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Eagles · S2 E3
Witchy Woman
Don Henley and Bernie Leadon write about Zelda Fitzgerald and the dark side of California dreaming. A top-ten hit
Los Angeles, late 1971. Don Henley puts down a biography of Zelda Fitzgerald, picks up a pen, and starts writing about a woman who is equal parts beautiful and dangerous.
Eagles, Witchy Woman (1972). The second single from the debut album. Where "Take It Easy" is sunshine and open highway, this is moonlight and closed curtains. Henley's vocal sits lower and darker than anything on the record, and Leadon's guitar riff turns Eagles into something nobody expected.
The Riff
Bernie Leadon picks up his guitar and finds a minor-key figure that sounds like something coiling through desert sand. Henley hears it and knows immediately: this is the music for his Zelda song. They write the whole thing together, the lyrics flowing as fast as Leadon can shape the chords around them.
“I was reading a book about Zelda Fitzgerald and I had this image of a beautiful, wild, self-destructive woman. Bernie started playing this riff, and the song just came together.”
— Don Henley, History of the Eagles documentary, 2013
Witchy Woman, Eagles (1972)
The song opens with Leadon's instantly recognizable guitar figure: sinuous, almost hypnotic, unlike anything else on the Laurel Canyon scene. Listen for the way Henley's vocal drops into a storyteller's register, half singing, half narrating. Glyn Johns keeps the production stripped back and lets the spaces between the notes do the work. This is the song that proved Eagles were not a one-trick country-rock band.
TAP TO REVEAL: What literary figure inspired "Witchy Woman"?
Who wrote "Witchy Woman"?
The Second Hit
"Witchy Woman" is released as the second single in August 1972, and it outperforms "Take It Easy," reaching number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. Two singles, two top-fifteen hits, and the band has existed for less than a year.
Take the Devil, Eagles (Eagles, 1972)
Written by Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon, this is the last hidden corner of the debut album most fans have never explored. Leadon's guitar carries a brooding edge, and Meisner's vocal has a restless quality that fits the darker mood. If "Witchy Woman" is the debut's shadow side, "Take the Devil" is what lurks even deeper.
Two singles, two top-ten hits. But the debut has one more ace to play, a song written by a friend named Jack Tempchin about a feeling he could not quite pin down.
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