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Sun 13 September 2026 20:15, UK
Don Henley never apologised once for wearing his country’s sound on his sleeve.
Eagles represented everything great about Americana music, and even though they got the reputation of being the world’s greatest country rock outfit, there was so much more that the band had to offer, other than a bunch of rock and roll tunes that had a bit of a twang to them. They were capable of doing a lot of other things, but the country sound never quite gets old once you have a few more miles under your belt.
But for a long stretch in the 1970s, Henley seemed to have a bit of a chip on his shoulder about the country rock label. He felt good about carrying on the tradition of bands like The Byrds whenever he played any number of his songs, but there were just as many moments throughout his career where he wasn’t afraid to make tunes that sounded closer to R&B and maybe fool around with a disco groove here and there.
There were no rules for where they could go, and Hotel California was the first time that really felt true. The country music was much more muted that time around, and with Joe Walsh in the band, they were going to kick some ass in a way that they couldn’t have done before. But even with the massive sound of 1980s sheen on Henley’s solo albums, the next few years would see him doing some soul-searching when looking at his music.
He felt some of the greatest songwriters were still in country music, and since the pop charts weren’t for him anymore, maybe it was time to embrace those rootsy songs all over again. So while Cass County does have a lot of traditional instrumentation, Henley preferred to see the record as something that was closer to modern-day Americana than anything that has to be heard in the middle of a saloon.
Then again, it’s not like he was afraid of the biggest names in country at the time, either. He knew that Miranda Lambert and Dolly Parton could help turn his tunes into something special whenever they sang them, and there was no one expecting Mick Jagger to show off his harmonica chops this late into the game on one of his tunes. But just like Dolly Parton felt like a piece of American history walking into the room, Merle Haggard was the kind of living legend that lived up to everything Henley had in his head.
He was already writing tunes like ‘The Cost of Living’ with Haggard in his mind, but being able to hear that voice come out of him was the kind of American voice that he had long been looking for, saying, “Like Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard has a voice that represents America to me. It represents an authentic life. I know Merle was in trouble when he was younger. He’s been through a lot, and you can hear all that in that voice. I’m drawn to voices like that.”
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And while Henley definitely sits on the higher end of that spectrum, you can definitely hear how he complements Haggard pretty well in that song. He doesn’t have the exact same baritone voice or anything like that, but with time comes a few rough edges on anyone’s voice, and that gruff sound that Henley has now is the reason why you can feel the authenticity in a song like ‘The Cost of Living’.
That can only be sung by someone who has gone through their fair share of hardship, and both Henley and Haggard both knew what it took to get to where they were. They were proud of their spots in rock and roll history, but they also understood that anyone going down their same path was going to need to go through more than a few hard years before they’re ready for the big time.
