Have you been keeping up with the trial involving Don Henley and the notebooks containing lyrics to songs like “Hotel California”? Well, chances are, those notebooks don’t have much in them referring to the Eagles 1975 song “Hollywood Waltz.” That’s because the guy who wrote the bulk of the song wasn’t even a member of the band.
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What’s the meaning behind “Hollywood Waltz”? What Tom Petty collaborator came up with the original idea? And why was the album that included the song such an Eagles turning point? Find out about it all as we look back at this unheralded track.
Legendary Nights
The 1975 album One of These Nights, the Eagles’ fourth LP, ratcheted the popularity of the group up to nosebleed heights. The ballad “Best of My Love” from 1974 had scored them their first No. 1 hit. One of These Nights capitalized on that momentum, with the title track, “Lyin’ Eyes,” and “Take It to the Limit” all becoming Top 5 singles. It was also the group’s first No. 1 album.
That success coincided with band infighting. It’s important to remember that the Eagles began their recording careers with each of the four members on relatively even playing fields in terms of their contributions. But as time passed, Glenn Frey and Henley developed into a top songwriting team and started to dominate the proceedings.
Frey and Henley also helped the Eagles branch out from the country rock that was their stock in trade when they began, something that didn’t sit well with fellow group member Bernie Leadon. Leadon also chafed at how his songwriting output had been diminished. Unsurprisingly, One of These Nights would be his last album as a member of the band.
But he didn’t exactly go out quietly. He had three songwriting credits on the album, including the instrumental “Journey of the Sorcerer” and album-closer “I Wish You Peace,” which he wrote with then-girlfriend Patti Davis. Then there was “Hollywood Waltz,” on which Leadon shared songwriting credits with Henley, Frey, and his brother Tom.
An Outside Contribution
Tom Leadon, like his brother Bernie, forged a career path in music. He is best known as starting the band Mudcrutch with a young Tom Petty. (Petty and Leadon would reform Mudcrutch for two albums way down the line.) In the middle of the ’70s, he joined his brother Bernie in California. While there, he witnessed acacia trees blooming in Topanga Canyon, which inspired an original song.
Bernie Leadon remembered this song when the Eagles were looking for material for One of These Nights. Tom Leadon handed the song over to the Eagles, and he explained the process in an interview on gainesvillerockhistory.com.
“I didn’t ask to hear it or give approval because I knew they were in Miami in the middle of recording an album,” he said, “and that Bernie was trying to come up with something for the album, and he generally wrote a couple of songs on each album, and I knew that if I put any kind of delay on it or any kind of stipulation that they might decide well we won’t do this. I had enough respect for them as songwriters. They made it into a Hollywood/Southern California thing to fit the concept of the album, kind of philosophically about life in L.A.”
The Meaning of “Hollywood Waltz”
Tom Leadon, who passed away in 2023, used the acacias blooming to launch into a song about a faded beauty still desperate to make the lifetime connection that has always eluded her. Dreamland, and bus’ness is booming, Henley sings to set the SoCal scene, but it’s one individual’s story which is the concern here.
Too often, a cycle repeats itself in her life: They got what they wanted / They’re packing and leaving / To look for another to love the same way. Still, she retains her optimism: She’s always willing to hold you again. In the chorus, the narrator pleads with her new guy to show her the mercy so many others have denied her: Learn how to love her for all of her faults.
The beautiful music of “Hollywood Waltz,” including lovely steel guitar and mandolin parts played by Bernie Leadon, exerts a bittersweet tug, as do the typically gorgeous Eagles harmonies. Still, none of that would have been possible without the inspiration of Tom Leadon, who got the ball rolling on this character study with a poignant ache.
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Photo by RB/Redferns
