The Untold Truth Of Bob Seger

The Eagles were one of the most popular bands of the '70s, and its country-influenced sound was synonymous with the decade. The group was also a supergroup, packed with individually successful performers and songwriters such as Don Henley, Joe Walsh, and Glenn Frey. Despite that rock 'n' roll braintrust, the band grew utterly stumped when working on an out-of-character, hard-rocking stomper of a song for its 1979 album The Long Run.

According to Eagle guitarist Don Felder, when the band realized that Frey's vocals were underrepresented on the album, Frey, Henley, and collaborator J.D. Souther forged a nugget of a song, an uptempo, hand clap-driven number. There was one problem, though. They couldn't come up with a chorus. And that's when Frey decided to seek outside help in the form of another '70s rock star, Bob Seger. Frey called him on the phone and sang what he and the other Eagles had come up with, all the way up to where the chorus should go. From out of thin air, Seger pulled out the melody of that chorus, and subsequently, the title of the song: "There's gonna be a heartache tonight, a heartache tonight, I know." The result, of course, was "Heartache Tonight," with Seger as a credited co-writer, and the song went on to become the fifth (and final) #1 hit for Eagles.

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