What does The Last Resort mean?

Eagles: The Last Resort Meaning

Album cover for The Last Resort album cover

The Last Resort Lyrics

She came from Providence,
the one in Rhode Island
Where the old world shadows hang
heavy in the air
She packed her hopes and dreams
like a refugee
Just as her father came across the sea
She heard about a place people were smilin'
They...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    m320753
    click a star to vote
    Feb 27th 2012 !⃝

    this song is about how man has ruined every area as his westward migration happened since the late 1700s. well, guess what? as don henley says so well, we're out of room people! some think it was about the Malibu region in california, some think it's about hawaii. in reality alaska is our last frontier, but we are ruining that state with oil spills and pipe lines. although not many people would never consider living there. so that leaves us with california. as any photo of malibu will show, they're building million dollar homes 5 feet away from each other and the multi-million dollar homes are pretty close also. america has a lot of frontiers as more than 50% of it is forest or uninhabitated. given enough time, i suppose we'll ruin it all someday

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Apr 5th 2011 !⃝

    I believe this song is about basically manifest destiny. How the white man came to America and believed an or made excuses saying that they were chosen by God to spread across America and convert the natives to Christianity. The natives considered nature to be perfect paridise and respected and honored it. While when the white man came they didn't care for what the native Americans thought was paridise and tore down nature and built cities and just tore up the land. The white man kept pushing back the natives and takin over and destroying nature until they got to the west coast. It mentions the white mans reign. They werent finished though they then took Hawaii. Now everything the natives called paridise is gone. It talks about Christians and how they refer to heaven as paridise and infers irony about how the natives "heaven" was taken away from them. It says that all land is now gone and wasted and now we just have to make due with what we have.

  3. 3TOP RATED

    #3 top rated interpretation:
    BogieD
    click a star to vote
    Aug 4th 2010 !⃝

    This song is pretty straight forward, and one of my favorite of all time. Mankind tends to be controlling and manipulative. In doing so, we destroy the beautiful things we come in contact with. And unfortunately, we often use perverted religious philosophies to justify our self-serving motives.

  4. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 4th 2023 !⃝

    Wow everyone misses how this song misses everything. If it was not for Christianity this country would not be the land of the free and the
    Ore we remove it from the pubic square the more we lose our freedom.stop biting the hand that feed us. Dont blame God for what man has done. I have re written one line of his song here:
    "They put up a bunch of ugly boxes
    And Holywood brought them."

  5. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 23rd 2021 !⃝

    I was a student at Pepperdine University in the late 80's and the rumor around campus was that Don Henley wrote the song about our Chancellor Young, after he hit and killed Henley's aunt, while driving drunk on PCH.

    Because of Pepperdine's wealth and political influence, Chancellor Young was never charged with a crime and Henley wrote the song in protest to this injustice.

    It was further rumored that one of our student DJs who dared to air the song on our campus radio was fired and suspended from school for insubordination.

    I have no idea if any of this is true, but it never left my mind and am hoping someone can finally and definitively confirm or deny this urban legend.

  6. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 8th 2021 !⃝

    I believe the Last Resort represents how being the last free world available for likeminded supporters of freedom came, they came from everywhere, raping & killing the Indians, then stealing their land for themselves! They created their own govt and as time goes on, the dirtier it got. With our country now so discustingly corrupt, while Trump fights for his job back to try and destroy the Swamp!

  7. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Feb 15th 2020 !⃝

    About the destruction of native Americans and the land for money. It refers to Pepperdine university in Malibu.

  8. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jan 1st 2018 !⃝

    so what.. get over it. it is what is. we cant go back now so make the best of it and quit whining about it.if you want to do something about it quit throwing your garbage along the highway's and byways and stop using it for a trash dump.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  9. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jun 29th 2015 !⃝

    This is Don Henley's "Big Yellow Taxi". Henley has always been a strong environmentalist and it's pretty plain that the whole song is about overdevelopment and man's tendency to destroy nature when given the chance.

  10. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Feb 17th 2014 !⃝

    this song is pretty simple! its really dope that it is awesome itas about manifest destiny and how god made them do it haha jk

  11. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 5th 2013 !⃝

    Thanks Giving.
    all about the pilgrims

  12. m320753
    click a star to vote
    Sep 30th 2010 !⃝

    This song hits me right in the heart every time I hear it. It's just a song about how we humans move a little way west in years gone by. when our toes are in the pacific ocean that's it " there are no more new frontiers , we have got to make it here" and we sure didn't make it did we? California is over populated, the pollution is sinful. what people will do to be famous is definitely the golden rule. we could go to Alaska but it's a little chilly up there so all the famous female stars couldn't dress the way they do in l.a.. besides they got Sarah Palin who's probably one of the beautiful and just drools sexiness. very few in l.a. can compete with her. but then would all the peta babes still go nude or would they club a couple of seal and shoot some polar bears so they don't get a chill. So I unanimously think this song is about the grass is greener somewhere else but we got no place to go


More Eagles songs »


 


Latest Articles

 


Submit Your Interpretation

[ want a different song? ]




Just Posted

Mad Hatter anonymous
Fire Lake anonymous
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead anonymous
We Gotta Get out of This Place anonymous
Jealous anonymous
Won't Get Fooled Again anonymous
Smokestack Lightning anonymous
True Colors anonymous
Future Love Paradise anonymous
Adios, Adios anonymous
Strangers anonymous
Possibility anonymous
Jailbreak anonymous
Sour Girl anonymous
Cornflake Girl anonymous

(We won't give out your email)