(Credits: Alamy)
Sun 16 November 2025 0:00, UK
Don Henley once said that ‘Hotel California’ was about “the dark underbelly of the American Dream and about excess in America, which was something we knew about”.
The Eagles soared to many highs, but also some swooping lows.
Indeed, this analogy could extend into the process of the entire Hotel California album as a whole, because although it represented the band at their quintessential peak, it was a brewing pot of tension and stress for one man in particular: Randy Meisner. It was almost as though, despite him being a founding member of the Eagles, he never expected them to go on to any great level of success.
Meisner had been used to session work and odd jobs around the music scene – he’s had a taste of champagne previously with Poco, but when it came to the Eagles, it was a whole different kettle of fish. As such, the unmatched success of Hotel California was a terrifying ordeal for him – and ultimately led him to step back from the brink, and say goodbye to the band.
As his anxieties bubbled over, Meisner’s swan song to the Eagles ended up being ‘Try and Love Again’, a somewhat hidden gem in the midst of Hotel California. In some ways, this was poetic for the role Meisner really wished to take on in the band – coasting along for the ride and enjoying writing what he could, but without ever assuming the front and centre mantle.
Unfortunately, the rock and roll world wasn’t made for wallflowers, and his fate was never allowed to pan out this way.
What made Randy Meisner’s time in the Eagles so difficult?
As much as he may not have particularly cared for it, the precedent was set for Meisner to take the helm after the match that was lit from him, leading the track ‘Take It To The Limit’ from One of These Nights, which became the Eagles’ first million-selling single. From there, the rest of the band attempted various times to coax him into being the golden boy, but this was ultimately a job which he loathed beyond description.
That’s why, despite him fronting ‘Try and Love Again’, it was a signal as his parting gift to the band. The Hotel California tour of 1976 and 1977 ultimately proved to be too much of a strain; between health issues, stress, and an altercation with Glenn Frey after he refused to perform ‘Take It To The Limit’ as the encore in Knoxville, Tennessee, his time with the Eagles was done.
Having felt cast out of the band at the time, he jibed: “That was the end… I really felt like I was a member of the group, not a part of it,” before later admitting his peace by adding: “All that stuff and all the arguing amongst the Eagles is over now. Well, at least for me.”
Meisner’s experience with the Eagles may have seemed like a peppered one to the outside world. It was fraught with so much tension that, at times, he almost found it too much to bear. Songs like ‘Try and Love Again’ and ‘Take It To the Limit’ were the ultimate testament to that – a man pushed to the limit of everything he was, all for the power of music.
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