Welcome to the American Story.

Stories about what it is that makes America beautiful

and worthy of our love.

This is Chris Flannery with the Claremont Institute.

I call this one standing on a corner.

Things happen to a town and then it's never the same. Or it's the same in some new way.

Whatever it was before, it's hard to think of it now without the new thing,

like the Parthenon in Athens or the Statue of Liberty in New York.

It comes along and suddenly forever it is part of the identity of the town it came into. In the case of this town, it was a song, or a few lines from a song.

According to the legend, a young man named Jackson Brown was sitting in an apartment in Echo Park, Los Angeles, sometime in 1971, writing a song and not sure how to finish it.

Another young man named Glenn Fry, who lived upstairs, heard him at work,

came down to talk with him about it, helped to finish it,

and ended up recording a song with his new band,

called The Eagles.

They released it as a single in May 1972, and as the first song in their debut album, it was their first hit.

You've likely heard the song.

Many of you know it by heart, even if you aren't Eagles fans.

And if you haven't already stopped listening to me

and started listening to the song in your head,

you will as soon as I say two words.

Winslow, Arizona.

For those of you still listening, here's the rest of the verse from the Eagles hit, Take It Easy.

...