(Credits: Far Out / Album Cover)
Mon 23 March 2026 0:30, UK
Most people would argue that the 20th century was the decade that truly gave birth to what we regard as the modern songwriter, and while there are plenty who can lay claim to having been one of the greatest of this period, the advent of rock and pop music as a marketable phenomenon means there is an incredible wealth to choose from.
Given their status as one of the best-selling rock bands of all time, you could certainly argue that the Eagles’ two leading songwriters, Don Henley and Glenn Frey, are amongst the greatest of their generation, and indeed of the entire century. There are plenty who would disagree with this sentiment as well, given how divisive their brand of soft rock has proven to be, but there’s a significant fanbase who are unwavering in their belief that they’re more important than any others.
They’re certainly two of the most influential songwriters, and the fact that their prominence is still felt to this day is a great indication of how much they did to help sculpt the landscape of rock music throughout their original run in the 1970s. Whether or not modern rock outfits realise it, there are probably aspects of their work that reference the work of Henley and Frey, and that goes a long way towards solidifying their claim as all-time greats.
They came to the wider attention of the public in the mid-1970s, and one of the earliest examples of a song showcasing their songwriting supremacy was ‘Desperado’, despite it not having been released as a single in 1973. However, the song’s main inspiration wasn’t from anything contemporary, and during a 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, Henley professed that the main influence for the song came from an icon of the previous century.
Claiming that it was one of the first songs where he and Frey had written in isolation from the rest of the band, Henley supposedly pulled out a chord progression that he’d been holding on to for almost a decade, and that it vaguely resembled the works of a man named Stephen Foster, a man who was called “the most famous songwriter of the 19th century”, and whose prolific output earned him the title of the ‘Father of American Music’.
While few people talk about the work of Foster now, the impression that he made on Henley was clearly substantial, and with a lot of his compositions having been prominent in early education in the US, he’d hung onto the impact of these songs since his childhood, when his grandmother was singing them to him.
“She would sit in her rocking chair and sing them, day in and day out,” he recalled, before reeling off several of his songs that have seemingly lived on in American history. “Such classics as ‘Oh! Susanna,’ ‘My Old Kentucky Home’ (the official state song of Kentucky), ‘Old Folks at Home’ (aka‘Swanee River,’ the official state song of Florida) and ‘Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair’.”
While his songs are still clearly a part of American culture and the fabric of modern life, Henley also suggested that Foster’s tragic life and early death meant that he wasn’t as well-known in the modern age, claiming that when he died at the age of 37 in 1864, “he had 38 cents in his pocket.”
It’s quite remarkable that these songs lived on to such a degree and that they were passed down, but that’s the very nature of folk music, and is testament to how powerful it can be. For Henley to have held onto this since his early childhood and used their influence to write some of the Eagles’ most popular and powerful material only goes to show just how timeless his works are.
