little bit of serendipity

involved in this, and I think what
happened is everybody's life

started to line up in a way that
now it made sense for all of us.

And we discussed it.

Joe and Don came up and sat in
at a benefit that I did in Aspen.

'We had a meeting in Aspen.'

I was one of the first guys
that they wanted to try it out on.

You know, Joe was buzzed.
It was 1.00 in the afternoon.

You know, and he would say,
"Hey, I'm there, man. I'm fine.

"Don't worry about me."

But Don and I could both tell that
he wasn't fine, and we were worried.

They said what they wanted to do.

They wanted to try it,
get back together again.

They didn't know what I would say,
but I said,

"I understand,
and, yeah, I can get sober."

# Somewhere along the way
I found the meaning

# Woke up dreaming

# Along the way

# Never quite seems the same
when you awaken

# And making up for the time
is such a price to pay

# Then they take the dream away
and it just ain't fair... #

We had to get Joe into some
sort of rehab,

and we couldn't be sure
it was going to work.

So we'd better have Felder.

The Eagles reunion had better have
at least one of the two of them,

and hopefully both.

Irving called me up
and said that Don and Glenn

and Joe had gotten together,
and they were talking about doing

something, and would
I be interested in doing it?

I said, "Absolutely."

One thing led to another,
and finally Irving

and Don Felder picked him up
and drove him to rehab.

I made a commitment to them
that I would clean up...

..and that I would be in the band...

..if that's what they wanted to do.

# So help me through the night

# Help me to ease the pain... #

I'm really, really grateful
to those three guys...

# Tell me it's all right... #

..because I had...
a really good reason to get sober.

And as soon as I got sober,
we started rehearsals.

# He was a hard-headed man
He was brutally handsome

# She was terminally pretty

# She held him up,
and he held her for ransom

# In the heart of the cold, cold city

# He had a nasty
reputation as a cruel dude

# They said he was ruthless,
they said he was crude... #

From that first phone call
from Irving

to showing up on a rehearsal stage
to start putting together

a show for MTV was only
a matter of weeks, if not a month.

# Life in the fast lane
Surely make you lose your mind... #

'It was a little scary
rehearsing for the MTV thing.

'Normally, I think people would
have their act down a few weeks,

'at least, before entering
into something like that,

'but we just dove in headfirst.'

'Well, even though
we had rehearsed really well,

'for the first time to walk out
on stage and actually

'play as a band in public and kind of
put the key back into the ignition

'and turn it over for the first time,
it was really a lot of nerves.'

Are we going the right way? Glenn.

'Not having played as a group
in 14 years, the first night,

'there was a lot of terror.'

Gentlemen, good to be with ya.
Hope I'm with ya all night!

LAUGHTER

Have a good one, OK? OK.
Showtime! Showtime! Showtime!

CHEERING

'The audience was very kind,
and they were with us.

'And that was good,
but it was rough.'

# Just another day in paradise

# You stumble to your bed

# You'd give anything to silence

# Those voices ringing in your head

# You thought you could
find happiness

# Just over that green hill

# You thought you would be satisfied

# But you never will. #

'Even when we went onstage,
we were definitely a little tight.

'Until, I think,
Henley forgot the words

'to one of the new songs...'

You want to start again?

I'll tell you what.

This is television, so
we get to do this till we're happy.

I thought... Now, I thought you
didn't remember the third verse.

That was only the second verse!
I know.

I know the third verse.

'That was sort of the icebreaker,
though.

'That was a good thing, ultimately.'

I feel like Tommy Smothers.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

We didn't think getting back
together was quite as legitimate

unless we had some new material,

so we're going to put forth several
new songs for you this evening.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

This first one Timothy B Schmit
is going to sing for you.

This is called
Love Will Keep Us Alive.

# I was standing

# All alone against the world outside

# You were searching

# For a place to hide

# Lost and lonely

# Now you've given me
the will to survive

# When we're hungry,
love will keep us alive... #

After selling 100 million records
worldwide, was it real pressure

on you to write the new material
for the Hell Freezes Over album?

