The Last Resort (Eagles song)
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"The Last Resort" is a song written by
Don Henley Donald Hugh Henley (born July 22, 1947) is an American musician and a founding member of the rock band Eagles. He is the drummer and one of the lead singers for the Eagles. Henley sang the lead vocals on Eagles hits such as "Witchy Woman", "Despe ...
and
Glenn Frey Glenn Lewis Frey (; November 6, 1948 – January 18, 2016) was an American singer, guitarist and a founding member of the rock band Eagles. Frey was the co-lead singer and frontman for the Eagles, roles he came to share with fellow member Don ...
, which imagines industry and commerce inevitably destroying beautiful places. It was originally released on the Eagles' album ''
Hotel California "Hotel California" is the title track from the Eagles' album of the same name and was released as a single in February 1977. Writing credits for the song are shared by Don Felder (music), Don Henley, and Glenn Frey (lyrics). Joe Walsh came up ...
'' on December 8, 1976. It was subsequently released as the B-side of "
Life in the Fast Lane "Life in the Fast Lane" is a song written by Joe Walsh, Glenn Frey and Don Henley, and recorded by American rock band Eagles for the band's fifth studio album ''Hotel California'' (1976). It was the third single released from this album, and pea ...
" single on May 3, 1977. In a 1978 interview with ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'', Henley said: "'The Last Resort', on ''Hotel California'', is still one of my favorite songs... That's because I care more about the environment than about writing songs about drugs or love affairs or excesses of any kind. The gist of the song was that when we find something good, we destroy it by our presence — by the very fact that man is the only animal on earth that is capable of destroying his environment. The environment is the reason I got into politics: to try to do something about what I saw as the complete destruction of most of the resources that we have left. We have mortgaged our future for gain and greed."


Composition

On an episode of ''
In the Studio with Redbeard ''In the Studio with Redbeard'' is a North American radio program, produced and hosted by Dallas, Texas, based rock and roll disc jockey Doug "Redbeard" Hill. The show is a weekly hour-long "rockumentary" interview with music program which looks ...
'' (which devoted an entire episode to the making of ''Hotel California''), Frey stated:
I have to give all the credit for 'The Last Resort' to (Don) Henley. It was the first time that Don, on his own, took it upon himself to write an epic story. We were very much at that time, concerned about the environment and doing anti-nuclear benefit (concerts). It seemed the perfect way to wrap up all of the different topics we had explored on the ''Hotel California'' album. Don found himself as a lyricist with that song, kind of outdid himself...We're constantly screwing up paradise and that was the point of the song and that at some point there is going to be no more new frontiers. I mean we're putting junk, er, garbage into space now. There's enough crap floating around the planet that we can't even use so it just seems to be our way. It's unfortunate but that is sort of what happens.
Frey referred to the song as "Henley's opus." Henley recalled that he had been reading about "the raping and pillaging of the West by mining, timber, oil and cattle interests" at the time he wrote the song. He said that he wanted to expand the song's scope even further, and so he "tried to go ' Michener' with it," but was never totally satisfied with how it came out.


Recording

The band recorded "The Last Resort" at the
Criteria Studios Criteria Studios is a recording studio in North Miami, Florida, founded in 1958 by musician Mack Emerman. Hundreds of gold, platinum, and diamond singles and albums have been recorded, mixed or mastered at Criteria, for many notable artists and ...
in
Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
. However,
Black Sabbath Black Sabbath were an English rock music, rock band formed in Birmingham in 1968 by guitarist Tony Iommi, drummer Bill Ward (musician), Bill Ward, bassist Geezer Butler and vocalist Ozzy Osbourne. They are often cited as pioneers of heavy met ...
was also recording '' Technical Ecstasy'' in an adjacent studio and played loudly. The Eagles had to re-record the song a number of times due to the noise coming through the wall.


