Fortunate to have songwriters of the quality of Glenn Frey and Don Henley in their midst, there are a couple of particular Eagles favourites that stemmed from a different source. Don Felder has long maintained that it was his chord sequence that inspired ‘Hotel California’, while it was bass player Randy Meisner who provided the canvas for Frey and Henley to complete the writing of ‘Take It To The Limit’.
Coming home from an evening at The Troubadour in Beverly Hills, Meisner came up with the memorable opening line and the reflective mood of the song, which is a slow waltz, unaware that the song would become a staple of the Eagles’ live performances. But he might never have handed it over to Frey and Henley if he had foreseen that one day it would lead to his departure from the band.
Included on the fourth Eagles album “One Of These Nights”, this song was the first single on which neither Frey nor Henley had sung the lead vocal. Though Meisner had a fine voice, the talent within the band was such that he was seldom required to take centre stage, his other contributions being on much less well-known tracks. On ‘Take It To The Limit’, however, his inimitable falsetto towards the end of the song became one of the highlights of their show. The video from the concert on 21st March 1977 reveals Glenn Frey’s delight as Meisner holds the high F# note for several seconds, the crowd spontaneously breaking into applause. Even Meisner permits himself a smile of relief that he’s got through the song unscathed and here lies the root of what led to his leaving the Eagles.
The song placed enormous responsibility on Meisner and as the tour progressed he became increasingly anxious that he would not hit the notes that the audiences had come to expect. In Knoxville, Tennessee as the band prepared for their encore, he informed Frey that he would not sing it that evening. A scuffle ensued backstage and from that point Meisner’s time in the band was of finite duration, and he left at the end of the tour in September 1977.
The popularity of ‘Take It To The Limit’ gave the band little option but to keep it in their set. Timothy B Schmit was a more than capable replacement both vocally and on bass but neither he nor any of the other singers, who by this time included Joe Walsh, would ever be able to replicate Meisner’s performance. Glenn Frey took to performing the song but a change of key was needed, while latterly it has been taken by Vince Gill, also in a different key to the original. It should be noted that when Asylum released the single it was cut to 3’48 thus eclipsing the final minute of the album version which included the protracted falsettos. In concert, and as it does here, the song runs its full course of around five minutes.
