Doctor, My Eyes

Browne recorded a demo of Doctor, My Eyes for the Criterion Music publishing company in early 1971. By the time he recorded it for his first album that summer he had rewritten the lyric and thrown out its most pessimistic lines. A bridge and a third verse were dropped and survive only on bootlegs of the demo. In the 2013 documentary History of the Eagles, J.D. Souther and Glenn Frey recalled that he worked on the song over some months, and that, living in adjacent apartments, Frey could hear him at the piano every morning.

The record sets a lively beat of drums and congas with piano, with Jesse Ed Davis on electric guitar, Russ Kunkel on drums, Leland Sklar on bass, and David Crosby and Graham Nash singing backing vocals. William Ruhlmann of AllMusic wrote that the arrangement "worked against the still desperate message contained in the words." It reached number eight on the Hot 100 in spring 1972 and number four in Canada, and Billboard ranked it 92nd for the year. Browne did not return to the US top ten until Somebody's Baby in 1982.

The Jackson 5 recorded it for Lookin' Through the Windows in 1972 and released it as a single, which did not chart in the US and reached number nine in the UK. Kunkel and Sklar reunited with Browne in May 2021 to record it again for a charity project.