Songfacts®:

• Denver wrote this song for a TV special he filmed in the Rocky Mountains called The Eagle and the Hawk. The special never aired, but Denver released the song on his album Aerie.
  
  "The mountains aren't the only majestic things in the high country," he said on his radio special The John Denver Show. "There are those incredibly graceful and inspiring birds of prey. 'The Eagle and the Hawk' captures my feelings exactly about these magnificent birds, and the way man threatens their existence."
• The song was released in 1971 after Denver landed his first hit, "Take Me Home Country Roads," which came earlier that year. His first hit as a songwriter came when Peter, Paul and Mary covered his song "Leaving On A Jet Plane" in 1969.
• Denver's producer, Milt Okun, shared his thoughts on this song in the liner notes to Denver's Definitive All-Time Greatest Hits compilation: "Fittingly, that's a song that really soars. Lee Holdridge wrote a wonderful arrangement for 'The Eagle And The Hawk.' It was fascinating to watch his environmental and social consciousness growing. A lot of the Chad Mitchell Trio [Denver's group before he went solo] material was socially conscious, though John wasn't particularly at first. But before long he ended up more involved and concerned with our world than anyone else. John did a lot of good for a lot of people."