Eagles – Take It Easy (Live at Capital Centre, March 1977)

“Take It Easy” – Single by Eagles from the album Eagles
B-side “Get You in the Mood”
Released May 1, 1972
Label Asylum
Songwriters Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey
Producer Glyn Johns
Charted No.12 in US; No.8 in Canada; No.16 in South Africa

Jackson Browne started writing “Take It Easy” for his first album, but he didn’t know how to finish it. At the time, he was living in an apartment in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles, and his upstairs neighbor was Glenn Frey, who needed songs for his new band – the Eagles.

Frey heard Browne working on the song (he says that he learned a lot about songwriting by listening to his downstairs neighbor work), and told Jackson he thought it was great. Browne said he was having trouble completing the track, and played what he had of it. When he got to the second verse, Frey came up with a key lyric: “It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me.”

Browne turned the song over to Frey, who finished writing it and recorded it with the Eagles, who used it as the first song on their first album, and also their first single. Frey says Browne did most of the work on the song and was very generous in sharing the writing credit. He described the unfinished version of the song as a “package without the ribbon.”

“Take It Easy” has retrospectively been regarded as one of the Eagles’ best songs. In 2017, Billboard ranked the song number three on their list of the 15 greatest Eagles songs, and in 2019, Rolling Stone ranked the song number two on their list of the 40 greatest Eagles songs.

Musicians:
Glenn Frey – lead vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar
Bernie Leadon – harmony and backing vocals, lead guitar, banjo
Randy Meisner – harmony and backing vocals, bass
Don Henley – harmony and backing vocals, drums