Track 2: "Life of Ease"
The Virtues of Squalorous Living
I wanna live in total squalor
Don't wanna kowtow to no dollar
You say I'm crazy, think I'm wacko
Cause I sat all my meals at Baja Tacos
REFRAIN:
It's a life of ease, it's a life of sleaze
I wanna live it with you
I know you probably think I'm nutty
My checks all bounce like silly putty
I never had no job that paid off
'Cept for the ones where I been laid off
(repeat refrain)
BRIDGE:
Now I don't care if the floor's got dirt
I don't care if you blow your nose on my shirt
I don't care if the lawn ain't mowed
But if you be my lily pad, I'll be your horny toad
To dirt and grime I offer no resistance
With roaches I live in peaceful co-existence
I like to pass out an my couch when I drink beer
And I ain't done the dishes in a year
(repeat refrain as many times as necessary)
copyright Sidhe Gorm Music (BMI)
(written 1976)
I often tell the story of my old pal David Vigil – yes the same guy from Track 1 who turned me on to Eddie Dimas’ “El Mosquito” – when we shared a small apartment in that fun summer of 1976, my final semester of college at the University of New Mexico.
Dave and I got along great. The only time we ever got into anything resembling an argument, it went along these lines:
“Hey, I did the dishes last month. It’s your turn!”
The result of that disagreement? We just ended up throwing out all those damned dirty dishes.
It seemed like a good compromise at the time.
I’m reminded of this twisted anecdote every time I hear the line from “Life of Ease” that goes “And I ain't done the dishes in a year.” But the truth is, I actually had written the damned song even before I’d moved in with David.
Take it in the spirit of the old folk song -- often credited to Harry McClintock, though some say it’s much older -- “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum.”
Hopefully most people who have chuckled along with “Life of Ease” realize that it’s not to be taken literally.
True, I’m not a great housekeeper, though I’m much better at it than I was in the ‘70s. But the lyrics are exaggerated for comical effect.
For instance, I never actually blew my nose on my shirt and despite my celebration of irresponsibility in the song, during those crazy drug ‘n’ drunkenness years, I always managed to make pretty good grades in college.
I did sometimes pass out on my couch – and, less frequently, other peoples’ couches – after a night of drinking. And I did bounce checks a few times. But these were not all that often.
Of course I don’t eat all my meals at Baja Tacos. But sometimes I’ll have lunch there. After all these years, it’s still the best fast-food Mexican joint in Santa Fe.
Actually the original line was “I eat all my meals at Pup ‘n’ Taco,” which was a fast food in Albuquerque at the time. I changed the line out of hometown pride when I moved back to Santa Fe after graduating from college in the summer of 1976.
And, despite the line about living with the vile critters in “peaceful coexistence,” I don’t remember ever having a roach problem. Not even back in the daze.
This roach business might have been inspired by some Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic. (And yes, I definitely identified more with Fat Freddy more than I did Phineas or Freewheelin’ Frank.)
Or maybe living peacefully with “roaches” was a secret drug lyric that was secret even to me. I certainly wouldn’t be the first songwriter to create a song about roaches and marijuana:
It was pretty much a crowd pleaser when I performed it live, especially for audiences who were familiar and liked to sing along with the chorus.
But, believe it or not, “Life of Ease” basically was a protest song.
No, not a protest against war or racism or other injustices.
It was a protest against the rapidly declining good-time hippie culture, a glorious little period that I got to enjoy for just a few precious years. Afterall, though I’m definitely a baby boomer, I was in junior high during the Summer of Love. So I was late to the hippy party.
Well before 1976, it was obvious that the hippie dream was over. Hell, back in 1973, during my first big hitchhiking trip, I witnessed first hand the sad state of Haight Ashbury at that time.
I’m not one for blindly glorifying the past. (I’ll speak more of unbridled Boomer nostalgia in the upcoming chapter on my song “Those Were The Daze.”) But I hated to see that sweet Bohemian dream choke the way it did.
And, as I was getting closer to graduation, before punk rock came along and happily disrupted everything, rock ‘n’ roll – at least what I was hearing – had become shallow, pompous, wimpy and stale.
Actually my buddy Boo Boo turned me on to Patti Smith’s Horses in early ’76. But at the time, she seemed like a cry in the wilderness compared to the daily onslaught of pre-fab goop that rock radio had become.
Joe Bonomo, one of my favorite music writers I follow here on Substack, recently wrote of Andy Shernoff of The Dictators and his songs about his native New York City.
Here’s “Avenue A,” a Dictators song Bonomo discusses in his piece:
Specifically, Bonomo wrote about Shernoff documenting by song the transformation of the Manhattan known for “cheap rents, the nervy arts and music scenes, and the lively, graphically diverse street life,” back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, into the astonishingly expensive, gentrified, touristy Manhattan of recent decades.
One quote that stuck with me in Bonomo’s piece was from photographer Derek Ridgers: “They destroyed the very thing that drew people there in the first place—it’s superficial sleaziness.” (Italics mine.)
That reminded me of a song …
It's a life of ease, it's a life of sleaze
I wanna live it with you …
Maybe you’re wondering how I could have gotten depressed at the sad state of Haight Ashbury I saw back in ’73 but celebrate the “sleaziness” of New York from around the same period.
Well like Jesus said, “You shall know them by their fruit."
At that point the fruit of the San Francisco music scene seemed to be pretty much squeezed dry.
But during this era, the fruit of the “nervy arts and music scenes” of New York that Bonomo described seemed ripe and tasty. I only wish I’d have gone there to see at least some of it first hand back then.
In reality, “Life of Ease” has nothing much to do with New York. But I’d like to think it shares in some of that wild, filthy, creative and sleazy spirit.
True to its title, “Life of Ease” was recorded with relative ease, with just the basic band, my brother Jack’s group at the time, The Whereabouts backing me.
It’s a basic blues boogie in the key of E, probably influenced by Canned Heat, my favorite white blues band since the late ‘60s. Singer/ harmonica honker Al “Blind Owl” Wilson had been dead for years by then. But singer Bob “The Bear” Hite died in early ’81, just a few months before we recorded Potatoheads.
Feel the Heat:
On my recording of “Life of Ease,” there were no outside guests, very few overdubs – and too be honest, very memories left in on my brain of recording it.
I can’t swear we did the basic track in one take. But there were few, if any problems knocking it out.
And even though I no longer drink beer and can’t remember the last time I passed out on a couch, and even though I never wanted my kids to grow up to be drunken bozos (and thankfully, they didn’t), I’m still proud of this silly tune.
Now, enjoy my song:
Credits:
Steve Terrell, lead vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar
Jack Clift: lead guitar, producer
Mike Roybal: bass
David Valdez: drums
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