“I Can't Tell You Why” by The Eagles

"I Can't Tell You Why", recorded in March 1978, was the first song the Eagles finished for The Long Run, their sixth studio album, and the first Eagles record with Timothy B. Schmit singing lead. Schmit brought in the title and the core of the tune, loosely drawn from his own life, and Glenn Frey and Don Henley helped him finish it.

Frey, an R&B fan from Detroit, talked him out of a Poco-sounding song and into R&B, telling him he could sing like Smokey Robinson; Henley called the result straight Al Green. Schmit plays bass, Frey guitar and Henley drums, both singing backup, and Joe Walsh fills in on synthesizer, Hammond organ and Rhodes piano. Bill Szymczyk produced and mixed. Out as a single in February 1980, it reached number eight on the Hot 100, the band's last top-ten hit there.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.