I don't know why fortune smiles on some/And lets the rest go free," sings Don Henley on "The Sad Café," the concluding song on the Eagles' last studio album, The Long Run. Those lines capture eloquently the degree to which the Eagles had come to see the superstardom they enjoyed in the Seventies as a kind of curse that generated dissension among the band's members, critical controversy, creative paralysis and a nearly metaphysical discomfort with the hedonistic delights "however fully indulged" that success brought in its wake.

Things started out innocently enough. When the Eagles were formed in Los Angeles in 1971, the group — guitarists Glenn Frey and Bernie Leadon, bassist Randy Meisner and drummer Don Henley — set out on an exuberant exploration of the country-rock synthesis that had been a hallmark of earlier California bands like the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers. The Eagles' first three albums — Eagles (1972), which yielded the hits "Take It Easy," "Witchy Woman" and "Peaceful Easy Feeling"; Desperado (1973); and, as guitarist Don Felder was joining the band, On the Border (1975) — were distinguished by catchy melodies, reassuring harmonies and a fascination with outlaw imagery.

On One of These Nights (1975), the Eagles began to examine the dark side of the California dream, a concern that grew into an obsession on Hotel California (1976), the band's greatest album. Novelist Joseph Conrad used the term "fascination of the abomination" to describe the hypnotic power that self-destruction can exert on the soul, and that phrase well suits Hotel California's depiction of a gorgeous paradise — the geographical end point of American aspiration — transformed into a Kind of sunny hell of unsatisfying pleasure.

With Hotel California's massive success, Henley and Frey dearly emerged as the main voices of the Eagles, not only because their songwriting and singing had come to define the band's vision, but because — with the departure of Leadon and Meisner and the addition of guitarist Joe Walsh and bassist Timothy B. Schmit — they were the last remaining members of the original lineup. Battles over the direction of the group, anxiety over crafting a worthy follow-up to Hotel California, legal struggles with the band's management and a growing perception by critics of California rockers as spoiled, narcissistic sybarites created an environment in which three years passed before the release of The Long Run, a process that left the group exhausted and disaffected. When Frey announced in 1981 that he had begun work on a solo album, the Eagles' breakup became official.

On a bright day this past August, Henley and Frey met at Henley's home in Beverly Hills to do their first interview together since the Eagles' split. Fresh from the extensive tour that followed the release of The End of the Innocence, Henley seemed relaxed and happy. Frey appeared comfortable as well, despite a solo career that stalled in the late Eighties. Frey's image — and that of the Eagles — had also not been well served by his recent "Hard Rock/Rock Hard" ads for Jack LaLanne, which implied that his years as a Seventies rocker consisted of little more than pointless excess.

But if the past was the subject of the day, the future loomed as well, in the form of a projected Eagles reunion. Henley and Frey are starting to write songs together, and other former members of the group are being recruited for a possible album and tour next year.

And already the backlash has begun. "Don Henley must die," psycho-punk Mojo Nixon screams on his new album. "Don't let him get back together with Glenn Frey." So history is once again repeating itself, but this time around, Henley and Frey seem to have the equanimity to enjoy themselves more naturally and, at least in the short term, to settle in for the long run.