We didn't really look at it
as a body of new work.

It was more of a retrospective
piece of material.

And we look forward to writing some
new material, perhaps in the future.

We can't keep recycling
this material,

although it seems to be
working just fine.

LAUGHTER

Don and I were trying to figure out
how to write another song,

and, I mean, really, if we could.

We hadn't written anything
together since, like, '78.

So it was a little awkward at first,
just getting back into the groove.

Yeah. So, we go, one...

OK, here we are
starting out at one, two...

During The Long Run album,

there were a lot of sessions with
Don and I where nothing got done.

We were both a little bit
reticent to introduce

our ideas for fear
that they weren't good enough.

So when we sat down to do it
again in '94, my first worry was,

"Is it going to be as hard
as it was in 1978?"

We were sitting around, "What are
we going to write about?" and stuff.

And he said, "Well, I've got this
one title, Get Over It."

And he sort of proceeded to tell me
what it was that was

pissing him off -
all these people going on television

and everything that's wrong
with them is somebody else's fault.

"I'm just sick of all this whining,

"and so I'm going to write a song
called Get Over It."

The intro, straight Chuck Berry.
Never play a seventh, right?

So, then I said, "I think

"maybe a Chuck Berry riff would be
a good way to tell that story."

Time out.
Do you want to play the...?

You want to do it on slide?

And then Felder and I will just
play power chords low and high.

And those guys will play
Chuck Berry low and high.

And we can do # Get over it. #

A couple little of them
slide answer licks is cool.

My favourite thing is when Don
and Glenn co-write stuff.

I like to play guitar to that.

You want me to sing it, or do
you want to wait? It's ten to six.

You can sing it
at ten to six or five to six.

Do it again? Yeah,
we'll do it twice.

Yeah, you could write it
in to the mic.

LAUGHTER

Captioned for hard of hearing.

'It was really liberating.'

We both walked out of the session
and went, "God, we can still do it.

"I can't believe it.
We just wrote a song together.

"Maybe we can write some more."

# Turn on the tube and what do I see?

# A whole lotta people crying,
"Don't blame me"... #

That was a really good feeling.

It was a great sort of artistic
reconciliation for us

to have been able to sit down
and write that song together.

# Get over it!

# Get over it!

# All this bitching and moaning
and pitching a fit

# Get over it! Get over it! #

Get over it!

APPLAUSE

We did Hell Freezes Over, and
then we went out on the road.

That was the question
on everyone's mind -

what if we got back together,
and no one showed up?

# What kind of love have you got?

# You should be home but you're not

# A room full of noise
and dangerous boys

# Still make you thirsty
and hot... #

'We set it up to be
a three-month reunion.

'I went back to my wife, and
I had two young kids at the time.'

I said, "I don't know
if you're going to recognise me.

"I don't know what this is
going to do to me.

"But I hope I don't change too much.
Hang in there with me."

# Tell all your girlfriends

# Your "been around the world"
friends

# Talk is for losers and fools

# Victim of love,
I see a broken heart

# I could be wrong but I'm not

# Victim of love,
we're not so far apart

# What kind of love have you got? #

I was on the side of the stage
once at one of their shows

when they first got back together,
and Jack Nicholson was

euphoric listening to this band
play again, you know?

And he said... "Repertoire."

What do you want to hear?

# One of these nights

ALL: # One of these
crazy old nights! #

# One of these nights... #

We didn't know how many people
were going to show up for us

to reunite,
but people came out in droves.

# Somebody's gonna hurt someone

# Before the night is through... #

We were sold out everywhere.

Audiences were having
a fabulous time.

We were having a good time, too.

# There's gonna be
a heartache tonight

# A heartache tonight, I know

# Gonna be a heartache tonight

# A heartache tonight, I know

# Oh, I know. #

Heartache, baby!

