(Credits: Far Out / Asylum Records)
Tue 31 March 2026 0:00, UK
It’s probably fair to say that now is a strange time to be living in the US, and my utmost sympathy goes out to those having to navigate their way through the tougher aspects of what society is dealing to them. That being said, the world that the Eagles lived in during the 1970s was also a particularly confusing period.
The rapidly growing global powerhouse was undergoing a great deal of political turmoil, with many events still remembered as major turning points in the country’s modern history. The Watergate scandal famously led to the first-ever resignation of a president, the Cold War with the USSR was still rumbling on and causing plenty of tension between the two countries, and the ongoing conflict in Vietnam still divided public opinion, with large swathes of the music industry jumping on board to denounce US troops’ involvement.
The ‘70s were a decade of chaos, but this ultimately led to there being a continuation of the incredible protest music that had been released throughout the course of the previous decade.
While Bob Dylan is largely considered to be the king of the protest song from the 1960s, having truly tapped into the anti-war and anti-establishment sentiments through his direct lyricism, albums like Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On proved to be a continuation of powerful protest in music in the early ‘70s. On top of this, there are still plenty of examples of records that have this underlying theme, yet they aren’t thought of in the same manner.
For example, the Eagles weren’t exactly known for being the most overtly political band of the period, but they had the odd song that they used as a platform for discussing political unrest. ‘On the Border’ is a fine example of this, which Don Henley used as a vehicle for digging into President Richard Nixon, the man at the centre of the aforementioned Watergate scandal.
Henley explained in a 2003 interview with Cameron Crowe that the song had never intentionally been written with the idea of it being a protest song, nor were they intending to even have a poke at the controversial leader. However, various tweaks to the song’s structure and sound led to Henley having the idea to squeeze in some of his personal views.
“There was a lot going on in the country at that time regarding the impeachment of Richard Nixon,” the songwriter and drummer revealed. “The whole Watergate debacle was coming to a head. Interestingly, not unlike now, there were a lot of people concerned about the government overstepping its bounds with regard to issues of privacy. So that’s what the verses ended up being about.”
Noting how Glenn Frey added many other flourishes on the guitar that brought the track to life, he then commented on the barely-audible jab aimed at Nixon. “Someone – it had to be Glenn or me – says, ‘Say goodnight, Dick,’ which was a phrase made famous on The Smothers Brothers’ show. We were addressing Nixon, because at that time it was pretty clear that he was on his way out, so that was our little kiss-off to Tricky Dick.”
It’s subtle and is far from being the same sort of vitriolic barb that other songwriters of the era would stick in their material when they had a point to make about their frustration with the government, but it makes their thoughts known in such a creative way that provides a neat little Easter egg for the more attentive fans to pick up on.
