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Eagles · S1 E7
The Name
No 'The.' Just Eagles. Four Californians by choice, not birth. A band named for the desert sky above a peyote trip in the Mojave
The Mojave Desert, 1971. Four musicians sit around a campfire under the biggest sky they have ever seen, and somewhere between the peyote and the sunrise, a name appears.
Eagles, Love Will Keep Us Alive (1994). From Hell Freezes Over. Timothy B. Schmit sings lead on a ballad about the bonds that hold people together through everything. The proof that the name they chose in the desert still meant something twenty-three years later.
The Desert
The exact details vary depending on who tells the story and how much they remember. What is consistent: the four of them drive east out of Los Angeles into the desert, bring peyote, and spend a night staring at the stars. By morning, they have a name.
The Mojave Desert
The vast, empty landscape east of Los Angeles where, according to band lore, four musicians on a peyote trip looked up at the sky and found the name that would define American rock for a decade.
“We wanted something simple and powerful. No "The." Just Eagles. Like the bird. Clean, strong, American.”
— Glenn Frey, History of the Eagles documentary, 2013
TAP TO REVEAL: What bestselling book was everyone at the Troubadour reading when Eagles chose their name?
Tryin'
From Eagles (1972). The closing track of their debut album. Written by Randy Meisner, it is a tender song about refusing to give up, sung with the kind of harmony that only works when everyone in the room trusts each other completely. The last thing you hear on the record that introduced Eagles to the world.
What word is deliberately missing from the band's official name?
Eagles: The Name
The name is chosen. The album is recorded. Now they need the world to hear it. Next season: a Jackson Browne co-write called "Take It Easy," a debut that goes gold, and the first cracks in a band that was born with four leaders and no followers.
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