(Credits: Far Out / Derek Russell)
Fri 9 January 2026 17:45, UK
Throughout Eagles’ career, Don Henley was looking for the song quality over anything else.
The California rockers may have been able to make breathtaking harmony parts that no one could have imagined, but none of it was going to matter unless they had something to say underneath those voices. And while Henley was more than happy to add his magic to the lyrics of a tune like ‘Hotel California’ or ‘The Last Resort’, he did his homework by listening to some of the greatest rock and roll songwriters that came before him.
It’s one thing to look at someone like Elvis Presley and want to do that for a living, but Henley always remembered being in awe of what The Beatles were doing. Not only were they four guys in a band as equals, but the fact that John Lennon and Paul McCartney were writing these deep love songs with more advanced chords struck a nerve with him, alongside the other country records in his collection.
But if the likes of George Jones and Merle Haggard showed Henley what a tune could mean, he was in for a shock once he got to California. This was the age of the singer-songwriter, and while the likes of James Taylor may have been the face of the genre for a little while, no one knew what they were in for when listening to the likes of Jackson Browne or Joni Mitchell whenever they put on one of their records.
Not all those writers were the most radio-friendly in the world, but Henley could tell that they were a cut above the rest. Their lyrics were about real-world issues and could speak to the human condition in a way few others could, but even beyond the California rock scene, there was something a bit more biting in the way that Randy Newman approached nearly every song he sang.
Newman would have been the first to say that he didn’t have the greatest by any stretch, but what he did with it meant more to Henley than anything. His songs had a lot more to do with the beautiful ugliness going on in America, and even when he was going in hard on what the country was all about, he could always be a touch romantic when talking about everyday people wanting to find happiness in their lives.
And while Newman did get some help from Henley a few times, the Eagle said that there was nothing that Newman touched that could be replicated, saying, “Randy’s American musical influences run deep: Stephen Foster, Scott Joplin, the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Ray Charles. He mines so many rich veins of American musical culture and synthesizes them in a way that nobody else has done. Every song on the new album is like a novella, or a mini-musical. There’s political satire, songs about the dissolution of family, self-effacing humor, heartbreak, loss; disdain and sympathy for the human condition.”
Newman’s melodies may have been baked into a whole new generation of kids thanks to his work on Pixar movies like Toy Story, but even then, Newman was going well above what anyone else thought of. Phil Collins certainly did great work for Tarzan, but the intense musicality that goes into everything from ‘You’ve Got A Friend in Me’ to the fanfare of Monsters Inc is beyond anything else the House of Mouse has ever created.
So while Glenn Frey did have a bunch of chords that no one had heard of before when helping Henley flesh out those songs, there’s a singularity to Newman’s music that no one can ever truly touch. He was a visionary genius in every sense of the word, and when looking at the kind of music he made, he may be one of the most self-effacing legends that the rock world has ever known.
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