Six Best Eagles Songs Never Played Live
With six No. 1 albums and dozens of hit songs, Eagles have never had much trouble filling up their shows with favorites.
Even though the band pretty much pumped the brakes on album-making at the close of the '70s, it's remained a consistent touring group, filling arenas and stadiums with fans ready to sing along to popular songs like "Take It to the Limit," "Desperado," "Peaceful Easy Feeling" and many, many more.
Even after the death of cofounder Glenn Frey in 2016, Eagles continued to perform sold-out shows, including a successful run that features the entirety of their chart-topping 1976 album, Hotel California.
While they covered a massive amount of ground in their set lists over the years, including hits from their early days as well as more recent tracks from 2007's Long Road Out of Eden, Eagles, perhaps inevitably, have left a few songs out of the concerts. (Only four songs from before their initial 1980 split weren't performed onstage; a handful of tunes from the double Eden also never made it to the stage.) We take a look at the Six Best Eagles Songs Never Played Live below.
6. "Last Good Time in Town"
From: Long Road Out of Eden (2007)
The only Joe Walsh cowrite to appear on Long Road Out of Eden, "Last Good Time in Town" is a smooth ode to leaving the party life behind in favor of some rest and relaxation. "I dream I'm on vacation, 'Cause I like the way that sounds," Walsh sings. "It's a perfect occupation." Cowritten with longtime Eagles collaborator J.D. Souther, "Last Good Time in Town" clocks in at a little more than seven minutes, making it one of the band's longest tracks.
5. "Center of the Universe"
From: Long Road Out of Eden (2007)
"Center of the Universe," a harmony-laden track featuring lead vocals by Don Henley, came to be thanks to a member of Eagles' touring band, Steuart Smith, who cowrote the song with Henley and Frey. "Steuart's quite a musician, and he's added a lot of much-needed creative spark to the band," Henley told The Washington Post in 2003. "He's incredible, one of the best I've ever seen, and one of the few people who could have stepped into this position and handled it as gracefully as he has."
4. "I Wish You Peace"
From: One of These Nights (1975)
Bernie Leadon, one of the band's cofounders, wanted his last album with Eagles to feature one specific song. Cowritten with his girlfriend Patti Davis - daughter of future president Ronald Reagan, who did not approve of her living with Leadon as an unmarried couple - "I Wish You Peace" wasn't well received by Leadon's bandmates. Henley in particular made it clear he didn't like the song. "I wasn't writing too many songs at the time, and I wanted that song recorded," Leadon recalled. "I basically let it be known that if we didn't record that song, I was going to break his arm. ... It's absurd, right? The song is 'I Wish You Peace,' but I'm going break your fuckin' arm if you don't record it." Leadon got his way on the LP, but the song has never been performed live.
3. "The Disco Strangler"
From: The Long Run (1979)
"The Disco Strangler" doesn't lean in favor of late-'70s music; cowriters Henley, Frey and Don Felder poke fun at disco and its lack of substance in this deep cut released during the genre's heyday. Felder noted in his autobiography, Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974-2001), that the song was intended as "an antidote to the Bee Gees discotheque craze. ... The one thing the Eagles all agreed on was that we all hated disco music. It seemed so unmusical and repetitive to us ballad boys." Maybe not so surprisingly, this grievance-airing song was never played live.
2. "Hollywood Waltz"
From: One of These Nights (1975)
"Hollywood Waltz" may have actually boosted disco's commercial appeal thanks to synth player Albhy Galuten, who guests on the 1975 song. He'd go on to coproduce multiple hit singles for the Bee Gees, including "You Should Be Dancing," "How Deep Is Your Love" and "Stayin' Alive," as well as have a hand in the hit Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. "I would put things in that you felt rather than heard," Galuten later said of his work with bands like Eagles. "They would reinforce the bottom in the chorus or add structure to the song. At that time, a pop style was developing that would appeal to the masses but perhaps not to sophisticated listeners. I was pretty good at pushing those buttons and helping people to get their records to sound more accessible."
1. "Is It True?"
From: On the Border (1974)
Because Eagles included so many great and prolific songwriters, bassist Randy Meisner often struggled to slip himself into the mix. His sole contribution to the band's 1974 album On the Border, "Is It True?," is a tender track with soft backing vocals and a melodic bass line. It was never played live, and Meisner left the band three years later.