How to play “Best of My Love”
“Best of My Love” is a song written by Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and J. D. Souther. It was originally recorded by the Eagles (with Henley singing lead vocals), and included on their 1974 album On the Border. The song was released as the third single from the album, and it became the band’s first Billboard Hot 100 number 1 single in March 1975. The song also topped the easy listening (adult contemporary) chart for one week a month earlier.[3] Billboard ranked it as the number 12 song for 1975.
In 2009, J.D. Souther said of the writing of “Best of My Love”: “Glenn found the tune; the tune I think came from a Fred Neil record… We were working on that album (On the Border) and came to London. The three of us were writing it and were on deadline to get it finished. I don’t know where we got the inspiration.” Glenn Frey recalled: “I was playing acoustic guitar one afternoon in Laurel Canyon, and I was trying to figure out a tuning that Joni Mitchell had shown me a couple of days earlier. I got lost and ended up with the guitar tuning for what would later turn out to be ‘The Best of My Love.'” According to Henley, most of the lyrics were written while in a booth in Dan Tana’s Restaurant close to the Troubadour. The maître d’ of Dan Tana, Guido, was thanked in the liner notes of the album. The lyrics were inspired in part by Henley’s break up with his then girlfriend Suzannah Martin.