About The Song
Opening with a bouncing bassline and memorable guitar licks, the Eagles’ “The Long Run” begins as an innocent enough single, seemingly telling the tale of an everyday relationship gone sour. As the track progresses, the lines reveal the group’s inner conflict at the end of the 1970s. Some of this conflict includes the struggles of fame and temptation, as well as the beginning of turbulent and changing times in the music industry.
The opening lyrics alone indicate the band’s frustration, with the last phrase being a direct message for the group to call it quits: It was high time I quit / I just couldn’t carry on that way. The group’s fame skyrocketed after their 1976 hit “Hotel California,” and with it came the “live fast die young” lifestyle of ’70s rock and roll, founding member Glenn Frey told the Independent in 1992.
“We’d been living this lifestyle of limos, private jets, first-class hotels, and people doing what you told them to,” said Frey. “Plus, both Henley and I had developed drug habits, which didn’t help matters. Going to the studio was like going to school—I simply didn’t want to go.”
Intimidated by the charting success of their previous album, The Long Run was an album that took the group three years to write. The Eagles even intended it to be a double album but only made it to one full-length disc.
“It was an excruciatingly painful album to make,” Henley told Classic Rock in 2020. “We were having fights all the time about the songs enormous fights about one word–for days on end. That record took three years and cost $800,000, and we burned out.”
“The Long Run” was the second of three singles released from the album of the same name. It was preceded by “Heartache Tonight,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1979.
A year later, the group’s buckling was what some called a self-fulfilling prophecy when they disbanded in 1980. While they eventually reunited in 1994, the tensions to maintain the same early success received from “Hotel California” led to widely received criticism.
Popular music critic William Ruhlmann said the album and the title track had been a “major disappointment” in comparison. “Amazingly, The Long Run reportedly was planned as a double album before being truncated to a single disc. If these were the keepers, what could the rejects have sounded like?” he said.
The music industry underwent huge changes at the end of the decade and different genres were rising to the forefront, with punk, synthpop, and other genres dominating the charts. Trading the ’70s swagger and rock and roll attitude for the ‘80s rebellious, new wave vibes. The Eagles were rapidly beginning to worry about finding themselves in the discarded bins of has-been hot releases.
The group told Rolling Stone in 2016 that the song was written in part to respond to these comments and to make note of the changing music scene.
People talking about us
They got nothin’ else to do
“We were beginning to see press articles about how we were passe,” Henley said.
While the group received criticism for the album, the single went on to become one of the top 10 songs for the Eagles, becoming certified platinum within a year of release. The album itself was certified 7× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in the years to follow and has since sold more than eight million copies in the US.
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Lyric
I used to hurry a lot
I used to worry a lot
I used to stay out ’til the break of day
Oh, that didn’t get it
It was high time I quit it
I just couldn’t carry on that way
Oh, I did some damage
I know it’s true
Didn’t know I was so lonely ’til I found you
You can go the distance
We’ll find out in the long run
(in the long run)
We can handle some resistance
If our love is a strong one
(is a strong one)
People talkin’ about us
They got nothin’ else to do
When it all comes down
We will still come through
In the long run
Ooh I want to tell you
It’s a long run
You know I don’t understand
Why you don’t treat yourself better?
Do the crazy things that you do
‘Cause all the debutantes in Houston baby
Couldn’t hold a candle to you
Did you do it for love?
Did you do it for money?
Did you do it for spite?
Did you think you had to honey?
Who is gonna make it?
We’ll find out in the long run
(in the long run)
I know we can take it
If our love is a strong one
(is a strong one)
We were scared but we ain’t shakin’
Kinda bent but we ain’t breakin’
In the long run
Ooh I want to tell you
It’s a long run
Ay-ay
In the long run
Ooh uh, ay
In the long run
Gonna find out
Ooh fi-fi-fi-nd out
Long long long long
Long long long
Ooh run run run baby
Run run baby
Long long long long
Ooh run baby