About The Song
Prior to Desperados, Don Henley and Glenn Frey had chosen not to write songs collaboratively, preferring to write in solitude and bring their contributions to the studio. However, in 1973 they decided to unite, sitting down for a week-long writing session that gave birth to the LP’s title track and its first single, ‘Tequila Sunrise’.
The track emerged when Frey was casually strumming his guitar, not paying too much attention to what he was doing. Had Henley not been there, he could well have left the chord progression pass him by. It sounded as though Frey had plucked it from the soundtrack to some old Hollywood western set in the wilds of Mexico. Henley suggested they come up with a skeleton track, and they’d soon come up with the basic structure for ‘Tequila Sunrise’.
When it came to writing the lyrics, Glenn and Don chose to write about what they knew. “That’s one song I don’t get tired of,” Henley writes in the liner notes to 2003’s The Very Best Of. “‘Take another shot of courage’ refers to tequila – because we used to call it ‘instant courage.’ We very much wanted to talk to the ladies, but we often didn’t have the nerve, so we’d drink a couple of shots and suddenly it was, ‘Howdy, ma’am.’”
Henley felt that the idea of a ‘Tequila Sunrise’ was the perfect metaphor for Californian drinkers. “I believe that was a Glenn title,” Henley confessed. “I think he was ambivalent about it because he thought that it was a bit too obvious or too much of a cliche because of the drink that was so popular then. I said ‘No – look at it from a different point of view. You’ve been drinking straight tequila all night, and the sun is coming up!’ It turned out to be a really great song.”
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZxhQJC9hWk