A hidden message, carved into the run-out groove of some vinyl LP copies, reads: "He who hesitates is lunch".

[5] The Eagles spent six weeks recording in London, with both the band and the producer becoming frustrated with each other, leading to frequent arguments between Johns and Frey.

[8][5] The band then took a break, decided to find a new producer and discarded all the recordings except for two usable tracks, "Best of My Love" and "You Never Cry Like a Lover".

[7][10] Szymczyk suggested they bring in a harder-edged guitarist to add slide guitar to the song "Good Day in Hell".

[13] Their friend and collaborator JD Souther ascribed the change of producer to "Eagles' desire to get more of a live, thin sound on the albums".

"Already Gone", "James Dean", and "Best of My Love" were released as singles from the album, and information on these songs can be found in their respective articles.

from the album: Bernie Leadon's "My Man" is a tribute to Gram Parsons, who had died of a drug overdose in September 1973.

In the lyrics, Leadon makes reference to Parsons' song "Hickory Wind" ("like a flower he bloomed till that old hickory wind called him home") which appeared on the Byrds' groundbreaking country-rock album Sweetheart of the Rodeo in 1968, the only Byrds album Parsons appeared on.

[15] A hard rock song, the track was inspired by the Watergate scandal and fears of the government overstepping its bounds and infringing on people's privacy.

According to Henley, the drink ""helped out" on the hand-clap overdub and the Temptations-like background vocals on the title track" by adding an element of spontaneity to the song.

[17] In an early review, Janet Maslin of Rolling Stone found the album "competent and commercial", but was disappointed that it did not live up to the potential for bigger things shown in Desperado.

Overall, she judged the album "a tight and likable collection, with nine potential singles working in its favor and only one dud ("Midnight Flyer") to weigh it down," and that it's "good enough to make up in high spirits what it lacks in purposefulness.

"[23] William Ruhlmann of AllMusic noted in his retrospective review the R&B direction in its title track that would be pursued more fully in later albums, and considered the album "which looked back to their earlier work and anticipated their later work" to be "a transitional effort that combined even more styles than most of their records did.