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Mon 24 November 2025 15:32, UK
There’s a sun-kissed beauty to almost all of the material produced by the Eagles during their wildly successful tenure as icons of soft-rock. The group may have leaned heavily on the guitar talents of Joe Walsh and Glenn Frey for their archetypal sound, but it’s hard not to pinpoint the group’s vocal contributions as one of the main assets of the band.
The vocal purity of the group crystallised with their 1976 album Hotel California, reaching heights that few rock artists have ever managed to achieve since. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t without their hits prior to this release, and the band’s 1973 album Desperado still holds some notable moments that helped to establish Eagles, including the title track.
In the poignant ballad ‘Desperado’, the haunting strains of Don Henley’s vocals and Glenn Frey’s guitar work evoke a sense of melancholy Americana. The song, a timeless ode to a wayward soul, unfolds like a narrative whispered across a dusty saloon, in keeping with the album it lends its name to.
With poetic lyrics and aching melodies, the Eagles portray a lone cowboy, a desperado grappling with the consequences of a reckless life. As the soulful harmonies soar, listeners are transported to the vast landscapes of the West, where the desperado’s journey unfolds, leaving an indelible mark on the tapestry of classic rock storytelling. Released in 1973, the song was initially penned by Henley in the 1960s, as he explained in his liner notes for The Very Best of The Eagles: “Glenn came over to write one day, and I showed him this unfinished tune that I had been holding for so many years.”
The collaboration signalled a major moment for the group: “I said, ‘When I play it and sing it, I think of Ray Charles – Ray Charles and Stephen Foster. It’s really a Southern gothic thing, but we can easily make it more Western.’ Glenn leapt right on it – filled in the blanks and brought structure. And that was the beginning of our songwriting partnership – that’s when we became a team.”
After then being covered by Linda Ronstadt, the song has become an international phenomenon, used in countless TV shows and widely regarded as one of the band’s best. “I was extremely flattered that Linda recorded ‘Desperado,’” Don Henley said. “It was really her that popularized the song. Her version was very poignant and beautiful.” However, Don Henley has always been let down by one aspect of the track: the vocals.
“When we are in England, recording ‘Desperado,’ I was a nervous wreck,” Henley told Mojo in 2015. “I was standing in this huge room, Island Studios, a big orchestra right behind me, and they were bored to tears. Some older gentleman had brought chessboard, and they would play between takes. I would hear these remarks like, ‘Well, you know, I don’t feel much like a desperado.’ I was so intimidated that I didn’t sing my best.”
It’s a forgotten part of making art. As well as being confident in your own ideas internally, you have to fight for them externally too. Every musician has to take their vision to the end and deliver the best track they can, and, usually, that means fighting against a whole hist of naysayers who are either jealous or simply bored.
Unfortunately, without their big hits yet under their belt and the easing studio pressures, best-selling singles allow their bands, Henley had to make do with what he had: “Our producer Glyn Johns, who is still a friend of mine, I think, wanted to get the album done quickly and economically, and he didn’t let me do many takes. I wish I could have done that song again.”
Whether it would have been bettered with Henley’s idealistic vocals is hard to tell, but one thing is for sure: it wouldn’t be long before the studio chatter would wash off the platinum-selling backs of Eagles and their members.
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