The Back-Burner: Aerosmith Outtakes & Demos

“Easy” is a Tyler/Perry/Hudson/Frederiksen collaboration that Aerosmith recorded during the 2000 sessions for Just Push Play, and got to the end of the production line.

Former Joe Perry Project singer, Cowboy Mach Bell, reported about a recent meeting with Joe Perry on an AOL fan forum during the Just Push Play sessions in late 2000. He said that, while at Perry’s basement studio, The Boneyard, he played him a song that started with the words “Blinkin’ winkin’ noddin’ drinking“.

It is speculated that it was considered as an additional B-side, as it was left unused as late as December 19th, 2000, and with a copyright entry registered in late May 2001:

Type of Work: Music
Registration Number / Date: PAu002594845 / 2001-05-30
Title: Easy.
Description: 5 p.
Copyright Claimant: EMI April Music, Inc., Juju Rhythms, Beef Puppet Music, EMI Blackwood Music, Inc., Demon of Screamin’ Music Publishing & Pearl White Music
Date of Creation: 2001
Authorship on Application: words & music: Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Marti Frederiksen & Mark Jeffery Hudson.

“Easy” copyright entry

During a SFX Radio Network interview hosted by Nick Carter & Carter Allen in Boston for the world premiere of “Just Push Play” a teaser of “Easy” was included. This took part during segment 7, after the premiere of “Face”. The teaser started with a fark joke about Joey’s snare drum, followed by a few seconds of the songs instrumental outro. Steven revealed that it was intended to be teaser to be released on “Napster” for a song that was written during the JPP session that would be released in the JPP follow-up album (that never happened) “after the tour” (so that would have been about 2002). The version used was a more advanced mix, featuring heavier brass section than the mix reported on December 2000.

The song features a good balance of pop and rock melodies. The verses, played on C, evoke pop melodies in the vein of Tyler’s solo “Oxygen”. The chorus features a chord progression and guitar work that feels inspired by The Rolling Stones’s “Gimme Shelter“.

Production-wise, it’s equal to the other tracks on Just Push Play, in terms of the inclusion of digital sound FX and high-quality recording. The song includes piano and metal wind instruments. The outro jam section has unusual Brad/Joe solo melodies and the band may have included an easter egg reference to Wham Bam!, one of their previous outtakes, as the band hits the F chord with Tyler singing the exact high notes as in Wham Bam’s chorus.

The lyrics are, as usual, a fun and sexy Aerosmith song talking about falling in love and getting heartbroken. The song was reconsidered during the 2006/2007 outtake based album aborted sessions, as found listed on the studio whiteboard.

Winkin’ blinkin’ noddin’ drinking now on a count of you,
Screaming, blaming, rack my brain, my soul is like a one-hour show,

She was a girl so fine, yeah, as finest fine as fine as could be,
And I was hers, she was mine, and she said, kiss, my, ask me no questions I tell you,

It ain’t easy, ain’t easy,
You ain’t got one ounce that’s sorry to see me go,
Yeah, how come you sleaze me,
Cause I’m the only way you know, to love and leave and let ’em go, I don’t know,

Giving, taking, earth be quaking, all in the name of love,
Your love faking, my heartbreaking, why was I thinking of,

We took a cloud to nine, and we minded of the birds and the bees,
She was my piece of mind, till she said kiss, my, ask me no questions I tell you,

It ain’t easy, ain’t easy,
You ain’t got one ounce that’s sorry to see me go,
Yeah, how come you sleaze me,
Cause I’m the only way you know, to love and leave and let ’em go…