Easy by levipatrick

levipatrick - Easy

levipatrick

Nov 25, 2024 08:22pm

<img src="https://www.songfacts.com/img-artalbums-145-605c36759ddabc48dc894c98f9451b04.png"> Commodores lead singer Lionel Richie wrote this song, which became a crossover hit for the band, bringing them into pop and adult contemporary territory when they were previously pure funk. This led to more soft hits for the band like "Still" and "Three Times A Lady." When Richie went solo in 1981, he became a soft rock superstar with similar songs. In this song, Richie sings about giving up on a relationship because it's bringing him down. He feels liberated after the breakup and has a sense of calm that's "easy like Sunday morning." The song is often misinterpreted as a sweet love song. The guitar solo, played by group founder Thomas McClary, was tricky business. He explained in a Songfacts interview: "When you have lyrics in a song that say, 'Why in the world would anybody put chains on me? I've paid my dues to make it,' you have to match the intensity of those lyrics to a sound and a feel that musically portrays the same intensity and the same context of what you're saying. A lot of ballads, the song would just end, but we wanted the guitar solo to take it to another level of intensity. So that was basically the inspiration behind it." This was an unlikely cover by rock group Faith No More, who were known for their hit "Epic." Their 1993 version was their biggest UK hit, coming it at number 3. This was used in TV commercials for Levis jeans. Richie explained to Spin magazine the "Easy like Sunday morning" lyric: "'Easy like Sunday morning' applies to anybody who lives in a small Southern town. Small Southern towns die at 11:30 p.m. Saturday night. They roll up the sidewalk. So I kind of got that from my own experiences - that was Lionel Richie from Tuskegee, Alabama, where there is no such thing as four-in-the-morning partying." We'd like to take this opportunity to explain how the Commodores got their name: The seven original members each had a name they liked, so they agreed to throw a dictionary in the air and blind-pick a word on the page it landed on. That word with "Commodore," which was a ranking in the United States Navy that is no longer used. They came very close to being "The Commodes." In 2016, Lionel Richie sang this song in three DIRECTV commercials with the lyrics altered to "It's Peyton on Sunday Morning." The spots featured recently retired NFL quarterback Peyton Manning, now a fan rather than a player, discovering how he can watch the games on the network. Sky Ferreria sings "Easy" as Baby's mother during a flashback scene in the 2017 movie Baby Driver. Lionel Richie got into the fragrance game in 2019 with a scent called Hello. He released another in 2023, Easy Like Sunday Morning, because "even if it's a Tuesday, you want to be easy like Sunday morning."