Don Henley is 74 today. I watched the special 2 weeks ago. It was pretty good. According to Henley, Desperado was based on a song he started in 1968, written in the style of old songs by Stephen Foster.[3] The song was originally about a friend named Leo and began with "Leo, my God, why don't you come to your senses..."[4] In 1972, after they had recorded their first album Eagles in London, Glenn Frey and Henley decided that they should write songs together.[5] In their first songwriting session after returning from London, Henley played Frey the unfinished version of the song, and said: "When I play it and sing it, I think of Ray Charles and Stephen Foster. It's really a Southern Gothic thing, but we can easily make it more Western."[4] According to Henley, Frey "leapt right on it – filled in the blanks and brought structure", and the song became "Desperado". Henley added: "And that was the beginning of our songwriting partnership ... that's when we became a team."[4]
