Don Henley Says Nobody Understands the Lyrics to This Eagles Song: “They’re Always Wrong”

Back in 2007, Eagles released the song “Waiting In The Weeds”. The song was an album cut released off Eagles’ 2007 comeback record Long Road Out Of Eden. Listeners adored it enough that it earned the group a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals. And I have to say, the song deserved it. While the track didn’t get released as a single, the Don Henley and Steuart Smith-penned tune has become something of a fan favorite over the years.

The song is loved far and wide; that much is obvious. But according to Eagles’ Don Henley, not enough people grasp the true meaning behind the song… and lyric aggregate sites might be to blame.

This 2007 Eagles Track Always Gets Misinterpreted, According to Don Henley

In a 2017 interview with Debbie Kruger, Don Henley talked about “Waiting In The Weeds” and how fans and online publications alike tend to get the real meaning behind the song wrong.

“The ‘egg and dart’ [from ‘Waiting In The Weeds’], god, I’ve seen that misquoted so many times online,” bemoaned Henley. “A to Z Lyrics? They’re terrible.”

Ouch. For reference, he’s talking about the line in “Waiting In The Weeds” that occurs during the second bridge. “The phases of the moon / The chambers of the heart / The egg and dart of small gray / Spiders spinning in the dark / In spite of all the times the web is torn apart.”

Henley went on to say that “egg and dart” is actually rooted in American slang, specifically in architecture.

“The egg and dart is an architectural term,” he said. “You see it in every older house. It’s a design that’s used for a moulding, usually up along the ceiling; it’s a little round thing that looks like an egg shape and then between the little egg shapes is a little pointy thing, which is the dart.”

Henley continued by saying it symbolizes “life and death.” 

“The egg is life and the dart, which is an arrow in ancient times, means death. So I just threw that in there because it went with the theme of the song. That’s one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written, by the way. And you’ll never hear it played on the radio. Cause they never play the good ones on the radio.”

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