12 Hit Songs From The Eagles
You can’t keep a good Eagle down. “The Eagles have had a miraculous 52-year odyssey, performing for people all over the globe; keeping the music alive in the face of tragic losses, upheavals and setbacks of many kinds,” the band announced to fans last July, on the eve of launching their Long Goodbye farewell tour. “Our long run has lasted far longer than any of us ever dreamed. But, everything has its time, and the time has come for us to close the circle.”
Just weeks after that announcement, the Eagles weathered yet another tragic loss: the death of former bassist Randy Meisner on July 26. Still, the band has proudly played on for their fans, honoring Meisner’s memory as well as that of fellow founding member Glenn Frey, who died in 2016. And in July 2024, current touring members Don Henley, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit, country legend Vince Gill, and Glenn’s son, Deacon Frey, revealed they were adding new dates to their run at the Sphere in Las Vegas, which extends their residency there from September through January 2025.
Michael Ochs Archives / Stringer / Getty
“We’re just extremely thankful that we have this all going on, and we have so many fans at this stage of the game who have stuck with us,” Henley once told Virgin UK Radio of the appreciation he has for the faithful who’ve continued to flock to the band’s shows throughout their later years and have helped the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers sell 200 million records worldwide.
When the group played a show in Phoenix earlier this year, Henley also noted how thankful he was that those fans prefer true musicianship over gimmicks. “We’re gonna give you about a two-hour vacation from all the madness and the chaos that’s going on in the world,” he promised the crowd, noting that he and his bandmates would be doing so “without any fireworks and no inflatables, no wind machines, no butt-waggin’ choreography, just a bunch of guys with guitars and drums. Go figure.”
The guys’ decades-long string of worthy hits continue to speak volumes decades after the band started in LA back in 1971. Here, 12 of the Eagles’ greatest.
12. “I Can’t Tell You Why” (1980)
“I was going through a rough emotional time.… I was young and confused about how to make relationships function, and this song was a vent for my melancholia,” Schmit, who penned the hit with Frey and Henley, told Rolling Stone of this No. 8 hit.
11.“The Long Run” (1979)
The title track off their 1979 album hit No. 8, and both the single and the LP’s success came as a bit of a surprise to the band. “The Long Run was a pretty painful birth, because we were, like, ‘How the f— are we going to top Hotel California?’ This is useless,” Walsh once revealed.
10. “Heartache Tonight” (1979)
The band’s last No. 1 single was penned by JD Souther, Frey, Henley, and Bob Seger. “Glenn had the verse: ‘Somebody’s gonna hurt someone before the night is through,’” Seger told Entertainment Weekly of the Grammy-winning tune and the lightning bolt that hit him while working on it. “We hadn’t been sitting down for more than five minutes and I just blurted out, ‘There’s gonna be a heartache tonight!’ His eyes lit up huge.”
9. “Life in the Fast Lane” (1977)
“Eager for action and hot for the game…” This fun track “is the perfect picture of love in the ego-driven, materialistic party culture of the 1970s,” noted Heart’s Ann Wilson, who covered it on her 2018 album Immortal.
8. “New Kid in Town” (1976)
Gill lends his voice these days to this No. 1, humbly filling in for Frey, who delivered a “note-perfect, understated original performance on the classic,” according to Taste of Country.
7. “One of These Nights” (1975)
“With Don Felder, we can really rock,” Henley told Rolling Stone in 1975 of the band’s then-new member in 1975. “He’s made us nastier and he’s done a great guitar solo on ‘One Of These Nights,’” another No. 1 hit for the band.
6. “Lyin’ Eyes” (1975)
This No. 2 hit scored a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance for the group. It also hit No. 8 on the country charts and is featured on Urban Cowboy's 1980 soundtrack, spotlighting “Frey’s keening lead vocals; Bernie Leadon contributing twangy guitar and mandolin; and the entire band unfurling gorgeous multi-part harmonies,” per The Boot.
5. “Witchy Woman” (1972)
“[This was] an important song for me, because it marked the beginning of my professional songwriting career,” Henley noted in the liner notes for 2003’s The Very Best of album about this No. 9 hit.
4. “Take It Easy” (1972)
Jackson Browne started writing this song, which became the Eagles’ debut single, but it was finished by Frey. “He had these four great singers, this huge bank of voices” to really make it impactful, Browne has shared.
3. “Take It to the Limit” (1975)
“That's the first Eagles single to sell a million copies. It was our first gold single,” Frey once shared of this No. 4 smash, which features Meisner on lead vocals. When he’d sing it on tours, “it was mass hysteria,” Frey noted.
2. “The Best of My Love” (1974)
This No. 1 “has been a lasting example of the band’s ability to strip back their sound,” American Songwriter notes, adding that it’s “a beautifully harmonious, deeply emotional track” about a couple whose love is doomed.
1. “Hotel California” (1977)
This No. 1 song is timeless, and the 1976 album it lends its name to — which spent eight weeks in the top position on the Billboard 200 when first released — just reentered the Top Country Albums chart this July. Its hauntingly evocative lyrics are “just like a little movie,” Frey once said, noting “a lot of it doesn’t have to make sense.”
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