I listened to the guys,
and Joe Walsh, for example,

is playing better and singing better
than I've ever heard him

play in his life
since I've known him.

# Hi there, how are ya?

# It's been a long time

I didn't have time to
really sit around

and miss alcohol or cold turkey
for more cocaine or anything.

And I had to go in front of people

and play and sing sober,

which I hated, at first.

Ooh, that was scary.

# Why do we give up
our hearts to the past?

# Yeah

# And why must we grow up so fast?

# Oooh-oooh ooh-h

# And all you wishing well fools
with your fortunes

# Someone should send you a rose

# With love from a friend

# Nice to hear from you again

# And the storybook comes to a close

# Gone are the ribbons and bows

# Things to remember, places to go

# Pretty maids all in a row

# All in a row. #

When Joe first got out of rehab
and we started rehearsing,

he was still pretty dark.

But over the course of that
first year getting sober, I think

he found happiness again.

He found a way to be happy.

You look very pretty.

It's OK. Once more.
Oh, now, are you ready?

Father, daughter, take one.

We got that family thing
to ground us all now.

It's really sort of our common
thread. We've all got kids.

It changes your life and your
perspective on your work, as well.

So, the tour was so enormously
successful that we sort of

didn't want to give that up,
you know?

It's like, "OK, this is good.
I could do this for a while."

# Harry got up

# Dressed all in black

# Went down to the station

# And he never came back

# They found his clothing

# Scattered somewhere down the track

# And he won't be down on
Wall Street in the morning

# In a New York minute

# Ooh-h-h-h

# Everything can change
In a New York minute

# Ooh-h-h-h

# Things can get pretty strange... #

Doing a concert is a strange
combination of conscious

and subconscious acts.

You're not really
thinking about what you're doing

because you know it so well,
you're just doing it.

On the other hand, you have
to put some emotion into it.

When you've got a crowd
that's cheering you on,

doesn't matter how many times you've
sung the song. You just do it.

# Lying in the darkness

# Hear the sirens wail

# Somebody's going to emergency

# Somebody's going to jail

# If you find somebody to
love in this world

# You better hang on tooth and nail

# The wolf is always at the door

# In a New York minute

# Ooh-ohh-ohh

# Everything can change
In a New York minute

# Ooh-ohh-ohh

# Things can get a little strange
In a New York minute

# Ooh-ohh-ohh... #

We've played all over the world,
and, probably,

if we could write the script,
it was probably a genius move.

Cos when we come back,
it's bigger than ever.

How much money do you expect
to gross with this European tour?

Irving?

I actually haven't added it up, but
I will tell you that... Good answer.

LAUGHTER

One thing, the costs of being
a touring rock'n'roll band

in Europe are beyond our
wildest imaginations, but this

band is here in Europe because
there was demand for us to be here.

And it's not nearly as lucrative
as anything we've done before.

It isn't?

LAUGHTER

Offers started coming in for us
to do more shows,

and I just sort of said,
"Well, book some more.

"It doesn't have to end now.
Book some more.

"Where else can we play?"
"Well, you haven't been in Europe."

"Well, let's go there."

# Well, I heard some people talking
just the other day

# And they said you were gonna
put me on a shelf

# Let me tell you
I got some news for you

# And you'll soon find out it's true

# Then you'll have to eat your lunch
all by yourself

# Cos I'm al-l-l-lready gone

# And I'm fee-e-eling strong

# I will si-i-i-ng
this victory song... #

How's it go?

# Hoo-hoo-hoo! My, my, hoo-hoo-hoo

GUITAR SOLO

# Well, I know it wasn't
you who held me down... #

'We had drawn a
line in the sand and said,'

"No drugs or alcohol during any
band activities."

And, as a result, we're playing
and singing pretty damn good.

# So often times it happens that we
live our lives in chains... #

'I think the thing that brings them
together is the harmony.'

When they start hearing that and how
seamless and how perfect, they

get as thrilled as the audiences do,
that, "We can still do this."

