Songfacts®:

• The Eagles catalog is filled with songs about guys with broken hearts. In this one, the poor dude comes home to an empty house and a note reading "Don't wait up for me tonight." Seems she likes life in the fast lane, but he takes it slow.
• Don Henley did the lead vocal on this track and wrote it with Glenn Frey. He called it "A song the Stones could have done" and said the idea to use the phrase and verse came from Don Felder, whom he and Frey kicked out of the band in 2001. In a Gold Radio interview with Nicky Horne, Henley said: "Glenn ran with it and even though Don didn't like it or think it was good enough. Glenn kept working on it and filling in the holes in the lyrics. Industry people said it was a hit."
• Issued as a single from the Long Road Out Of Eden album, this song made the Adult Contemporary (#12) and Country (#28) charts. The double album was sold in America exclusively at Walmart its first year for just $11.88, a price that worked because the Eagles made the deal directly (they were their own record company by this point) and Walmart wanted to get shoppers into the stores for Christmas. The bargain price, along with a fanbase that would still rather buy a CD than download an album, helped it sell over 7 million copies, a number that seemed unreachable in music's digital age.
• The only concept music videos the Eagles ever made were for this song and "How Long," another track from Long Road Out Of Eden. They broke up in 1980 before MTV went on the air and had no interest in making videos at that time. When they re-formed in 1994, they did a TV special and DVD to promote their live album Hell Freezes Over, but they didn't bother making music videos until it came time to promote their 2003 single "Hole In The World," which just showed the band working on the song in the studio. "Busy Being Fabulous" was directed by Olaf Heine, who shot the photos for the album. In the video we see the woman in the song busy being fabulous at a party while the Eagles - cleaned up in nice suits - perform. Not only was it the last Eagles video, it the only one they ever made with actors (only the band is in "How Long").