(Credits: John Shearer / Courtesy Essential Broadcast Media)
Wed 24 December 2025 20:45, UK
When Vince Gill joined the Eagles as a late-stage member in 2017, he gained a unique position, wherein, after the death of Glenn Frey, he was invited in, not to fill his shoes, but to honour his legacy, giving him a special platform to view all these songs anew.
It’s not that they were new to him, of course; like any other musician working in the world of rock and country, Eagles songs were standards that he’d known for decades upon decades, but it’s different when you’re playing them, and especially different when you’re playing them alongside the original musicians who made them, hearing their intricacies up close and getting a personal and intense view of them.
It made him love them so much more, but especially made him deeply love tracks that perhaps might have gone underappreciated or underrated by longer-running bandmates. With new blood bringing new opinions and life to the unit, Gill found himself fighting for old forgotten tracks, desperate to get them back onto stage, and one in particular stood out as so striking and beautiful to him, but one that the rest of the band seemed unfazed by, which was ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’.
The song is taken from the 1979 album The Long Run, which was recorded at the height of tumult in the band, and it ended up being their final one before they split in 1980. So perhaps for the original members, the song holds some bad memories, or its value merely got lost in the shuffle and chaos of that era and was never fully paid attention to again, but when Gill came in, he picked out that track as one of his top five all time favourite Eagles songs, telling Rolling Stone, “It’s one of the most musical expressions I’ve ever heard”.
To him, it holds so much beauty and also simply holds the best of so many members. “Glenn composed the solo,” he said, and that moment in the centre of the song true speaks to him as one of the band’s most emotive and interesting in his eyes.
It’s also a moment where one of the band’s underrated voices shines as Gill said, “It escapes me why Timothy B Schmit never sang more”, but on this track, he got lead vocals and provided the titular lyric and the true core of the song.
Under the guidance of Frey, Schmit was instructed, “You could sing like Smokey Robinson. Let’s not do a Richie Furay, Poco-sounding song. Let’s do an R&B song,” pushing him to push his voice, leading to what Gill believes is the artist’s best vocal moment for the band.
Top to bottom, start to finish, and across every post, Gill sees this song as an underrated gem that holds the best of the band, just maybe not the best in the way that the band themselves seemed able to recognise.
Luckily, though, with Gill firmly in the band and now with sway on the setlist, the track was dusted off and added back to their live set with Schmit also back on board to sing it again.
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