Man O War lit with the Eagles singing Take'n It Easy
One of the few Eagles songs I truly hate. Yes, it's a classic song. But it is contrived and predictable and not at all indicative of what they would become...i.e. the most musically talented rock band ever assembled, and arguably the third greatest rock and roll band of all time (after the Beatles and the Stones).
But. Not. That. Song.
Sorry, rant over.
Sheesh, every band has to start somewhere, and usually the early songs are not indicative of what a band will be come. Don't think She Loves You or I Want to Hold Your Hand are clear indicators for the Beatles.
Besides, it's Dean's theme song (or should be)
Yes, but contextually, "I Want To Hold Your Hand" was groundbreaking work. It seems trite now only because of what the Beatles went on to do. But at the time, that was a whole new approach to rock and roll - musically, vocally, and compositionally. It hearkened back to Elvis, Buddy Holly, and Chuck Berry, but no one but NO one was going to confuse the Beatles with those guys, let alone the pablum on the radio in 1964. Pat Boone anyone? Neil Sedaka?
By contrast, "Take it Easy" was just a knock-off. It is utterly of it's time. The last great gasp of the country rock movement started by the Byrds with "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" in 1968. All right, so it paid the bills so they could sit around and come up with "Witchy Woman", and "One of these Nights" and they could let Randy Meisner write "Take it to the Limit." All of those songs have the unique interval skips and "Chuck-Berry-On-Roids" harmonic structures, along with the acerbic and emotionally ambivalent lyrics that marked all their later work. All that serves to make "Take it Easy" the outlier that it is - a collaborative work with Jackson Browne and JD Souther, a sunny little stoner set-piece about a guy whose biggest problems are all the women in his wake, but Lord here comes his next victim. If all the Eagles songs were guests at a party, "Take It Easy" would be the drunk, annoying guy who keeps babbling on about all the women he's going to fuck and ends up passed out by the toilet.
And that would all be fine except the radio played the damned thing to fucking death, and still does.