(Credits: Far Out / Steve Alexander)
Sun 23 November 2025 16:50, UK
When you’ve been around the block as many times as the Eagles, who continue to perform to this day despite numerous break-ups and even the death of Glenn Frey, it is easy to become fatigued with playing the same old songs night after night.
As anybody who has ever gone to see a ‘legacy act’ in concert can attest to, “Here’s a new one,” is typically the queue to head to the bar or empty your bladder. It doesn’t matter if that new material is leagues ahead of everything else the band have achieved, nobody is paying over the odds to go see the Eagles for them not to play the likes of ‘Hotel California’ or ‘Take It Easy’, which is perhaps why Don Henley has given up on creating new material altogether.
Nevertheless, it does make for a rather repetitive existence, churning out performances of the same songs, virtually unchanged, for half a century. Admittedly, the millions of pounds the band still rake in through royalties probably softens that blow a little, but artists tend to need a sense of artistic development to keep them going. So, it would be understandable if Frey or Henley fostered some degree of resentment for a hit like, for example, ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’.
One of the band’s earliest triumphs, taken from their eponymous 1972 debut, that fan favourite track was a true labour of love from songwriter Jack Tempchin, who penned the song over a period of years, about various women whom he had grown infatuated with. When he finally presented the track to Frey and Henley, it took on a new life entirely, peaking at number 22 in the US singles chart, arguably setting the standard for the Eagles going forward, and influencing Frey and Henley’s own songwriting talents.
It didn’t take long, therefore, for ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ to become a staple of the band’s live performances. By the time that they came to release Hotel California in 1977, though, it is fair to say that Glenn Frey was pretty sick of the song.
After manager Randy Meisner suggested it be added to the setlist on that tour, Frey recalled in a 2013 documentary, “I called him up and I said, ‘Do you think I like singing ‘Take It Easy’ and ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ every night? I’m tired of those songs.”
It isn’t all that surprising that Frey reacted in such a way back in 1977, especially when you consider just the Eagles were in the middle of their most tumultuous period, and the songwriter was in a near constant battle with Don Henley. As the decades progressed, then, Frey’s opinion of the classic song became a little more sympathetic, to say the least.
“Compared to the original recording, it’s evolved through live performances to where it’s a bit of a different animal now,” Frey shared in a 2003 chat with Cameron Crowe. “‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ had a happy, country-rock quality but a bittersweet irony about it that I thought was really great. I still love that song,” he added. “Love singing it.”
By all accounts, Frey’s appreciation for the track never dipped in the years leading up to his untimely death back in 2016. While, at one point, it might have reflected a kind of artistic stagnation, forever tethering the songwriter to those easy days, its modern-day power lies in just how much it resonates with audiences; a feeling which no performer could ever grow tired of.
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