'The Last Resort' The Eagles | 1976

IT was a rainy winter's day in Denton, Texas, and a young man named Don Henley was in a scattered state of mind. He was engaged to marry a pretty girl from his hometown, but that meant giving up his dream of a musician's life. He was also fretting about the prospect of a draft notice that might take him from the prairie to the swamps of Vietnam. If he was looking for a sign, it came to him over the radio in his small apartment: It was "California Dreaming" by the Mamas & the Papas and, in its melancholy sunshine and crystal harmonies, he heard a call to go west.

By Geoff Boucher

January 28, 2007