Credits: Sports and Music Photographer via Flickr
Sun 26 April 2026 19:56, UK
The road to being one of Eagles didnât come easy for Don Henley.Â
He was looking to pay his dues just like everyone else when he started working with Glenn Frey, and even though he had to work through some of the hardest trials and tribulations that any rock star has ever gone through, it was always worth it if it meant getting a song out of the deal at the end of a day in the studio. He wasnât looking for perfection by any stretch, but after slaving away on his songs, he could tell when a few new faces were becoming a bit too bigheaded for their own good.
The whole point behind show business was always about not taking yourself too seriously, but even Henley had to look at how shallow some of the pop elite had become by the time he made his solo records. He was always the quick-witted one in the group when it came time to come up with a great idea for a song, but when you look at the kinds of artists that had come up in the bandâs wake, Henley wasnât looking around and liking what he saw.
A lot of his best solo hits were about taking on the horrors that come and go in the music industry, and while everyone could sit down and listen to a song like âBoys of Summerâ, âNew York Minuteâ and âA Month of Sundaysâ were a lot closer to the kind of person that Henley was writing for. There were plenty of people that were getting swallowed by the changing times, but the last thing that he was going to deal with was the elite whining about everything.
So when Eagles finally reformed, Henley had the perfect piece to work on when he and Frey first sat down to write again. There was confusion over whether they even had it in them to write a song anymore, but once Henley settled on the title âGet Over Itâ, he had the perfect vehicle for the kind of shallow celebrities that only wanted to talk about how they have been wronged every single time they are in trouble.
Frey even remembered Henley getting angry just thinking about the song, saying, âHe said, âWell, I have this title, âGet Over Itââ, and he proceeded to tell me about all the things that were pissing him off at the time. All these celebrities are complaining that everything that goes wrong is somebody elseâs fault. [He said], âIâm just fed up with that, so Iâm going to write a song about it.ââ And with a Chuck Berry rhythm behind him, Henley seemed ready for anything when he premiered the tune on Hell Freezes Over.Â
Because while Eagles were known for being the breezy rock and roll band that sang about taking it easy and taking it to the limit one more time, Henley sounds like heâs the disgruntled uncle that is putting a badass little kid in their place. Some of the lyrics do seem a little bit trite nowadays, but the lines about finding someoneâs inner child and kicking their little ass do go down pretty well all things considered.
And itâs not like Henley was pointed out a problem that everyone fixed, either. Especially now that reality television is one of the biggest mediums in the world, itâs easy to see everyone from millionaires to musicians to actors to even leaders of the free world complaining that everything they do is a personal attack against them and how theyâre the real victim in every part of their lives.
Henley wasnât claiming to be one of the greatest rock stars in the world by any means, but the problem that he had was the narcissists who thought that they could get away with anything they wanted. He had already said his piece on journalism on âDirty Laundryâ, but this was when he felt like he could finally let everything off his chest properly.
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