This is Don Henley and Glenn Frey's attempt at a Philly-soul torch song. Frey later explained on the liner notes for The Very Best Of The Eagles: "I loved all the records coming out of Philadelphia at that time. I sent for some sheet music so I could learn some of those songs, and I started creating my own musical ideas with that Philly influence. Don was our Teddy Pendergrass. He could stand out there all alone and just wail. We did a big Philly-type production with strings -- definitely not country rock. You're not going to find that track on a Crosby, Stills & Nash record or Beach Boys record. Don's singing abilities stretched so many of our boundaries. He could sing the phone book. It didn't matter."
The strings were arranged by Jim Ed Norman, who was an old college buddy of Don Henley's in Texas and later the keyboard player for the Eagles founding member's very first band Felicity. In the late '90s Norman rose to the position of president of Warner/Reprise Records Nashville.
"Wasted Time" closes side one on your old vinyl copy of the Hotel California LP. After you've flipped the record over to side two, the first piece of music you'll hear is an instrumental reprise of the same track.
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