The Eagles song Don Henley compares to Jack Kerouac
Soft rock they may be, but the Eagles have more substance than most would lead you to believe. Emerging from the countercultural era, this philosophy would impact their work, which touches on everything from the Watergate Scandal to the hollow nature of celebrity life.
One of their best-loved songs is ‘Take It Easy’, which happens to be their debut single. Released in 1972, it was written by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey. It has since become one of the tracks that best defines the group’s spirit. A country-rock classic, much of its appeal is that it speaks to the great journeying culture of America and its many winding highways that curl past an array of dazzling vistas.
A song that oozes adventure and personal discovery à la the era’s finest road drama, Easy Rider, ‘Take It Easy’ is the perfect track for cruising down an expansive stretch of Californian road as the sun glistens in all its glory. From the tinkle of the banjo to the emphasised group vocals, it has all the correct ingredients to evoke the endless possibilities that are so inextricable from the Eagles’ homeland and, more importantly, generation.
When speaking to Bob Costas, Glenn Frey, who had a defining mark on the song by stretching out the ‘E’ in “Easy”, asserted it is one of the most crucial efforts by the group and a fitting introduction to them. Of its essence, he said it represents: “America’s first image of our band with the vistas of the Southwest and the beginnings of what became country rock.”
The drummer of the Eagles, Don Henley, went one step further in his account of the song. Taking the composition down a more expansive countercultural route, he said that the track is so evocative that it even brings to mind the work of Beat Generation pioneer and travelling wordsmith Jack Kerouac. He captured the younger generation’s imagination with his 1957 novel, On the Road, a free-spirited and largely autobiographical journey around America amidst a backdrop of jazz, poetry, and drug use.
When speaking to Rolling Stone in 2016, Henley said: “The song’s primary appeal, I think, is that it evokes a sense of motion, both musically and lyrically. The romance of the open road. The lure of adventure and possibility – Route 66, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Pacific Coast Highway. Great American writers from Thomas Wolfe to Jack Kerouac to Wallace Stegner have addressed this theme of the restlessness of the American spirit, of our need to keep moving, especially from east to west, in search of freedom, identity, fortune and this illusive thing we call ‘home.'”
Listen to ‘Take It Easy’ below.
