How a Night Partying at the Troubadour Led Randy Meisner to Start Writing This Classic by The Eagles, and the Troubles It Caused

It was after another late night of partying at the Troubadour when the Eagles‘ bassist Randy Meisner started writing a new song. “We drank a lot of beer there,” said Meisner of the band’s regular gatherings at the famed Hollywood venue. “Randy Newman, Steve Martin, Jim Morrison, all these people that we’d know hung out here. We’d go down there and have a few beers.”

After a night at the Troubadour, Meisner went back to his house and started writing the Eagles’ 1975 hit “Take It to the Limit” on his acoustic guitar. “It was real late at night,” recalled Meisner. “I was by myself and started singing and playing all alone at the end of the evening. That’s where it started.”

The song, co-written with bandmates Don Henley and Glenn Frey and released on the band’s fourth album, One of These Nights, reflected life on the road, fueled by little sleep, performances, partying, and repeating it all again night after night, and taking it all to the limit.

“The line ‘take it to the limit’ was to keep trying,” said Meisner of the song in the 2013 documentary The History of the Eagles. “You reach a point in your life where you feel you’ve done everything and seen everything—it’s part of getting old. And just to take it to the limit one more time, like every day, just keep punching away at it. That was the line, and from there the song took a different course.”

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All alone at the end of the evening
When the bright lights have faded to blue
I was thinking ’bout a woman who might have loved me, I never knew
You know I’ve always been a dreamer
(Spent my life running ’round) and it’s so hard to change
(Can’t seem to settle down) but the dreams I’ve seen lately
Keep on turning out and burning out and turning out the same

So put me on a highway
And show me a sign
And take it to the limit one more time

Really, the only thing you can do when you’re in the Eagles is eat, breathe, and sleep Eagles.

Randy Meisner

You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love-making time
If it all fell to pieces tomorrow, would you still be mine?
And when you’re looking for your freedom (Nobody seems to care)

And you can’t find the door (Can’t find it anywhere)
When there’s nothing to believe in
Still you’re coming back, you’re running back, you’re coming back for more

[RELATED: The Eagles ‘Desperado’ Song About an Outlaw Guitarist Randy Meisner Started Writing Then Finished With Glenn Frey and Don Henley]

Once released, “Take It to the Limit” peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was a personal one for Meisner, the quieter member of the Eagles, who described himself as the more “shy and nervous about putting myself on the line” in an interview with Rolling Stone. “They’re used to doing that,” he added.

“Really, the only thing you can do when you’re in the Eagles is eat, breathe, and sleep Eagles,” said Meisner. “I mean, you’re either on the road, writing in the studio, or doing press. It’s just all-consuming.”

One of These Nights also features several other Meisner co-writes, including “Too Many Hands,” written with guitarist Don Felder. On the recorded version of “Take It To the Limit,” Meisner impeccably hit the high note on “Take It To the Limit,” which wasn’t always easy to replicate live and created some stress on tour with the band. “I was always kind of scared, basically,” said Meisner in the documentary. “What if I don’t hit it, right? It was a pretty high note.”

When Meisner purportedly refused to perform the song one night during the band’s show in Knoxville, Tennessee, on the Hotel California tour in 1977, it caused a fight between him and Frey.

Meisner parted ways with the Eagles that year and was replaced by Timothy B. Schmit; Meisner was previously replaced by Schmit years earlier in the band Poco.

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images