Henley/Frey co-writes after 1994

[groupie2686]

I may be opening a can of worms here, but (*opens can*) I didn't realize how few Henley/Frey co-writes there were after 1994. I had never really looked at the songwriting credits on Long Road Out of Eden and I was shocked that out of 20 songs, they only wrote 6 songs together. That's less than they wrote on Hotel California. If you include Get Over It and Hole in the World, that's 8 songs, from 1994 to 2016.

We will never know the answer to this, but my question is, why? I've read posts on here that LROOE was done over email, with band members recording their parts separately, and then there's Felder's complaints that there was no "camaraderie" after the band resumed in 1994. I'm wondering now if that isn't all true. Could they really not stand to be in the same room together or work together that much? It seems like they threw a few Henley/Frey songs on LROOE because fans would expect them to write songs together, and the rest were done separately.

As a side, but related, question, I was also surprised to see that Glenn had nothing to do with Learn to Be Still - written by Don Henley and Stan Lynch. Why then did he say in HFO that they wrote the song an hour before? Did Glenn have some input but didn't receive songwriting credit? I'm curious if Learn to Be Still was intended for a Henley solo album and didn't make the cut, and the same for Glenn and The Girl From Yesterday.

I love both HFO and LROOE, but it was quite surprising for me to learn this.

[YoungEaglesFan]

That’s a good point about Learn To Be Still, i never thought about the Glenn comment. That’s odd. In regards to Don and Glenn, I personally just believe they kinda grew apart post the breakup. They had a shared past but they had different music styles and lifestyles. I think they were still friends but they didn’t share much as people post HFO. I think that having been the leaders of the band and the tensions of the band lead to them having a Us vs them mentality ( leaders vs guitar camp etc) which kept them together to an extent. I would like to learn more about how LROOE was made, Ive heard about it but had trouble finding a thread

[New Kid In Town]

Groupie - On 9/20/90, Don and Glenn did a cover story with RS talking about "anything was possible in the 90's". There was talk of them possibly getting together and writing again. However Glenn was pissed off that Irving had released this to the press as he wanted to keep it quite and see how things went. They got together and nothing came of it. They were simply not able to write a song together. I think this was the time that Glenn gave an interview(92-93) stating he and Don were living different lifestyles. Glenn was married with two kids and he stated Don was "still living the Hollywood lifestyle", which Glenn wanted no part of. I think the bond that they had back in the 70's was long gone. According to Bill S.(who produced part of LROOE) whenever they got in the studio to record the old arguments returned regarding who was in charge, who had the better studio, extra. While I have always taken Felder's book with a grain of salt, I do believe him when he was discussing the arguments/struggles when they attempted to record an album in 98-99.
When Jackson was interviewed by the Washington Post for the KCH, he stated Don and Glenn had never regained the close friendship they had in they were young. Jackson stated he was "estranged" from Glenn for many years. Don also stated he had been "estranged" from Glenn for many years. So, to answer your question, in MHO I think they had nothing in common and just showed up to play concerts and never talked to each other unless it was business related

[thelastresort]

I took the comments before Learn to be Still at the MTV gig to be lighthearted, probably meaning it wasn't quite as polished and they weren't quite as proficient at it as they were the other three new cuts, that is evidenced by Henley messing up the lead.

I honestly don't think Henley and Frey were that close in the Reunion years. Their lack of partnership isn't all that surprising on that basis.

[groupie2686]

According to Bill S.(who produced part of LROOE) whenever they got in the studio to record the old arguments returned regarding who was in charge, who had the better studio, extra. While I have always taken Felder's book with a grain of salt, I do believe him when he was discussing the arguments/struggles when they attempted to record an album in 98-99.

I think this is probably it. All the old arguments came out again and to minimize conflict, they were together as little as possible. The fact that they weren't close anymore, if true, IMO isn't enough to explain this...you don't need to be close to someone to work with them. I believe that Glenn and Henley still had feeling for each other - you can see it on their faces - but perhaps all the old issues were always in the way. It really is a shame, though, that their great songwriting partnership disintegrated to 8 songs in over 20 years. It also makes some of the statements made in the HOTE documentary seem less than sincere...to say "We could still write songs together!" when they only wrote 8 songs post-reunion...

