The Boys Of Summer
How Don Henley turned a song from Tom Petty’s reject pile into a generational anthem about lost innocence.
THE STORIES BEHIND THE SONGS
The early 80s were a time of uncertainty for Don Henley. “I felt tremendous pressure, not to measure up to the success of the Eagles, but simply to write and record without them,” he tells Classic Rock, in an exclusive interview. “Having a solo career was something I’d never considered. I felt unmoored, adrift.”
The Eagles had split in 1980, and all the members began to pursue solo careers. Henley’s debut album, 1982’s I Can’t Stand Still, had been a promising, if tentative, step forward. “I think it was a decent first effort,” he says. “In retrospect, a couple of the songs don’t hold up, but that’s true of all my albums.”
Around the time Henley started to gather material for the follow-up, in 1983, the drum machine was redefining the sound of music. “I had mixed emotions about the new electronic instruments,” he admits. “But Danny [Kortchmar, his post-Eagles collaborator] was knowledgeable about all the modern gear and was keen to incorporate it into our writing and recording process.”
Little did Henley know that a LinnDrum machine, acquired by Tom Petty &The Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell, was about to propel his solo career to anew high. On his YouTube channel, Campbell recalled how his first experiments with it inspired the track for Boys Of Summer. “I stayed up all night typing in tambourines and claps and snares. I got a little pattern going, then I came up with that melody line on the keyboard.”
Campbell added guitar and bass, then a week later he played his demo for Tom Petty and producer Jimmy Iovine. But it was rejected as a possible Heartbreakers song for being “too jazzy”. Campbell put the tape on the shelf, and there it might have stayed.
Although Henley and Campbell have different memories about how they first met, Campbell recalled bringing a cassette of the track to Henley’s house. “We sat at opposite ends of a long table, and he put the cassette on. He didn’t tap his foot or move his head. Just sat there, with his arms folded.
