Glenn Frey Said ‘Take It Easy’ Changed Everything for The Eagles

The best classic rock songs change everything. For example, The Eagles’ “Take It Easy” was an announcement in more ways than one. The tune also transitioned 1960s music into 1970s music.

The Eagles’ ‘Take It Easy’ was co-written by a rock star who wasn’t in the band

During a 2003 interview with The Uncool, Glenn Frey discussed writing “Take It Easy” with Jackson Browne. “I told him that I really liked it,” Frey recalled. “‘What was that, man? What a cool tune that is.’ He started playing it for me and said, ‘Yeah, but I don’t know — I’m stuck.’ So he played the second unfinished verse and I said, ‘It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowin’ down to take a look at me.’ That was my contribution to ‘Take It Easy,’ really, just finishing the second verse.”

“Jackson was so thrilled,” Frey added. “He said, ‘OK! We co-wrote this.’ But it’s certainly more of him. Sometimes, you know, it’s the package without the ribbon. He already had the lines about Winslow, Arizona. He’d had car trouble and broken down there on one of his trips to Sedona. He spent a long day in Winslow. I don’t know that we could have ever had a better opening song on our first album. Just those open chords felt like an announcement, ‘And now … The Eagles.'” Those chords introduced the world to the band in the best possible way.

The Eagles heralded the end of 1 era and the start of a new 1

“Take It Easy” was a perfect song for The Eagles’ first single. It did a great job of capturing their typical slick country-rock sound. Beyond that, it’s a lyrical bridge between the 1960s and the 1970s. The 1960s were all about free love and optimism. That optimism found its way into pop hits like The Beatles “All You Need Is Love” and Donovan’s “Atlantis.” However, the 1970s were a little too cynical for that sort of hippie idealism.

In “Take It Easy,” The Eagles paint a portrait of a man who is living a “free love” lifestyle. However, he’s not exactly happy or liberated. Instead, he’s worried that some of the women he knows want to stone him to death! The second verse is about the narrator jumping into another fling that could end just as disastrously. The Eagles knew free love was not free from consequences. 

‘Take It Easy’ was both minor and huge

“Take It Easy” was The Eagles’ first single, so it wouldn’t be too surprising if it flopped. Instead, it reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, staying on the chart for 11 weeks. It missed the top 10, and it wasn’t one of The Eagles’ biggest hits by any stretch of the imagination. However, it was a decent start for a band that became one of the defining acts of the 1970s.

“Take It Easy” appeared on the album Eagles. That record peaked at No. 22 on the Billboard 200 and lasted on the chart for 49 weeks. The album gave us two more hits: “Witchy Woman” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling.” The former reached No. 9 and charted for 13 weeks, becoming The Eagles’ first top 10 single. Meanwhile, “Peaceful Easy Feeling” peaked at No. 22 and lasted on the Billboard Hot 100 for 12 weeks.

“Take It Easy” has a great intro that announced music was changing.