[New Kid In Town]

I think the relationship between Don and Glenn was a very complicated love/hate relationship from 1980 on. I think it's safe to say we would all love a book written regarding their relationship. I don't know who could give an objective view point and not take sides. Marc Eliot would be at the top of my list NOT to write a book. He had too many wrong facts and did poor research for his book. Also, it was too one sided.

Groupie - I took Glenn's remark to mean "holy crap - we wrote a song together" rather than we can write songs again. Just MHO.

[YoungEaglesFan]

I think this is probably it. All the old arguments came out again and to minimize conflict, they were together as little as possible. The fact that they weren't close anymore, if true, IMO isn't enough to explain this...you don't need to be close to someone to work with them. I believe that Glenn and Henley still had feeling for each other - you can see it on their faces - but perhaps all the old issues were always in the way. It really is a shame, though, that their great songwriting partnership disintegrated to 8 songs in over 20 years. It also makes some of the statements made in the HOTE documentary seem less than sincere...to say "We could still write songs together!" when they only wrote 8 songs post-reunion...

I think part of it is that once the band broke up, they completely stopped thinking about writing songs in the eagles style and in a band setting. Once they came together, their styles changed and I don’t think they had as much in common to pull together to make songs. I don’t think the relationship caused the lack of songs, I think it was just lack of ability to write songs, though I agree it’s sad they couldn’t write more and that their relationship ended up the way it did

[Freypower]

Groupie - On 9/20/90, Don and Glenn did a cover story with RS talking about "anything was possible in the 90's". There was talk of them possibly getting together and writing again. However Glenn was pissed off that Irving had released this to the press as he wanted to keep it quite and see how things went. They got together and nothing came of it. They were simply not able to write a song together. I think this was the time that Glenn gave an interview(92-93) stating he and Don were living different lifestyles. Glenn was married with two kids and he stated Don was "still living the Hollywood lifestyle", which Glenn wanted no part of. I think the bond that they had back in the 70's was long gone. According to Bill S.(who produced part of LROOE) whenever they got in the studio to record the old arguments returned regarding who was in charge, who had the better studio, extra. While I have always taken Felder's book with a grain of salt, I do believe him when he was discussing the arguments/struggles when they attempted to record an album in 98-99.
When Jackson was interviewed by the Washington Post for the KCH, he stated Don and Glenn had never regained the close friendship they had in they were young. Jackson stated he was "estranged" from Glenn for many years. Don also stated he had been "estranged" from Glenn for many years. So, to answer your question, in MHO I think they had nothing in common and just showed up to play concerts and never talked to each other unless it was business related

We have discussed the word 'estranged' on several occasions & I would like to hope that far too much is being read into it, although given recent events, who knows. I think even calling it a 'love/hate' relationship is going a bit far. I also would be very wary of speculating on what their relationship was at 'the end'.

I will only say that I agree that for what many consider such a wonderful songwriting team, the actual number of compositions with this credit is not very large, even prior to the reunion.

[sodascouts]

they only wrote 8 songs post-reunion...

With the Eagles, Glenn only wrote 12 songs post reunion, period. After all, the band only did two more albums, one of which was a live album with only four new tracks.

In other words, 2/3 of the Eagles songs Glenn wrote or co-wrote during that time were done with Don Henley.

I'm impressed they worked together as much as they did.

[groupie2686]

With the Eagles, Glenn only wrote 12 songs post reunion, period. After all, the band only did two more albums, one of which was a live album with only four new tracks.

In other words, 2/3 of the Eagles songs Glenn wrote or co-wrote during that time were done with Don Henley.

I'm impressed they worked together as much as they did.

When you put it that way, soda, it doesn't seem so bad. I suppose it's more of a question of how little they put out overall after 1994, than how few they wrote together.

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Yeah - I think the bottom line is that in the 70's Glenn and Don lived the Eagles 24/7. They even lived together much of the time when they wrote all those amazing songs.

In the 90's and beyond, their lives had changed tremendously and they had no desire to go back to those youthful days no matter what their personal relationships were. Once they married and had families, their focus and interests were centered around that. Personally, I think they had their priorities straight.