“Hi, We’re in Charge Again”: Glenn Frey on the Tragic Track That Instantly Was a “Classic Eagles Record”
On September 10, 2001, the Eagles were loading their equipment into a recording studio in Los Angeles, preparing for the upcoming week’s session. Mere hours later, the unthinkable happened: the terror attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11. The entire world seemed to stop turning at that moment, including the parts of the globe where the Eagles were. Unsure of what to do and rattled by the day’s events, the band canceled for the day
But Don Henley didn’t stop writing. As the best songwriters often do, the Eagles drummer opted to translate his complex emotions into a song (with a little help from their friends, the Beatles). The end result was what guitarist Glenn Frey would call an instant “classic Eagles record.”
Don Henley Put Feelings To Music The Night Of 9/11
In a 2003 interview with Cameron Crowe, Eagles drummer Don Henley recalled his assistant calling him on the morning of September 11, 2001. Henley, like thousands upon thousands of other Americans at that exact moment, was advised to turn on his television, where footage of the terror attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center would continue for weeks. “After hearing the news, we called each other up and said, ‘What’s the point?’” Bandmate Glenn Frey recalled in that same interview. So, everyone stayed home and tried to process the tragic news. Henley did so at his piano.
Henley said he began by putting chords under the phrase “hole in the world.” “Just sort of wrote the refrain in one sitting,” he explained. “After that, the verse came fairly quickly, and then I was stuck. Months went by, but I didn’t show it to anybody. Then, other things started happening that gave additional meanings to “hole in the world,” particularly after the [Iraqi] war started. The fighting was supposedly over in May, and yet one or two or three of our boys were—and still are—getting killed every day, which means somebody’s daddy is not coming home. So, that’s another hole, a huge hole in somebody’s life—a child, a wife, a mother, a father, a brother, a sister.”
“There are holes in the information that the public is getting, both from the media and the government,” Henley continued. “There are holes in what passes for the logic of this administration’s foreign policy. The stars and stripes may be flying and the drums beating, but things are never going to be the same for some people. The ill-conceived attempt to “avenge” the victims of September 11 has only brought more misery and sorrow.”
