Take It to the Limit

Infobox Single
Name = Take It to the Limit


Artist = Eagles
from Album = One of These Nights
B-side = "After the Thrill is Gone"
Released = November 15, 1975
Format = 7"
Recorded =
Genre = Soft Rock
Length = 4:48
Label = Asylum
Writer = Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Randy Meisner
Producer = Bill Szymczyk
Certification =
Chart position =
* #4 (USA Hot 100)
* #12 (UK)
Last single = "Lyin' Eyes" (1975)
This single = "Take It to the Limit" (1975)
Next single = "New Kid in Town" (1976)"Take It to the Limit" is a song by the Eagles from their fourth album, "One of These Nights", and was written by Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and bassist Randy Meisner. The song features a very similar progression to "Lean on Me" by Bill Withers, released 3 years earlier.The third single from the album, it was released on November 15, 1975 and went to #4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. It was also the Eagles' greatest success to that point in the U.K., with the single going to #12 on the charts.

"Take It to the Limit" was sung by bassist Randy Meisner. It is a slow ballad about lost love and loneliness. It was the first and only A-side of a single on which he sang lead. It was also the first time neither Don Henley nor Glenn Frey sang lead on the A-side of a single, and also the first A-side of a single to be the same length as the album version since "James Dean."

Meisner left the band during their "Hotel California" tour in 1976. During the Eagles' "Farewell 1 Tour" in 2004 and 2005, the song was sung by Glenn Frey in the key of G. On the tour DVD, Frey said his wife called "Take It to the Limit" "the credit card song" (oddly, he credited the song to himself and Henley but made no mention of Meisner.)

The song was covered by country musicians Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings as the title track of their duet album, "Take It to the Limit", which was released in 1983. The song was covered in 1977 by Etta James. In 1997, American singer-songwriter Richard Marx recorded the song with Japanese musician Aska, and released as a single exclusively in Japan.

References

* http://www.webcom.com/triangle/eagles/singles_content.html