Why Jackson Browne gave ‘Take It Easy’ to the Eagles
Two things became quickly apparent when Jackson Browne was living in Echo Park, Los Angeles. One that he had no idea how to finish writing ‘Take It Easy, and two that his neighbour, Glenn Frey, was desperate for new songs for his band. Browne and the Eagles, Frey’s new group, were both working on their debut albums at this time, and the tune, with Frey’s help, became an Eagles classic.
Frey heard Browne working through material as it floated through the floorboards and told him it was shaping up great. “I used to sit and listen to Jackson,” Frey once recalled. “Jackson was very pragmatic. He wrote every day. That blew my mind. Every night, he would be working on a song of his.” Eventually, Frey stopped by to see how things were looking, and Browne played him the track he’d been having most trouble with.
“He asked if I was gonna put [‘Take It Easy‘] on my record, and I said it wouldn’t be ready in time,” said Browne. “He said, ‘Well, we’ll put it on, we’ll do it,’ but it wasn’t finished, and he kept after me to finish it.” The second verse that had long alluded him was quickly resolved by a chance flash of creativity from Frey, who came up with the crucial lyric: “Such a fine sight to see / It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford / Slowin’ down to take a look at me.”
After that session, Browne continued working on ‘Take It Easy’, and later played a more polished version to Frey, who asked if the Eagles could use it when it was done. Browne said yes, so long as they finished it, wrote the last verse and turned it into a full-bodied song. “It was their first single,” said Browne, “And what those guys did with it was incredible.”
Browne’s unfinished song played a huge role in the band’s early success, so Frey was naturally very generous with the writing credit, describing the initial version as a “package without the ribbon,” that he’d been lucky enough to flesh out.
It became a live staple even before they’d recorded it for 1972’s Eagles, going on to become such a cult classic that the line about “standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona,” made the area a tourist attraction. Browne always seemed thrilled to have contributed such a huge hit, often downplaying the role he had in writing it. “I didn’t even know what a flatbed Ford was,” Browne told Rolling Stone. “You need a guy like Glenn, who’s a ‘girl-Ford-Lord’ guy. Also, he put himself into the song: The girl ‘slowing down to take a look at me’ – that’s pure Glenn Frey.”
Don Henley also took to Rolling Stone in 2016 to reflect on the track. He 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”.
Concluding: “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.'”
