How the Eagles Comeback Song Also Became Their Last Top 40 Hit

The Eagles turned the pop charts into their own personal playground for much of the 70s. Their ability to stay true to their musical vision and cross over to a wide audience stood out as pretty much unparalleled in their era.

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Many years down the road, they made one more foray into the US Top 40. That only occurred when tempers finally cooled after many years of personal disharmony among the group’s members.

Big Hits and Bad Blood

The Eagles made it look easy, in terms of chart success, at the beginning of their career. Their 1972 debut album included three Top 25 singles. Audiences everywhere took to their version of country music, which featured harder rock edges and smoother vocal harmonies.

After a little bit of a chart slump, the band, almost as an afterthought, released “Best Of My Love” as the third single off their 1974 album On The Border. Even though the song flirted with Easy Listening, it was a magnet for those looking for something soothing. It went to no. 1, and the band’s commercial peak had begun.

Following “Best Of My Love”, the band’s next 11 singles all went as high as no. 21 on the pop charts. That included three more chart-toppers. But while all was right with their clout at radio, band relations had deteriorated well past the breaking point. Near the peak of their popularity, The Eagles broke up, seemingly for good, at the dawn of the 80s.

‘Freeze’ Frame

The individual members of the band went their separate ways, both professionally and personally, following their acrimonious split. Considering that the chief songwriters, Don Henley and Glenn Frey, both enjoyed highly successful solo stretches in the 80s, an Eagles reunion didn’t seem necessary.

A couple of developments changed all that. The band all sat in on a Travis Tritt video for his 1993 cover of “Take It Easy”, and they found that the tensions of the past had largely dissipated. Not long after that, Henley and Frey met to decide if getting back together was a viable option. The Eagles were suddenly back together.

The band’s initial thought was to do a reunion tour, with a concert television special and album (cheekily titled Hell Freezes Over as a reference to how unlikely the possibility once seemed) to promote it. But Henley and Frey also wanted to include some new music to keep it from seeming only like an exercise in nostalgia.

“Over” and Out

Henley had started writing a song with lyrics about the complaining folks who populated daytime television talk shows in those days. Frey stepped in with a driving musical backdrop. “Get Over It”, the first song the two had written together since the breakup, was chosen as the band’s comeback single.

“Get Over It” hasn’t aged particularly well. There’s not much of a tune to it. And it had the odd effect of wanting to be funny but instead coming off as humorless. But the demand for new stuff from the group was strong enough that the song made it to no. 31 on the pop charts after its 1994 release.

Some of the softer songs from the Hell Freezes Over project also carved out some airplay. “Love Will Keep Us Alive” even topped the Adult Contemporary chart. But none hit the Top 40. Nor did any of the songs from Long Road Out Of Eden, The Eagles’ last studio album, in 2005. “Get Over It”, the first song back from their hiatus, would also be their last single of such magnitude.

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