The Eagles Song That Glenn Frey Wrote Out of Pure Spite of an Ex

At the end of a relationship, there is always something left unsaid. While many of us never get the courage to says those things, others find an outlet to get out their grievances. Glenn Frey once used his songwriting to air such grievances. Learn more about the song he wrote completely out of spite of an ex, below.

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It wasn’t really sad the way they said goodbye
Or maybe it just hurt so bad, she couldn’t cry
He packed his things, walked out the door and drove away
And she became the girl from yesterday

He took a plane across the sea to some foreign land
She stayed at home and tried so hard to understand
How someone who had been so close could be so far away
And she became the girl from yesterday

Frey’s first marriage, to artist Janie Beggs, lasted only a few years. Despite remarrying in the next decade, he took time to say everything he wanted to about his former relationship. He dictated it all in the Eagles song “The Girl From Yesterday.” The title alone is cutting enough that we wouldn’t want to be on the bad end of Frey’s songwriting.

“I remember it clearly because I have a little house in Hollywood, and that’s where Glenn would come and we would write,” co-writer Jack Tempchin once said. “He went through a divorce, and then he later got happily married. I was going through some bumpy times, so he was like, ‘Let’s get even with the old girlfriend in a way by writing a song called ‘Girl From Yesterday.”

She dreams of his returning and the things that he might say / But she’ll always be the girl from yesterday, he sings. Though it might be presumptuous of him to insinuate that she’s awaiting the day Frey comes back into her life, it certainly probably made the songwriter feel better about his situation. Check out this track, below.

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She doesn’t know what’s right, she doesn’t know what’s wrong
She only knows the pain that comes from waiting so long
And she doesn’t count the teardrops that she’s cried while he’s away
Because she knows deep in her heart that he’ll be back someday

The light’s on in the window, she’s waiting by the phone
Talking to a memory that’s never coming home
She dreams of his returning and the things that he might say
But she’ll always be the girl from yesterday
Yeah, she’ll always be the girl from yesterday

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