Don Henley’s classic third studio album, The End Of Innocence, is coming to 2LP vinyl for the first time ever. The 1989 solo work from the Eagles drummer is available for pre-order now.
Featuring hits like the title track, which Henley wrote with Bruce Hornsby, “I Will Not Go Quietly,” which features Axl Rose, “The Last Worthless Evening,” “The Heart of the Matter” and “New York Minute,” The End Of Innocence has been certified six-times platinum since its debut 37 years ago. The album continues with some of the musical styles of Eagles, which had broken up for the first time years before The End Of Innocence. The album combines some of those sounds with Henley’s cutting and occasionally bitter observations about the human condition.
“We live in a time of great mistrust. The feeling that we are one as a nation is rapidly disappearing, and that carries over into people’s private personal lives. I mention lawyers several times on the album. That’s because of the pervasive sense of every man for himself and every woman for herself,” Henley told The New York Times upon the album’s release. “It’s a very insidious thing.” The newspaper reported that Henley intended to reflect how a tense political climate could affect people’s interpersonal relationships.
Aside from Hornsby and Rose, Henley also enlisted singer-songwriter J.D. Souther for the album, with Souther contributing vocals on “If Dirt Were Dollars.” Henley also taps Melissa Etheridge and Sheryl Crow for some background vocals on “Gimme What You Got” and “If Dirt Were Dollars,” respectively, with Patti Smyth also lending vocals to “How Bad Do You Want It?” The End Of Innocence arrived five years after Henley’s previous album Building The Perfect Beast and far surpassed the already-lofty expectations set by that album. The End Of Innocence has since gone on to be counted as one of the 500 Best Albums Of All Time by Rolling Stone.
Buy the 2LP edition of Don Henley’s The End Of The Innocence here.
