Songfacts®:

• Don Henley has always been very environmentally minded; in 1990 he started the Walden Woods Project to help preserve the woods in Massachusetts where Henry David Thoreau lived and wrote. In this song, he warns of a time when there will be no more walks in the woods, as the trees will all be cut down.
• This song opens Long Road Out Of Eden, the first Eagles studio album since The Long Run 28 years earlier. All four members - Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit - sing in unison throughout the track. The only instrumentation is the strum of an acoustic guitar.
• The lyric comes from a poem about lost love, nature and innocence called "An Old Fashioned Song," published by John Hollander in 1993. Don Henley found the poem and was struck by how it would make a brilliant a cappella piece.
  
  Hollander's nephew is Sam Hollander, a songwriter whose credits include Carole King's "Love Makes The World" and several hits for Panic! at the Disco.
• Along with Don Henley and John Hollander, Eagles touring guitarist Steuart Smith also earned a songwriting credit on this track.