“Take It Easy” by The Eagles

"Take It Easy" was the first thing the world ever heard from the Eagles: their debut single in 1972, and the song that kicks off their self-titled first album on Asylum. Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey wrote it together, and Frey sings lead and strums the acoustic guitar, easygoing as a Sunday drive.

Glyn Johns produced and engineered it, and he keeps everything bright and uncluttered. Bernie Leadon's banjo rolls and twangs alongside his electric guitar, Randy Meisner's bass bounces, Don Henley holds the beat on drums, and then Henley, Leadon and Meisner stack up those high, sunny harmonies behind Frey until the chorus sounds like four friends leaning out the windows of the same car. It's country-rock with the dust brushed off, relaxed on the surface but put together with watchmaker precision.

It reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1972 and became one of the band's signature songs, a fixture on every live and compilation album they released. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame put it on its list of the 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. Browne cut his own version the next year for his second album, For Everyman, but this is the one that stuck.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.