Critical reception

Music critic Dave Thompson considers it an update of
Joni Mitchell Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell ( Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American musician, producer, and painter. Among the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her sta ...
's "
Big Yellow Taxi "Big Yellow Taxi" is a song written, composed, and originally recorded by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell in 1970, and originally released on her album '' Ladies of the Canyon''. It was a hit in her native Canada (No. 14) as well as Aust ...
" but says that it is "even more weary and despairing." Thompson regards the line "Some rich men came and raped the land. Nobody caught ‘em" to be a critique of a
free market economy A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand, where all suppliers and consumers ar ...
. Critic William Ruhlmann said of it that it "sketches a broad, pessimistic history of America that borders on nihilism." Author James Perone says that it ties "all the previous songs rom ''Hotel California''together in this final reflection of the dark side of California Life." He notes, for example, how the song lyrics contrast the beauty of the California desert with ugly suburban houses and ultimately progresses to criticize the concept of
manifest destiny Manifest destiny was a cultural belief in the 19th century in the United States, 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand across North America. There were three basic tenets to the concept: * The special vir ...
, on which American expansion to California was partially based. He regards the key lyric to be the line "They called it paradise; I don't know why," noting the emphasis given to it by the resignation of Henley's voice and by the falling
melody A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...
. Perone does criticize the use of synthesizer on the song instead of actual
string instrument String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the ...
s, which he feels sounds artificial. To Eagles' biographer Marc Eliot, "The Last Resort" tells "the story of a nation's self-destruction and physical decay told as
metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wit ...
for personal creative burnout." In 2016, the editors of ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'' rated "The Last Resort" as the Eagles #27 greatest song. ''Ultimate Classic Rock'' critic Sterling Whitaker rated it as the Eagles most underrated song, calling it "an epic track that presented the entire world as a resort being destroyed by the greedy, self-serving and short-sighted machinations of the human race" with "an alluring pop arrangement."


Personnel

*
Don Henley Donald Hugh Henley (born July 22, 1947) is an American musician and a founding member of the rock band Eagles. He is the drummer and one of the lead singers for the Eagles. Henley sang the lead vocals on Eagles hits such as "Witchy Woman", "Despe ...
- lead vocals, drums, synthesizer *
Glenn Frey Glenn Lewis Frey (; November 6, 1948 – January 18, 2016) was an American singer, guitarist and a founding member of the rock band Eagles. Frey was the co-lead singer and frontman for the Eagles, roles he came to share with fellow member Don ...
- piano, acoustic guitar, backing vocals *
Joe Walsh Joseph Fidler Walsh (born November 20, 1947) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In a career spanning over five decades, he has been a member of three successful rock bands: the James Gang, Eagles, and Ringo Starr & His All-Starr B ...
- electric guitar, synthesizer, backing vocals *
Don Felder Donald William Felder (born September 21, 1947) is an American musician who was the lead guitarist of the rock band Eagles from 1974 until his termination from the band in 2001. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 with th ...
- pedal steel guitar, electric guitar, backing vocals *
Randy Meisner Randall Herman Meisner (born March 8, 1946) is a retired American musician, singer, songwriter and founding member of the Eagles. Throughout his professional musical career, Meisner's main role was that of bassist and backing high-harmony vocal ...
- bass, backing vocals


Live performances

"The Last Resort" was played live at the
Hell Freezes Over ''Hell Freezes Over'' is the second live album by the Eagles, released in 1994. The album is the first to be released after the Eagles had reformed following a fourteen-year-long break up. The band's lineup was that of the ''Long Run'' era: Gle ...
concerts in 1994. As of November 6, 2021, Eagles has performed this song 88 times, including 41 times in 2022 and 23 in 2021. Don Henley has performed "The Last Resort" live at 59 solo concerts, most of which were in 2016 and 2017.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Last Resort, The 1976 songs Eagles (band) songs Songs written by Don Henley Songs written by Glenn Frey Song recordings produced by Bill Szymczyk Songs critical of religion Environmental songs Asylum Records singles