(Credits: Alamy)
Tue 10 March 2026 15:03, UK
They might be the only band with two separate records in the ten best-selling albums of all time, but Don Henley feels somewhat aggrieved with how the Eagles have been received.
That’s one paradox of many that the band personify. They are one of the biggest groups in history, yet at the height of their era-defining fame, they claimed they could walk down the street unnoticed. Their biggest hit, ‘Hotel California’, is loved all over the world, yet nobody knows what it means.
These strange contradictions are everywhere you look in the band’s history. They’re not even called the Eagles. So, it’s not all that surprising that the track Henley thinks may well be the most sorely skimmed-over anthem in their back catalogue is also still routinely played on soft rock radio to this very day. Can a track on a record that has sold well over four million copies really be said to be overlooked?
Well, Henley certainly thinks that is the case when it comes to ‘After the Thrill is Gone‘. The group favoured ‘One of These Nights’, ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ and ‘Take It to the Limit’ as lead single from their 1975 record One of These Nights. Perhaps they were proved right by the fact that each of those three leading picks went on to crack the top ten in the singles chart and solidified the band’s position as the biggest American group of the moment.
However, this left Henley with a soft spot for ‘After the Thrill is Gone’, a track that was rendered a bridesmaid when he thinks it should have been proudly on the alter with the band’s best. Discussing the song’s fortune with Cameron Crowe, Henley mused that it may well be their most underrated, claiming that it was an “overlooked song”.
(Credits: Far Out / Asylum Records)
The “very good” track captures the band operating as they always intended back when the likes of Poco and The Beach Boys-inspired them. “It’s me and Glenn, working together,” he told Crowe. “He did the verses with a little help from me. I did the bridge. As exciting as the whole Eagles thing was at times, some of the luster was beginning to wear off.”
But with ‘After the Thrill is Gone’, they transfigured that fading disposition into a fitting work of art. “We were combining our personal and professional lives in song,” Henley said. In many ways, that makes it the track that gives us the clearest picture of the band in this phase.
The tesselated craftsmanship of Henley and Frey working together helped to embody the band at their best. They had always wanted to be “a musical mutt with influences from every genre of American popular music.”
And with ‘After the Thrill is Gone’, which fittingly took its cue from BB King’s ‘The Thrill is Gone’, stretching the blues into new realms, they achieved this sophisticated blend. “It’s all in there, and it’s fairly obvious.” In fact, while it might be usually typified as ‘soft rock’ and ‘countrified’ in its approach, musically they rarely got closer to the roots of rock ‘n’ roll.
So, it’s no surprise that Glenn Frey is in firm agreement with its supposed “overlooked” status. “It’s a sleeper,” he concurred. “That record is a lot of self-examination, hopefully not too much. There was a lot of double meaning and a lot of irony. ‘Any kind of love without passion/Well, that ain’t no kind of lovin’ at all’ – pure Henley,” he said, reflecting on the poetry that abounded in their mix, too.
So, what inspired ‘After the Thrill is Gone’?
Once, like everything with the Eagles, the meanings and inspirations were myriad. Aside from using the touchstone of BB King’s blues classic as a signpost to all the genres swirled into their sound, it was also a commentary on the end of the counterculture. As Henley states in the History of the Eagles: “On just about every album we made, there was some kind of commentary on the music business, and on American culture in general.”
1975 was a time trapped between eras, awash with the sense that the ’60s was a renaissance period that sadly fizzled out without realising the change it aspired to bring. But the thrill was waiting personally, too. “As exciting as the whole Eagles thing was at times, some of the lustre was beginning to wear off,” Henley explained. “We were combining our personal and professional lives in song.”
So, while it might not be overlooked in the sense that it has still received its fair share of airtime, it is among the group’s most defining anthems. And it’s revered by firmer fans for tapping into everything they stood for. Whether the masses have reconciled that is another matter. But the Eagles and their closest allies certainly have. Yet, as I said, they’re still full of contradictions even on this front given that they’ve only played this “overlooked” gem a measly 11 times live. Go figure.