Songfacts®:

• Don Henley and Glenn Frey of the Eagles wrote this song, and Henley sang lead. The message is that love is the ultimate savior in a world damaged and corrupted by evil and hatred. It also conveys parents' dreams and hopes for their children in such a troubled society. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Jake - New Rochelle, NY
• Don Henley started writing this song on one of the darkest days in American history: September 11, 2001. He wrote in the liner notes for The Very Best Of The Eagles compilation: "I sat down at the piano in my home studio and started putting some chords with the phrase 'hole in the world.' Months went by, but I didn't show it to anybody. Then, other things started happening that gave additional meanings to 'Hole in the World,' particularly after the [Iraq] 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."
• "Hole In The World" was released as a single in 2003 and included as the only new song on The Very Best Of The Eagles compilation. It was their first single since "Learn to Be Still" was issued in 1995 from their Hell Freezes Over reunion album. In 2001 they ousted Don Felder and were down to the quartet of Henley, Frey, Timothy B. Schmit and Joe Walsh. They all had family obligations and recorded sporadically, but Henley in particular had a lot to say about current affairs and got some of it off his chest in this song, where he takes aim at the politics of President George W. Bush.
  
  Henley told the Washington Post it's "not exactly a protest song," but it does make a statement. "I see it as a song that carefully frames some questions about the whole concept of being special or being chosen in some sense," he said. The idea that is tacitly implied by the current administration, which is that God is an American, a white, male American. People probably understand what the song is about, but people don't want to think too deeply right now. We are so afraid in this country of self-examination and self-criticism that we are literally putting our culture into the toilet."
• This was the first release on the record label the Eagles set up for themselves: Eagles Recording Company II. By this time, the group had such an entrenched fanbase that they didn't need a big record company to promote them, and by handling the release themselves, they could keep much more of the revenue. The strategy worked and the group issued their next album, Long Road Out of Eden, on the label.
• Yes, "Hole In The World" peaked at #69 in both the US and UK. As Beavis and Butt-Head would say, "huh huh."
• The Eagles made a simple, black-and-white video for this song showing them putting it together in the studio. It all looks very productive and harmonious, leading many fans to believe them when they said their next album would be out in 2004. It didn't appear until 2007.
• The band's longtime producer Bill Szymczyk worked on this track, but when it came time to record the Long Road Out of Eden album, they produced much of it themselves.