About The Song
“Long Road Out of Eden” is a rock ballad written by Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and Timothy B. Schmit, recorded by the Eagles for their seventh studio album, Long Road Out of Eden, released on October 30, 2007, by Lost Highway Records. The song was not released as a commercial single but was issued as a promotional radio single in 2007. It reached No. 7 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart in January 2008. The double album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, Top Country Albums, and Top Rock Albums charts, selling 3.5 million copies in the US and earning 7x platinum certification from the RIAA. The track, the album’s title song, closes disc one and runs 10:17, making it one of the Eagles’ longest studio recordings.
Recorded in 2006–2007 at The Doghouse in Los Angeles and Samhain Sound in Malibu, the song was produced by Bill Szymczyk, with the Eagles as co-producers. It features Don Henley on lead vocals and drums, Glenn Frey on guitar and backing vocals, Joe Walsh on guitar, Timothy B. Schmit on bass and backing vocals, and Steuart Smith on guitar. Additional musicians include Richard Davis on keyboards and Lenny Castro on percussion. The lyrics, primarily Henley’s, critique American consumerism, war, and environmental neglect, using a soldier’s desert journey as a metaphor, inspired by the Iraq War, as Henley told Billboard in 2007. The arrangement, with its Middle Eastern guitar tones and extended instrumental outro, echoes “Hotel California,” per Rhino’s session notes.
The Eagles, formed in Los Angeles in 1971, reunited in 1994 after a 1980 breakup. Long Road Out of Eden, their first studio album since The Long Run (1979), took six years to produce, delayed by touring and Henley’s solo work, per Rolling Stone. Henley began writing the song in 2003, reflecting on post-9/11 America, with Frey and Schmit refining its structure in studio jams, as noted in Songfacts. The track was recorded over several months, with Walsh’s guitar solos overdubbed to heighten its emotional weight, per American Songwriter. The band debuted it live on November 14, 2007, at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, and it became a staple of their 2008–2011 Long Road Out of Eden Tour, including a performance at London’s O2 Arena in 2009.
It was performed at the 2007 Country Music Awards alongside “How Long,” showcasing the album’s country-rock roots. The song’s themes drew mixed reviews: The Guardian praised its “epic sweep,” while some fans on X found it overly political. Its studio process, detailed in Stereogum, involved meticulous vocal harmonies, with Henley recording multiple takes to perfect his delivery. The album’s success, including a Grammy for “How Long,” boosted the song’s visibility, though its radio play was limited by its runtime. It remains a fan favorite for its ambitious scope, per Genius annotations, and was included in the 2007 deluxe edition with bonus tracks like “Hole in the World.”
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Lyric
Moon shining down through the palms
Shadows moving on the sand
Somebody whispering the twenty-third psalm
Dusty rifle in his trembling hands
Somebody trying just to stay alive
He got promises to keep
Over the ocean in America
Far away and fast asleepSilent stars blinking in the desert night
Everything is quiet, time to lay this body down
Can you see those cities’ burning lights?
We’re out here in the dark on the long road out of Eden
On the long road out of Eden, yeahBig white clouds and dust devils dance
One-eyed monsters screaming in the vast expanse
Nomads sailing through a sea of burning sand
Hollow men burning down the promised land
And the eagle flies with the night wind
And the cities crumble one by one
And the gates of Eden are closed again
And the dream begins to come undoneWeaving slowly through this burning dune
All these weary soldiers with their rucksacks and their guns
Say a prayer for those who won’t be coming home
We’re out here in the dark on the long road out of Eden
On the long road out of Eden, yeahSee the campfires burning in the distance
Hear the music of a distant drum
Voices in the fog whispering of vengeance
Waiting for the calvary to come
And the pilgrims in their holy war
With their slogans and their guns
And they’re selling us salvation
At the point of a gunAnd all God’s children are broken and bleeding
And the fever’s running through their veins
And the world keeps turning, turning, turning
And we’re running from the pouring rain
On the long road out of Eden
On the long road out of Eden, yeahMoon shining down through the palms
Shadows moving on the sand
And the eagle flies with the night wind
And the dream begins to come undone