Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCLXXVIII--Keith Carradine: I'm Easy

In another Friday Night Jukebox first, this week's tune is the first to be featured that won an Academy Award for best song...even better, it's not one of those schmaltzy Disney numbers but is a nice slice of American pop right up there with other winners like Springsteen's "Philadelphia" or Eminem's "Lose Yourself."  In another first for FNJ, it also the first tune to win the Golden Globe for best original song.

The musical career of Keith Carradine was very short--he released two albums, one in 1976 capitalizing on his Oscar win, and a second just for shits and grins (kidding--I'm sure the success of the first led to another shot at even more music success).  Not that his original career-acting--didn't pan out--Carradine has appeared in 64 films and 71 television shows/movies.  He's been nominated for an Emmy Award and twice for Tony Awards.  He also comes from a family of actors--his father John, brothers David and Robert, and daughter Martha Plimpton have all had quite some success on both the big and small screens.  Not too bad for a kid who grew up in San Mateo, CA--just a stone's throw from where I grew up:  the metropolis of San Bruno.

"I'm Easy" was originally featured in Robert Altman's epic film Nashville, and after the film's success and song's Academy Award win, was rushed out on an album entitled, appropriately enough, I'm Easy.  The song would reach #17 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, while the album would reach #61 on the album chart.  They were the only two charting records of Carradine's brief foray into music.

For me, the most impressive part of "I'm Easy" is that a virtual musical novice--Carradine--wrote the song.  Don't get me wrong--it's not "Backstreets" or "Night Moves," but it's still a thoughtful song with a catchy yet subtle arrangement.  If you've seen Nashville, you know that Carradine plays a womanizer and in the scene where he performs the song, several woman who he's had relations with are in the audience--each of whom, save one, believes the song is written for herself (I've always felt the song was actually written for the one woman who doesn't seem to either realize or care who the song is written for).  Carradine weaves a tale about a man who's in love with a woman and will easily follow her lead, but who can't seem to make about her mind about him.  The instrumentation is sparse--it's mostly a pair of acoustic guitars, with a nice strum and pluck playing off one another.  Carradine sings so that one feels the protagonist's longing, though his measured tones also conjure the easy nature of his desire for her.  The last few weeks the theme seems to be songs that added up to more than the sum of the artist's parts, and "I'm Easy" is another such song, a small moment of triumph for an actor turned momentary musician.

Lyric Sheet:   "And when your eyes throw light at mine/It's enough to change my mind/Make me leave my cautious words and ways behind..."

Enjoy:

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