Want to know some trivia about that line in the song? Glen Frey and Jackson Browne lived in the same apartment complex in Echo Park, a part of Los Angles. Glen Frey was Jackson Browne's upstairs neighbor. Glen Frey was desperately looking for new songs that his newly formed band, The Eagles, could play. He heard Jackson Browne working on this song and asked Jackson Browne if The Eagles could sing it because Glen thought it was great. Jackson told Glen that he was stuck and couldn't finish the song. He told Glen to take it and finish it and then the band could have the song. The only line that was missing was furnished by Frey and the line was "It's a girl my Lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me."
Glen finished it, the Eagles recorded it, and it was their first single off their first album. The name of the song is Take It Easy. Glen Frey had often said that Jackson Browne gave him credit as the co-author of the song even though he only wrote one line. He described Jackson giving him the unfinished song as giving him a package with the only thing missing is the ribbon. What a great present it was.
Anyway, because of the line I was standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, Winslow, Arizona has managed to revive itself. It was a thriving, busy city on Route 66 when the song came out. But, with the opening of I-40, Winslow was by-passed and business literally stopped. A committee was formed to capitalize on the line in the song and to develop some sort of park built around the song. However, there has been some controversy as to whether the corner is real and if it is really in Winslow. Browne already had the lines about Winslow, Arizona when he gave the song to Frey. He told Frey that he’d had car trouble and broken down there on one of his trips to Sedona. He spent a long day in Winslow. But the town has established the Standin' On The Corner park in downtown Winslow.
The park opened in 1999 and it was the Renaissance of Winslow with hundreds of tourists coming to stand on the corner on their way to somewhere else. The park has a statue of a guy, holding a guitar, a flatbed Ford truck, and after Glen Frey died, they placed a statue of him in the park. The park also hosts a festival each year. They have Eagles' music playing from all of the stores around the park and those same stores sell lots and lots of Take It Easy and Eagles "stuff." I got the t-shirt to prove it!
It was a fun place to visit! Now I can't get the song out of my head!
 |
| I was ......... |
 |
| It's a guy, My Lord, by a flatbed Ford, and I think he is looking at me! |
 |
| Ron with Glen Frey |
 |
 |
| Got the t-shirt |
No comments:
Post a Comment