Take It Easy

 

 

 

Here's something I don't like: people announcing they do not like a singer or band with the clear meaning that if you like the singer or band there is something wrong with you.  Unfortunately, I do this too, but I'm trying to get better. Honest.

I first noticed it in the movie "What About Bob".  Bill Murray played a goofball under the psychiatric care of Dr. Richard Dreyfuss. Dreyfuss asked about Murray's last girlfriend. Murray said he ended it because there are two kinds of people on earth: those that like Neil Diamond and those that don't. She liked Neil Diamond.

After that, I started hearing many people saying they didn't like Neil Diamond. That's like saying you don't like popcorn.

Soon the movie "The Big Lebowski" came out, and "The Dude" profanely said he hated the Eagles.

Again, saying you hate the Eagles is like saying you don't like popcorn or clouds. The Eagles were popular because they were good. You could sing along with them, particularly Glenn Frey.

I guess I'm defensive about the Eagles because there was a time when they were not on the radio.  But then came "Take It Easy".

Yes, "Take It Easy", the song that put Winslow, Arizona, on the map.  Winslow has a statue of a guy at a corner with a flatbed Ford nearby. When my son and daughter-in-law drove around Arizona on a trip, I asked if they went to see Winslow, Arizona.  My daughter-in-law said she nixed it because it was three hours out of their way.

It was probably the first country rock song I heard on WFOM-1230, the Top Forty station for Cobb County.  It had electric guitars, drums, and a banjo. Frey sang about running down the road, trying to loosen his load with seven women on his mind.  Only one of those women he seemed to like.

Then  Frey announces he's standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, and sees a fine sight:  a girl in a flatbed Ford.

As a seventh grader in Cobb County, I wondered how exactly do you end up in Winslow, Arizona and do they lots of girls driving flatbed Fords and would they slow down to look at a short, pimply kid with thick glasses. (Inside my seventh grade mind: probably)

I learned later that Jackson Browne co-wrote this song with Glenn Frey.  He had hit with "Doctor My Eyes".  He was a serious guy that wrote serious songs. I didn't know they knew each other. Probably neighbors at The Hotel California. (Sorry)

In "Take It Easy", Browne says, "Lighten up while you still can".

You read and hear a lot today about the unrest in the country. Some say we are heading to another Civil War.  I doubt that.  I lived through the '60s and the early '70s.

Back then, you had The Vietnam War. You may have heard of it, it was in all of the papers. The War caused protests and a lot of bad folk songs.

Kids were taking drugs and boys were growing "that old long hair".  There were all of these "liberation fronts," each with its own flag and hand signal.

It was intense. So intense Jackson Browne had to tell you to "lighten up".

You never saw Jackson Browne smile or laugh or tell a joke. He was telling us to lighten up.

That's the advice I remember from this song.  Whenever the latest controversy du jour hits,  I think of Jackson and Glenn telling us to lighten up.

It is good advice.