One of These Nights (1975)

Performer: The Eagles                                            Writers: Don Henley & Glenn Frey
Highest US Chart Position: #1                                Label: Asylum Records
Musicians: Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon, Don Felder and Randy Meisner

I met my best friend in seventh grade band class. I was playing saxophone and he was stuck on clarinet because his dad felt it would make his technique better before he switched over to the sax. His dad was probably right. There was no explanation for why we hit it off, but we seemed to share a lot of similar ideas as well as a perceived place in life. I think it was just a relief to find someone else who was like me, and we’ve been friends ever since. It wasn’t long after we met that we started spending time at each other’s house. I’ll never forget the first night I stayed at his place. We were in his bedroom at the end of the house and before we went to sleep he turned the lights off and dropped the needle on The Eagles: Their Greatest Hits. The album had just come out, and though I’d heard all of the songs on the radio I hadn’t had the opportunity to just listen before. The LP was on the B-side and the first cut was “One of These Nights.” The song had been a hit the year before, going to number one the summer my dad was in the hospital. It entered the charts at the end of May and took the entire summer to reach the top spot at the beginning of August, staying around until the end of September. But listening to it there in the dark, with no other distractions, it was as though I was hearing it for the first time.

The opening is wonderful, with Randy Meisner hitting on the downbeat followed by Don Felder sliding up on a single string to Meisner’s three-note phrase in which he slides down on the third note. The whole thing is punctuated by Felder with a staccato chord up the neck on the and of four. After once through the progression, Felder and Bernie Leadon slide into a power chord that holds and fades over two bars. The intro ends on four staccato notes by the whole band before Don Henley comes in on one with the vocal. The verse is about looking forward to a glorious night together with a woman. Though Glenn Frey plays guitar, he’s not really a lead player, and the song as well as the album benefits tremendously from the presence of Don Felder alongside Bernie Leadon. The chorus is uniquely constructed, with a wash of vocal harmonies at the beginning of each phrase, finally ending with the title. Henley also plays an interesting rhythm on the hi-hats throughout. The second verse follows and has a line that the group changed, originally saying the narrator is searching for the “daughter of god” but Henley and Frey though that was going too far and changed it to “angel in white.” At the end of the second chorus comes a scorching solo by Don Felder, starting up high on the neck and working his way down and back up, a crisp distortion adding just the right touch. A bridge follows with more intricate guitar work and backing harmonies. The background vocals then repeat the title phrase while Henley improvises through a lengthy fadeout.

The single version of the song is reduced by a minute and a half, mostly by trimming down the intro and the long fadeout at the end. The sound is major shift away from the country rock the band had been playing since their inception. But with Henley’s kind of vocal abilities, he and Frey wanted to go in a more soulful, rock direction and the missing piece was Don Felder. A friend of Bernie Leadon, his arrival signaled a significant change on the album One of These Nights, also aided by a new producer, Bill Szymczyk. Though Felder would have a serious falling out with the band, leading to his permanent dismissal, there is no doubting his vital contribution to the new sound that would be solidified with their next LP, Hotel California. In fact, the B-side of the single was given to Felder’s song “Visions,” which he wrote and sings the lead vocals. The song is a rocker with the kind of intricate guitar work that Felder is known for, along with the lush backing vocals by the rest of the group. For me, “One of These Nights” is a song I can return to over and over again. It is not only a vivid reminder of that summer of 1975, but hearing it a year later at my friend’s house was the impetus for going out immediately and purchasing the greatest hits, still the best selling hits album of all time, and one of my personal favorites.