{"id":237302,"date":"2025-09-18T21:34:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T21:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/237302\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T21:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T21:34:10","slug":"on-this-day-in-1979-the-eagles-released-their-final-no-1-single-inspired-by-sam-cooke-and-co-written-by-bob-seger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/237302\/","title":{"rendered":"On This Day in 1979, the Eagles Released Their Final No. 1 Single\u2014Inspired by Sam Cooke and Co-Written by Bob Seger"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this day (September 18) in 1979, the Eagles<\/a> released \u201cHeartache Tonight\u201d as the lead single from their 1979 album The Long Run. Later that year, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 for one week. It would be their final No. 1 on the all-genre survey. Additionally, The Long Run would be the final album released by the band before they split. They wouldn\u2019t reunite again until the mid-1990s.<\/p>\n

The Long Run came at a pivotal time for the Eagles. They were coming off the success of their smash hit 1976 album, Hotel California, and its trio of hit singles. They were flying high and had just swapped founding member Randy Meisner for Timothy B. Schmit on bass. At the same time, inner turmoil was slowly pulling the band apart. However, they likely didn\u2019t realize when they released \u201cHeartache Tonight\u201d to kick off the new album cycle that they were less than a year away from breaking up.<\/p>\n

[RELATED: The Long Night at Wrong Beach: Behind the Choice Words Leading up to the Eagles\u2019 First Breakup]<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Before they went on a 14-year hiatus, though, the band put together one last chart-topping, Grammy-winning single.<\/p>\n

How Bob Seger Helped the Eagles Pen Their Final Hot 100 No. 1<\/p>\n

Glenn Frey, JD Souther, Bob Seger, and Don Henley co-wrote \u201cHeartache Tonight.\u201d But it all started with a jam session between Souther and Frey.<\/p>\n

\u201cGlenn Frey and I had been listening to Sam Cooke records at my house,\u201d Souther, sometimes called an unofficial member of the Eagles, told Songfacts<\/a>. \u201cSo we were just walking around clapping our hands and snapping our fingers, and singing the verses to those songs. The melody sounds very much like those Sam Cooke shuffles,\u201d he added. \u201cThere\u2019s not much to it. I mean, it\u2019s really just two long verses. But it felt really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

After hanging out listening to soul records, Souther and Frey started jamming. Before long, they had the beginnings of \u201cHeartache Tonight.\u201d However, it wasn\u2019t quite finished.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t get to a chorus that we liked within the first few days, and I think Glenn was on the phone with Seger, and he said, \u2018I wanna run something by you,\u2019 and sang it to him,\u201d Souther recalled. \u201cSeger just came right in with the chorus, just sang it, and it was so good. Glen called me and said, \u2018Is four writers okay on this?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Sure, if it\u2019s good.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

After hearing Seger\u2019s contribution to the song, Souther agreed. More importantly, listeners around the world agreed. It topped the charts in the United States and Canada. It was also a hit in Ireland, Switzerland, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Australia.<\/p>\n

Featured Image by \u00a0George Rose\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On this day (September 18) in 1979, the Eagles released \u201cHeartache Tonight\u201d as the lead single from their…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":237303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[20829,127285,976,171,975,69209,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-237302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-1970s","9":"tag-bob-seger","10":"tag-classic-rock","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-the-eagles","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115227450734040830","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}