I’m just going to come right out and say it. Take it Easy by the Eagles is my all-time favorite rock song ever. The thing is it’s not even classic rock but is forged in the quintessential country-rock style of the Eagles in their early years.

In 1972, Bud Scoppa wrote in the Rolling Stone magazine that the song “is simply the best sounding rock single to come out so far this year.” The first time through, you can tell that it has everything: danceable rhythm, catchy with a winding melody, intelligent, affirmative lyrics, a progressively powerful arrangement mixing electric guitar and banjo, and above all, a cracking crisp vocal, with vibrant four-part harmony at just the right moments for maximum dramatic effect. To top it off, it was co-written by a non-Eagle (Jackson Browne) with Glenn Frey, their lead singer.

As lore has it, Browne started writing the song with the intent of cutting it on his eponymously titled 1972 debut album. But he hit a roadblock as writers do every so often. Enter Glenn Frey, a neighbor of Browne and the lead singer for the Eagles who finished Browne’s legendary opening words, “I’m standing on the corner of Winslow, Arizona …” with, “such a fine sight to see. It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowin’ down to take a look at me.” One of the greatest rock songs was thus born.

Take it Easy went on to become The Eagles’ first single in May 1972 and appeared a month later, on the band’s self-titled debut. It features the tight harmonies fans would come to expect from the band, with Don Henley and Randy Meisner swapping harmony vocals and Bernie Leadon providing that distinct banjo accompaniment.

Immediately on arrival, it captured the imagination of listeners and gently began the process of seducing a troubled world out of its greatest anxieties. The Vietnam war anthems had come and gone. So had the highest-profile victims of drug trips. The protest movement was losing its momentum. The 1960s were well and truly over. The arrival of Take it Easy announced it definitively.

Here was counterculture suggesting another way to view the troubled world. Instead of clamorous protests and feisty slogans, the song soothes and reminds us, “Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.” Go the other way and take it easy, and everything will ultimately be fine. Perhaps apt advice for today’s world torn apart by demagoguery and war and protests. Perhaps we should submit instead to the sound of those gorgeous harmonies. You don’t even have to make a move. Happiness is but a flat-bed Ford away.

Ironically the band itself failed to take their own advice. When the Eagles split up acrimoniously many years later, Glen Frey was asked if they would ever get back together again, and he famously replied, “When hell freezes over.”

The song became so associated with Frey and the Eagles that it did not spawn too many covers. In a twist of fate, Travis Tritt, a country music singer, re-united the Eagles, who by 1993, had been broken up for 13 years and invited them to sing on his cover of Take it Easy. They had so much fun recording it that they decided to loosen their load and get back together. Their reunion tour was aptly christened, “When Hell Freezes Over.”

As for Winslow, Arizona, the city near Flagstaff foresaw the rise of selfies and Instagram-friendly destinations with the 1999 unveiling of the Standin’ on The Corner Park. Winslow seemed to give its citizens and visitors, a gentle message: weren’t they heroes too, those denim-clad troubadours, who counseled us to turn life’s dial down a notch or two? What could be more profound than that.

We may lose and we may win. But we will never be here again. So open up, my friends, I’m climbin’ in.