THEY HARMONISE

# Ooh-ooh-ooh

# Ooh-ooh-ooh... #

We can't really understand it.
It's just the chemistry that works.

And we gave up trying to
understand it. It just works.

We're just going to do one verse
of New Kid.

One verse of New Kid. OK.
Joe's singing Smuggler's Blues.

OK. I'll just do
the beginning of Funk 49.

And then I'm going to go pee.
Yeah. Then I'll go pee.

One, two, three.

CHEERING

# Well, I'm a-running down the road
trying to loosen my load

# I got seven women on my mind

# Four that want to own me,
two that want to stone me

# One says she's a friend of mine

# Take it easy

# Take it easy

# Don't let the sound of your own
wheels drive you crazy

# Lighten up while you still can

# Don't even try to understand

# Just find a place to
make your stand

# And take it easy

# Well, I'm a-standing on a corner
in Winslow, Arizona

# Such a fine sight to see

# It's a girl, my Lord,
in a flat-bed Ford

# Slowin' down to take a look at me

# Well, come on, baby

# Don't say maybe

# I've gotta know
if your sweet love is gonna save me

# We may lose and we may win

# Though we will never be here again

# So open up, I'm climbing in

# So take it easy... #

All right, boys!

'We ended up going all around
the world in about two years

'and nine months.'

# Well, you know we got it ea-a-a-asy

# We oughta take it ea-a-a-a-asy. #

Thank you, Dublin!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

We've learned not to make career
decisions at the end of long tours.

If we break up again, though,
you won't hear about it.

We'll just go quietly. And we'll say
we're still together. Yeah!

LAUGHTER

They've laughed, cried, fought,
but, most of all,

they have beaten the odds
and are as popular today

as they were in that
incredible summer back in 1972.

It is an honour and a pleasure
to introduce the Eagles.

APPLAUSE

A lot has been talked about
and speculated about over

the last 27 years about
whether or not we got along.

We got along fine.
We just disagreed a lot.

I was not in the trenches with
this particular band,

so I'd like to thank my predecessor,
Randy Meisner, for being there.

'I'm glad that Randy
and Bernie got recognised.'

I think that's appropriate.

Hey, how you doin'?

It's a good feeling.
Looks good on my resume.

HE CHUCKLES

I'd really like to thank Don
and Glenn for writing those songs.

Thank you, guys. It makes my job
real easy. Thank you!

APPLAUSE

Charming outfit, Joe.

I'd like to, again,

thank Don Henley and Glenn Frey for
writing an incredible body of work

that's propelled this band through
20-some-odd years' worth of life.

Thank you, guys.

When a kid first picks up
a guitar or a drumstick,

it's not really to be famous.

It's because that kid
wants to fit in somewhere,

he wants to be accepted,
and he wants to be understood, even.

And so, I like to think of this
award as something that is

acknowledging us not for being
famous, but for doing the work.

And I appreciate all the work that
all these guys behind me have done.

I want to thank Irving Azoff,

without whom
we wouldn't be here today.

APPLAUSE

As I've said before, he may be
Satan, but he's our Satan.

We're in a dog-eat-dog business.

Show me anybody that's going to be
responsible for guiding or

managing an artist's career
that's made too many friends,

and I'm going to show you somebody

that's sold out their artist
and done a crappy job.

So, I was quite proud of Henley's
reference of what he said.

It was more or less, for me,
a validation of a job well done.

A lot of my job was trying to keep
the band from breaking up.

In the '70s, we formed a corporation
called Eagles, Limited.

And that was all-for-one
and one-for-all.

Well, it wasn't
the three musketeers.

As our friend JD Souther used to
say, "Time passes, things change."

In talking with Irving about
putting the Eagles back

together in 1994, I said,
"Irving, I'm not going to do it

"unless Don and I make more money
than the other guys."

"We're the only guys
who have done anything

"career-wise in the last 14 years.

