(Credits: Far Out / Derek Russell)
Wed 21 January 2026 19:07, UK
There was a particular standard that Don Henley set every single time he went into the studio.
As much as people loved the idea of him making the best music he could with Eagles, his solo career was going to be a lot more mature than breezy songs about the pleasures of California. He needed to have something more to say, and when he did eventually go back to those soaring harmonies from back in the day, he was going to make sure that everyone knew that he had a firm grip on his history.
After all, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see why Henley held everything close to the chest. He had been in the industry a long time and had seen what the business could do to people who didn’t read the fine print, and if he was going to talk about the working-class people that he was playing for on tunes like ‘A Month of Sundays’, he could throw a few cheap shots out as well. There were fantastic love songs in his catalogue, but a song like ‘The Garden of Allah’ is where you start to hear the real version of him come out.
Then again, not all of his former bandmates were always that cutthroat about their music. Glenn Frey was more than happy to have some fun once he got started, and while he had a niche cut out for him in the movie world, soundtracking films or playing the odd role in Jerry Maguire, Walsh was quite happy being the lovable rock and roll troubadour every single time he played. He was always the good time spirit when he was in the band, so why fix what wasn’t broken in the first place?
Well, in some respects, Walsh did need a little bit of help in those days. He was playing great and could still bring the fire whenever a song needed a great solo, but considering how much he was drinking around that time, getting the best out of himself was easier said than done. He was dangerously close to being a rock and roll casualty, and when he first appeared on MTV Unplugged, Henley was the one putting his foot down when looking at the kind of songs he was playing.
Walsh’s other bands had more than enough material to make up a full setlist, but when he motioned to play the song ‘Desperado’, MTV’s advisors said that there was no way that they could air the content after Henley forbade them from showing it. It may have been seen as a dick move, but Henley was actually playing the game perfectly once he appeared on the show a short time later.
When talking about that time, MTV’s Alex Coletti remembered Henley saying that he was the only one who could sing the ballad, saying, “We got a fax that said, ‘If you want Don Henley to perform ‘Desperado,’ then book Don Henley. So we were like, ‘Yes, please!’ Don booked himself on the show.” But if you look at the state that Walsh was in around that time, there were other reasons for them not showing it.
His version of a song like Neil Young’s ‘Cinnamon Girl’ seemed to go over pretty well, but it was understood that he was not taking care of himself like he was supposed to. This was like watching a trainwreck unfolding incredibly slowly, and even though Eagles were a long way from reuniting back in the day, the fact that they made Walsh get sober before they signed anything really is a testament to the state he was in by the end of the decade.
He may have said that everyone from Jimi Hendrix and Ernest Hemingway got their talent from their demons, but once the light came on for Walsh, he could still be a great rock and roll musician even if he was stone-cold sober. So while his version of ‘Desperado’ would have been a treat for anyone desperately craving Eagles, Henley was going to make sure that no one ever saw it again.
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