"Easy Living": Song History, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video

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Easy Living
Written: 1937	Music by: Ralph Rainger	Words by: Leo Robin	Written for: Easy Living (movie)
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On the Main Stage at Cafe Songbook

(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

Norah Jones (vocal and piano)
Marian McPartland (piano)

performing

"Easy Living"

at Tanglewood Jazz Festival,
Lenox, Massachussets (Aug. 30, 2003)

Ed's. note: During this piece both performers take grand piano breaks, Jones on a Yamaha, McPartland on a Steinway.

More Performances of "Easy Living"
in the Cafe Songbook Record/Video Cabinet
(Video credit)

Cafe Songbook Reading Room

"Easy Living"

Critics Corner || Lyrics Lounge

About the Movie Easy Living / Origins of the Song

Easy Living
(Universal Cinema Classics DVD)

Other songs written for Easy Living currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook: none.

The Quintessential
Billie Holiday Volume IV
Amazon || iTunes

A wealthy financier (Edward Arnold) gets upset with his family's profligate life style and throws his wife's new sable coat out of their New York apartment window. It lands on a poor working girl (Jean Arthur) and thus the plot of the Preston Sturges screenplay for the screwball comedy Easy Living begins.

To listen to Ralph Rainger's music as it skips through the movie serving as a lighthearted background theme for a screwball comedy is to wonder how it evolved into a vehicle for the bluesy irony that emanates from the soul of the Teddy Wilson / Billie Holiday version, with lyrics added by Leo Robin a little after the movie's release in 1937. Whatever happened it was this recording that started the song off on its path to becoming an American standard.

Buck Clayton (trumpet), Buster Bailey (clarinet), Lester Young (tenor sax), Teddy Wilson (piano) Freddie Green (guitar), Walter Page (bass) Jo Jones (drums) Billie Holiday (vocal) --
recorded in New York, June 1, 1937

Critics Corner

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Credits

(this page)

Credits for Videomakers of custom videos used on this page:

Norah Jones and Marian McPartland: Westdens;
Billie Holiday and Teddy Wilson, 1937: nataladass

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This section is currently incomplete.

The Cafe Songbook
Record/Video Cabinet:
Selected Recordings of

"Easy Living"

(All Record/Video Cabinet entries below
include a music-video
of this page's featured song.
The year given is for when the studio
track was originally laid down
or when the live performance was given.)

Performer/Recording Index
(*indicates accompanying music-video)

Performer 1 (year)
Performer 2 (year)