"We're the guys that have kept
the Eagles' name alive on radio,

"television and in concert halls."

So we came up with a deal
that I was happy with,

and Don was happy with,
Timothy was happy with,

Joe was happy with, and
Don Felder was not happy with.

And I called Felder's
representative.

And I said, "Hello, Barry.
This is Glenn Frey.

"I'm sorry you happen to represent
the only asshole in the band,

"but let me tell you something.

"You either sign this agreement
before the sun goes down today,

"or we're replacing Don Felder.

"That's the final deal.

"He signs by sunset,
or he's out of the fucking band."

Hung up.

So, he signed the deal,
and we started out on the tour.

I didn't sense a great deal
of camaraderie.

You hardly saw anybody

if it wasn't walking on the plane
or walking onto the stage.

Everyone thought,
"Well, if we don't get together,

"we won't have problems."

And I think instead of being able to
sit down and have a beer and talk

about stuff and renew a relationship
with everyone, that independent

isolation really didn't add the
comfort necessary to make it work.

Don Felder was never, ever
satisfied, never, ever happy.

A rock band is not
a perfect democracy.

It's more like a sports team.

No one can do anything
without the other guys,

but everybody doesn't get to touch
the ball all the time.

Time went on, and time went on, and
Felder became more and more unhappy.

Couldn't appreciate
the amount of money he was making,

more concerned about how much money
I was making.

If Don Felder really
thought about it,

it really was he wanted it to be
a "band" band in the purest

sense of the words, you know, we're
all going to get equal songwriting,

singing, expression stuff,
and this was not a hippie commune.

You know, and everything for them

really goes back to those
two words - song power.

We finally made the decision that we
won't be working with him anymore.

It just broke my heart.
It's not just playing with Joe.

I miss these guys.

But I really missed
the friendship and the music.

OK.

Glenn and I, when it comes time
to make band decisions,

usually stick together.

It's difficult for four or five
people to have an equal say.

Here we are 40 years later,
and we're doing OK.

We're one of the few bands
that can say that.

The novelty of the Eagles being back
together and those few new songs

that we had on the Hell Freezes Over
album is one thing.

But we needed to make a record.

Considering that we haven't made
a record in so long,

we spent a good two-and-a-half years
making Long Road Out Of Eden.

We finally figured out that
we just needed to do what we do.

This really goes back to
the essence of what we do best,

which is singing and songwriting.

A lot of harmony
singing on this album.

ALL: # There's a hole
in the world tonight

# Don't let there be a hole
in the world tomorrow... #

Big tragedies like that make you
think, as a parent,

what kind of world is coming up?

What's going to happen next?

What's the world going to be like
when my kids are grown?

After September 11th,
our immediate visceral reaction,

our gut reaction,
resulted in Hole In The World.

# Don't let there be a hole
in the world tomorrow... #

The Eagles have written
and sung plenty of love songs

over the years, but we've also
written and sung songs

that have to do with
what's going on in the wider world.

We've never shied away
from social commentary.

We think it's part of a rich
tradition that dates all

the way back to medieval times.

And so we still engage in it.

# No more walks in the wood

# The trees have all been cut down

# And where once they stood

# Not even a wagon rut
appears along the path... #

The writings and the ideas
of Henry David Thoreau

and Ralph Waldo Emerson
had a huge impact on me.

They got me through some
very difficult times in my life,

one being when my father was
stricken with heart disease,

and provided a lot of spiritual
support for me.

When I found out in 1980 that
part of Walden was going to be

destroyed by commercial development,

I decided that was something
I needed to help fight.

So I ended up founding
the Walden Woods Project.

And we are in our 27th year now,
and we've accomplished a great deal.

It's been one of the most rewarding
things that I've ever done.

# We and the trees and the way

# Back from the fields of play... #

The lyrics to that song were
originally a poem

written by a great American poet
named John Hollander.

# No more walks in the wood. #

Don had this title,
Long Road Out Of Eden.

