The whole song is like a sad postscript for the version of Los Angeles that they could never go back to. Just a few years before, they had spent their nights going to restaurants like Dan Tana’s and coming up with the lyrics to tunes like ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ right there on the spot, but he felt that whenever they got back up to their usual tricks, it was like nothing ever felt the same when going back to their old stomping grounds.
Those days were gone, but Henley knew that he wanted to keep those memories in his heart the rest of his life in this song, saying, “It was something to remember. That was a wonderful time in Los Angeles. The city was alive with magic and a sense of possibility. People were warmer and more open than they are now. Then, of course, there was the dark side. Friends and acquaintances of ours (from that era) had begun to meet untimely ends. But the Troubadour, Dan Tana’s restaurant, the train — all those things served as a great metaphor for the search, the journey that so many of us were on.”
Posted from: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-1979-song-don-henley-wanted-to-remember-forever-wonderful/