(Credit: TaurusEmerald)
Fri 19 December 2025 16:42, UK
Most Eagles fans were just satisfied to see all of them playing together by the time they entered the 2000s. The band had fallen apart in front of their eyes, and so many of those fans hadn’t yet got the chance to see them perform.
There was no anticipation to see what a new-and-improved version of the California legends would be, and considering the number of fans showing up in droves, it’s not like they were willing to mess with the formula all that much, either. They still had unfinished business, and Long Road Out of Eden meant resurrecting a song they thought would never have caught on when Don Felder was in the group.
Because for as quiet as he seemed behind his guitar, Felder carried a significant amount of influence when he was with the group. He had the ability to write a foundation for Glenn Frey and Don Henley to work with, and without him, the haunting opening strains of ‘Hotel California’ would have probably never been written.
After coming together for Hell Freezes Over, though, Felder’s role was still limited to a guitarist who occasionally came up with a decent lick. Although Felder would give up the basis for ‘Busy Being Fabulous’, not everyone was itching to return to the studio just yet.
During an interview from the same time, Henley expressed a muted desire to go back into the studio, saying in History of the Eagles, “We just can’t keep recycling all of the old material, although it seems to be working just fine.” By the time they started recording again, Felder would be long gone, having had multiple disagreements with the group over royalties.
The Eagles and their wagon wheels. (Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Although ‘Hole in the World’ was the first new Eagles song of the new millennium, the 9/11 tribute track was just a palette cleanser for what was to come. And when their double album officially dropped, ‘Busy Being Fabulous’ had reached its final form.
This is strange because Henley remembered Felder presenting the idea and discarding it. According to the singer, Felder considered the track nowhere near the group’s standards, saying, “Glenn ran with it even though Don didn’t like it or think it was good enough. Glenn kept working on it and filling in the holes in the lyrics. Industry people said it was a hit.”
Described by Henley as “A song the Stones could have done”, the track is a powerhouse tune waiting for discovery for any relaxed fans. “You were just too busy being fabulous / Too busy to think about us,” the band sing as they once again deliver a track about male heartbreak.
But despite having the word “hit” prestamped on it with those soaring Eagles harmonies, this wasn’t the ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ version of the Eagles. If anything, this felt like a callback to their early days when they were toeing the line between country music and rock and roll, especially with a lyric about heartache and a girl who was looking for the finer things in life without him.
At the same time, this is probably the closest the Eagles ever came to full-blown dad rock. They had always dealt with pressing topics whenever they put pen to paper, but seeing them decked out in suave suits made them look closer to the hottest wedding band anyone had ever seen. Just because they were settling into their old age wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Those restless California kids had grown up, and luckily, not an ounce of that vocal shine had dwindled during those intervening years.
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