“Best of My Love” is remembered today as the Eagles’ breakthrough No. 1 single, but there was a bit of controversy involved with reaching that goal. Seems the band’s record company shortened their song for airplay — without clearing the edit with the Eagles. That so infuriated Don Henley that he came up with an ingenious plan.
“They made up this gold record — they got a regular single and sprayed it gold — and they got a hacksaw and spray painted that gold,” Don Felder tells Uncle Joe Benson. “They mounted it on a frame, and went over and superglued it to the wall of the record company — and it said something like ‘All Time World’s Worst Edit.'”
“Best of My Love” went from 4:34 on 1974’s On the Border to 3:25 on the AM radio edit, while becoming the first of five 1970s-era charttoppers for the Eagles. That album featured Felder’s first turn with the group, as an additional guitarist on “Good Day in Hell”; he’d become the band’s fifth member beginning with the follow up, 1975’s One of These Nights.
Meanwhile, Asylum received a message, loud and clear. “That was Don’s way of letting the record company know — ‘uh, don’t touch our masters,'” Felder adds.
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Henley would show far less ambivalence when his solo singles, years later, were chopped down.