In 1972 The Eagles provided some sage advice about taking it easy. But is it being heeded in recent releases by Adele and PJ Harvey?
PJ Harvey, Jan 2016 Auckland Photo: Luke McPake/RNZ
Does any other song so chillingly evoke the laidback Californian rock 'n' roll scene of a half-century ago than The Eagles' 'Take It Easy'? – a song by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey that, by today’s standards of sexual consideration, might concern some with the singer’s cynical countdown of the women in his life.
The Eagles and that song in particular came to mind with all the press that’s been stirred up over a new single from Adele, 'Easy on Me', her first after a six-year break.
It may be easy on the ear but the song is an anguished response to Adele’s recent divorce, complete with a direct plea to her eight-year-old son to put any blame down to his mother’s youth.
How does one respond, though, to the soul-baring of the so palpably rich and famous, so privileged that Adele’s upcoming album, titled simply 30, was announced earlier this month with that numeral mysteriously appearing on various significant walls — at the Colosseum, the Louvre and the Empire State Building?
But enough of these gripes, this gospellish piano ballad drifts very pleasantly through its few minutes and I can’t help but wonder whether the late Aretha Franklin might not be doubly missed for no longer being able give it the same Queen of Soul approval that she granted to Adele’s earlier 'Rolling in the Deep' when she covered it.
While Adele’s music is hardly going to ruffle the sensitivities of easy-flo commercial radio, Polly Jean Harvey has never, in almost 30 years of recording, been what you might call an easy pitch.
The English singer firmly set out a rigorous aesthetic in 1992 on her very first album, a collection of songs that even came with the challenging title of Dry.
P J Harvey’s last studio album was 2016’s The Hope Six Demolition Project, a highly and very specifically politicised outing fuelled by the singer’s research trips to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Washington DC.
Over the last year or so she’s been reissuing her past catalogue in demo form, an act of brutalist honesty that she first undertook back in 1993, when she revealed the rough workings of her first album, Dry.
The sixth and most recent demo release, which came out in June of this year, offers her 2007 album, White Chalk, which I covered fairly extensively on this programme at the time.
For Harvey it marked a departure from her usual guitar-based sound to that of keyboards and, in particular, a regular acoustic piano, which seemed ideally suited to her often disarmingly childlike songs.
So, armed with my new copy of the White Chalk demos, I was curious as to the origins of one of my most fondly remembered songs, 'Dear Darkness'.
But this set of demos, intended I would imagine for diehard fans only, has egged me on to search out the original 2007 White Chalk album to hear — and enjoy — the finished song. I’ll admit that there is a certain academic interest in putting the two versions side by side but, however thought-provoking the various slips and falters in the demo may be, I’m much happier to experience this fragile supplication as Harvey herself originally sanctioned it.
Music Details
ARTIST: The Eagles
TITLE: Take it Easy
ALBUM: The Very Best of The Eagles
COMPOSER: Browne, Frey
LABEL: Asylum
ARTIST: Adele
TITLE: Easy on Me
ALBUM: 30
COMPOSER: Adkins, Kurstin
LABEL: Sony
ARTIST: PJ Harvey
TITLE: Plants & Rags
ALBUM: Dry
COMPOSER: Harvey
LABEL: Island
ARTIST: John Parish & PJ Harvey
TITLE: Is that All there is?
ALBUM: Dance Hall at Louse Point
COMPOSER: Leiber, Stoller
LABEL: Island
ARTIST: Was (Not Was) feat. Mel Tormé
TITLE: Zaz Turned Blue
ALBUM: Born to Laugh at Tornadoes
COMPOSER: Was, Was
LABEL: Geffen
ARTIST: PJ Harvey & Eric Drew Feldman
TITLE: Zaz Turned Blue
ALBUM: Lounge-A-Palooza
COMPOSER: Was, Was
LABEL: Hollywood
ARTIST: PJ Harvey
TITLE: River Anacostia
ALBUM: The Hope Six Demolition Project
COMPOSER: Harvey
LABEL: Island
ARTIST: PJ Harvey
TITLE: Dear Darkness (demo)
ALBUM: White Chalk - Demos
COMPOSER: Harvey
LABEL: Island
ARTIST: PJ Harvey
TITLE: Dear Darkness
ALBUM: White Chalk
COMPOSER: Harvey
LABEL: Island
ARTIST: Jimmy Scott, Flea
TITLE: Love Will Keep Us Together
ALBUM: Lounge-A-Palooza
COMPOSER: Sedaka, Greenfield
LABEL: Hollywood
