Easy Lover

Phil Collins and Phillip Bailey having some fun

I keep coming back to this song. It appears on Philip Bailey’s first solo album away from Earth, Wind and Fire. Phil Collins was brought in to produce. After the album was done, it was felt it didn’t have a hit song, so a jam session with Bailey, Collins, and bass player Nathan East yielded this composition.

Philip Bailey revealed the story behind the song in Musician magazine:

Phil and Nathan were playing around with a riff on the piano and I was walking around singing 'Choosy Lover' over the piano chords. We worked on it all day and put a rough version of it down on tape. The next day we said, 'let's check it out so we can go in and record it.' When we heard it, we realized there was nothing wrong with it. We tried doing it again, but we kept the original.

The video won a VMA award for Best Overall Performance in a Video. As Collins says off the top, it’s making a video about making a video. We see Phillip Bailey flying over London in a helicopter and then arriving at the studio. We see the crew building the set. We see the rehearsal, our singers working out what they are doing. We see cameras moving and the soundboard in action. We see Phil Collins being a big goofball. Finally we get them dressed in fine clothes doing a performance. It’s all good fun.

Enjoy your song of the day!