Eagles know greatest hits.
The legendary California band has sold more greatest hits albums than just about anybody. Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 currently sits the best selling album of all-time.
So in 2003 when Eagles decided to combine that release with Eagles Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 plus extras (including a new song, "Hole in the World"), it was no surprise that the collection was an immediate hit.
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Released on October 21 of that year, the album debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200, staying somewhere on the chart for more than a year (62 weeks, to be exact).
The band sat with writer Cameron Crowe to talk about the songs on the new set, where they explained the somber inspiration behind "Hole in the World."
"On September 10, 2001, my bandmates and I were still feeling elated from the successful tour of Europe we had completed in August," Don Henley remembered. "We had traveled all over the continent and made first-ever appearances in Russia, Finland, and Italy. It had been a memorable, satisfying experience. We were back in L.A. and preparing to record. Then, on the morning of September 11, the phone rang and it was my assistant, who said, 'You’d better turn on the TV.'
"That evening, our recording session having been cancelled, I sat down at the piano in my home studio and started putting some chords with the phrase 'hole in the world,'" Henley continued. "Then, other things started happening that gave additional meanings to 'Hole In The World,' particularly after the [Iraqi] war started. The fighting was supposedly over in May, and yet one or two or three of our boys were — and still are — getting killed every day, which means somebody’s daddy is not coming home. So that’s another 'hole' — a huge hole in somebody’s life — a child, a wife, a mother, a father, a brother, a sister."
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