Timothy goes over,
and he picks up an acoustic guitar.

And I go over to the keyboards
and Joe grabs a guitar

and Don goes on the drums.

And we start making up
this sort of musical story called

Long Road Out Of Eden,
a story of, really, the war in Iraq.

# Moon shining down through the palms

# Shadows moving on the sand... #

And it was, like, the last resort.

It was another opus,
another David Lean movie.

# And it's a long road out of Eden. #

We finally got through,

and we finally made
Long Road Out Of Eden.

And we didn't give it to
a record company.

We made a deal with Walmart.

This was the first major artist
to do a direct-to-retail release

and bypass the major record
companies.

It was phenomenally successful.

The album entered at number one.

It gave, I think, the whole industry
hope that it could find a new

and different way to reach its fans.

They're becoming a much
greener company,

and that was important to me.

And the other good thing was that
our fans got 20 songs for 12 bucks.

It was basically a double album, and
they weren't charged double for it.

Don said, "I got a title for
a song - Busy Being Fabulous."

And I thought, "What a great title."

# I came home to an empty house

# And I found your little note... #

And then Don wrote,
"Don't wait up for me tonight,

"that was all she wrote."

# Don't wait up for me tonight

# And that was all she wrote... #

And then we were off on the story.

# You were just too busy
being fabulous

# Too busy to think about us... #

Busy Being Fabulous,
Don and Glenn had gotten it

to a certain state, and I came up
with some stuff for the bridge

and tweaked what already existed.

I was very involved
in the Long Road record.

I've always been a lot happier
getting into the entire project,

arranging stuff, producing
the stuff, co-writing the stuff.

Like, Waiting In The Weeds
and Business As Usual

were co-writes with Don.

Getting Steuart Smith in the band
was a real shot in the arm.

He's such a terrific musician.

It's a great solo.

It's like stepping
into a space suit.

It is strange
to be playing that song.

The reaction is terrific,
and you bask in that excitement.

But I didn't write it.

I'm one part hired gun,
but also one part collaborator.

I'm one of the guitar players.
But I'm not an Eagle.

I don't know what it's like to be
one of those guys.

Three, four!

My kids were
looking on the Internet,

and they found this show
that the Eagles had done in 1974.

I was in my office watching TV,
and my kids come in and say,

"Hey, Dad, come here.

"You got to take
a look at your hair."

And one of the songs was How Long.

# But if I never see
the good old days

# Shining in the sun

# I'll be doing fine and then some

# Tell me how long... #

How Long
was from my first solo album.

They found that cos Cindy saw
it on YouTube and said,

"Glenn, what's this?"

And he said,
"Oh, it's a song of JD's."

She said, "Well,
you didn't cut it, did you?"

# How long, how long
Rock yourself to sleep

GUITAR SOLO

JD wanted it on his solo album,
so we never recorded it.

My wife said, "Hey,
that sounds like a hit Eagles song."

# Everybody feels all right you know
I heard some poor fool say

# Somebody

# Everyone is out there on the loose

# Well, I wish I lived in the land
of fools, and no one knew my name

# But what you get is not
quite what you choose

# Tell me, how long, how long

# Woman will you weep? #

They are the American band.

Yeah, they pretty much encompassed
the '70s, didn't they?

And took it all in.

That's a long time to
still have a musical impact,

and it's due to this incredibly
crisp, tight,

extraordinarily good record-making
band and the presence of good songs.

But it's also now
taken on this other thing, too,

where it's everybody through
the band wants to remember a

'70s that they may or may
not have had.

# Good night, baby,
rock yourself to sleep

# Sleep tight, baby,
rock yourself to sleep

# B-B-B-Bye-bye, baby,
rock yourself to slee-e-e-ep. #

This band could go play
stadiums all over the country,

and people know these songs
so intimately.

They last. The songs last.

I have one small plaque on my wall.

It says, "Presented to the Eagles
to commemorate the best-selling

"album of the 20th century,

"with sales in excess
of 26 million units."

