Tequila Sunrise (song)


"Tequila Sunrise" is a 1973 song written by Don Henley and Glenn Frey, and recorded by the Eagles. It was the first single from the band's second album Desperado. The song peaked at number 64 on the Billboard Hot 100.
A cover version was recorded by country music singer Alan Jackson on the 1993 tribute album . It peaked at number 64 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.

Background

Glenn Frey and Don Henley did not write songs together for their debut album Eagles, and they decided that they should collaborate after they had finished recording the debut album. According to Frey, he was lying on a couch playing the guitar, and came up with a guitar riff he described as "kinda Roy Orbison, kinda Mexican". He showed Henley the guitar riff and said: "Maybe we should write something to this." The title refers to a cocktail named Tequila Sunrise that was then popular. In the liner notes of 2003's The Very Best Of, Henley had this to say about the song:
According to Billboard, the theme of the song is " one man's efforts at survival and having to take 'a shot of courage.'"
According to Glenn Frey, the song was written in the same week as "Desperado" and was finished fairly quickly. Henley said that Frey came up with changes for the bridge, and that "take another shot of courage" refers to tequila because they used to call it "instant courage." He said: "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.""
There is a live version of this song that Glenn Frey sings additional lyrics to the standard ending, it goes like this:
There is no information to confirm if this is just an impromptu, or if it is actually the original lyrics which they decided to leave off of the original record.

Personnel