Easy As Life

Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida, sometimes known as the “Concept Album”, was released in 1999 in advance of the theatrical production, and features Elton performing the music along with a number of pop stars, including Tina Turner, Sting, Shania Twain, The Spice Girls. It also included Heather Headley and Sherie René Scott, both of whom went on to reprise their roles in the original Broadway production the following year.

Continue reading to listen to the song and for watch Tina talk about recording.

Listen to Tina’s version of Easy as life here:

The musical originated from a children’s storybook version of Verdi’s opera written by the soprano Leontyne Price. The book featured illustrations by  Leo and Diane Dillon. The rights were acquired by Disney studios for a proposed animated feature film. Development on the film was shelved, but the source material evolved into the stage version.

After productions in Atlanta and Chicago the musical premiered on Broadway in 2000.

Aida is a musical in two acts based on Guiseppe Verdi’ Italian-language opera by the same name, the scenario of which was written by Auguste Mariette. The musical was produced by Disney Theatrical, with music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice, and book by Linda Woolverton & Robert Falls.

Watch Tina talking about the song here:

Lyrics :

This is the moment when the gods expect me

To beg for help but I won’t even try
I want nothing in the world but myself to protect me
But I won’t lie down, roll over and die

All I have to do is to forget how much I love him
All I have to do is put my longing to one side
Tell myself that love’s an ever-changing situation
Passion would have cooled and all the magic would have died

It’s easy, it’s easy

Until I think about him as he was when I last saw him
And how he would have been were I to be with him today
Tender in his manner and my self-consolation
All I ever wanted and I’m throwing it away

It’s easy, easy as life

All I have to do is to pretend I never knew him
On those very rare occasions when he steals into my heart
Better to have lost him when the ties were barely binding
Better the contempt of the familiar cannot start

It’s easy, it’s easy

Until I think about him as he was when I last touched him
And how he would have been were I to be with him today
Those very rare occasions don’t let up, they keep on coming
All I ever wanted and I’m throwing it away

It’s easy, it’s easy as life

And then I see the faces of a worn defeated people
A father and a nation who won’t let a coward run
Is this how the gods reward the faithful through the ages
Forcing us to prove that all the hardest things we’ve done

Are easy, so easy

And though I’ll think about him until the earth draws in around me
And though I choose to leave him for another kind of love
This is no denial, no betrayal, but redemption
Redeemed in my own eyes and in the pantheon above

It’s easy, it’s easy, it’s easy as life