That century's gone,
so nobody's going to top that.

What's it like to be an Eagle now?

It's just part of my life.
I do normal things.

I go to the market, and once in
a while, somebody comes up to me.

I don't walk around being an Eagle.

I'm an Eagle
when it's time for me to be.

I made sure the dishes were done
before you guys came today.

You know?

# He was a hard-headed man

# And he was brutally handsome

# She was terminally pretty

# She held him up
and he held her for ransom

# In the heart of the cold, cold city

# He had a nasty
reputation as a cruel dude

# They said he was ruthless,
they said he was crude

# They had one thing in common,
they were good in bed

# She'd say, "Faster, faster,
the lights are turnin' red"

# Life in the fast lane

# Surely make you lose your mind

# Life in the fast lane... #

I love everybody
in the band like a brother.

To be part of a real band -

a REAL band -

is something that not all musicians
get to do in their life.

And I'm real lucky to have that
chapter in my book.

Rock'n'roll saved my life.
It changed my life tremendously.

And as Mick Jagger so famously
and eloquently said,

"It's only rock'n'roll,
but I like it."

I think that one of the reasons
that Glenn and I

wanted to write songs is because
rock'n'roll music got us

through junior high and through
high school and those difficult

times when you're searching
for your identity

and wondering who the heck you are,

trying to get girls to notice you,
and wondering why

the football players are doing
so much better than you are.

At the end of the day,
it was and still is about the music.

# You know, I've always been
a dreamer... #

I regret that I didn't handle
some of the adversity

that the Eagles faced
in the late '70s better.

Fortunately, for me,

I've had another chance to be
the leader of the Eagles, another

chance to be Don's partner and do
this work again and play this music.

And in this second run, I think
I've done a pretty good job

of keeping the peace and keep the
band together, keep everybody happy.

So here we are.

Still doing it.

# You gotta take it to the limit

# One more time. #

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Thank you.

That's it! That's it!

Bye-bye.

'We wanted longevity.

'It wasn't a hobby for us.
It wasn't a game.

'It wasn't a pleasant diversion.
It was a life.

'It was a calling. It was a career.'

It was worth it.

We went to China last year.

We're still breaking
new ground 40 years later.

Back in the late '70s,

Neil Young sang a song
about the emerging punk ethic.

And the pivotal line
in that song was,

"It's better to burn out
than it is to rust."

And I'm not sure that even
Neil himself

subscribed to that sentiment,
but I don't see rust as a bad thing.

I have an old 1962 John Deere
tractor that's covered with rust,

but it runs like a top.

You know, the inner
workings are just fine.

# You better let somebody love you

# Let somebody love you

# You better let somebody love... #

'To me, that rust symbolises
all the miles driven

'and all the good work done
and all the experiences gained.'

# Before it's too-o-o-o

# Late. #

CHEERING

'From where I sit,
the rust looks pretty good.'

When somebody is around 40 years,
it means they've got something,

something that people want.
And the Eagles have that.

To me, the Eagles
really expressed a mood.

California was the place of dreams.

It was a time of limitless
possibilities.

I think they were a defining moment
in the rock'n'roll world

that I love.

You couldn't really love the Eagles
music and be an Eagles fan

and actually know them and not
aspire to greatness yourself.

I'm not really into legacies. People
talk to me, "What's your legacy?"

I'm here now.

I'm doing what I want to do, and
I'm trying to make stuff happen.

I see the Eagles in the same way.

They're not in the '70s.

They're in 2012 and 2013.

And whatever they're doing now
artistically,

that's what's important.

# In the long run
In the long run

# We can handle some resistance
If our love is a strong one

# Is a strong one

# People talkin' about us
They got nothin' else to do

# When it all comes down
we will still come through

# In the long run
Ooh, I want to tell you

# It's a long run

# You know I don't understand
why you don't treat yourself better

# Do the crazy things that you do

# Cos all the debutantes... #

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