| "It's So Easy" | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
12" single |
||||||||||
| Single by Guns N' Roses | ||||||||||
| from the album Appetite for Destruction | ||||||||||
| A-side | "It's So Easy" (LP Version) | |||||||||
| B-side | "Mr. Brownstone" (LP Version) | |||||||||
| Released | June 15, 1987 | |||||||||
| Format | 7" vinyl, 12" vinyl, 12" picture disc | |||||||||
| Recorded | 1987 | |||||||||
| Genre | Heavy metal, hard rock | |||||||||
| Length | 3:24 | |||||||||
| Label | Geffen | |||||||||
| Writer(s) | Duff McKagan, West Arkeen | |||||||||
| Producer | Mike Clink | |||||||||
| Guns N' Roses singles chronology | ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
"It's So Easy" is a song by Duff McKagan and West Arkeen and made popular by the American rock band Guns N' Roses, featured on its 1987 debut studio album Appetite for Destruction. The song was published as the band's first single on June 15, 1987, in Great Britain and it reached number eighty-four on the UK Singles Chart.[1] The songs "Shadow of Your Love" and "Move to the City", featured on the 12-inch vinyl and 12-inch picture disc editions of the single, were written by members of Guns N' Roses while in previous band Hollywood Rose, and were later included on the extended play Live from the Jungle.
Contents |
According to an interview published in Hit Parader in March 1988, "It's So Easy" is "an account of a time Duff McKagan and West Arkeen, and also the rest of the band, were kinda going through. They didn't have money, but they had a lot of hangers on and girls [they] could basically live off of ... things were just too easy. There's an emptiness; it's so easy."[2]
In an Eddie Trunk interview from 2006 Axl states, that Duff and West originally wrote the song as an acoustic "Hippie Ya-Ya" song, and that it was Slash's idea to change the song into being a rock song.[3]
There was an original music video made for "It's So Easy", which was their first video ever made; the video features the band playing live in front of a crowd on stage, but later a promo video was made with the original video heavily edited but still showing shots of the band on stage but also showing girls in bikinis and much more. It was not included on the band's Welcome to the Videos DVD, as such its content is rare and can only be found on the internet. At the time the video was released it was not extremely popular, the single was not released in the United States and its video was never accepted by MTV.
"It's So Easy" is a Guns N' Roses live staple, being performed regularly since 1986.[4] It is usually played early in the set. During the Use Your Illusion Tour, it was often the opener or one of the first songs played. During the Chinese Democracy Tour it has been played second or third, immediately after "Welcome to the Jungle".
All songs credited to Guns N' Roses; "It's So Easy" co-credited to West Arkeen.
| 7" vinyl (GEF 22) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length | ||||||
| 1. | "It's So Easy" | Duff McKagan, West Arkeen | 3:24 | ||||||
| 2. | "Mr. Brownstone" | Izzy Stradlin, Slash | 3:47 | ||||||
|
Total length:
|
7:11 | ||||||||
| 12" vinyl (GEF 22T); 12" picture disc (GEF 22TP) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length | ||||||
| 1. | "It's So Easy" | McKagan, Arkeen | 3:24 | ||||||
| 2. | "Mr. Brownstone" | Stradlin, Slash | 3:47 | ||||||
| 3. | "Shadow of Your Love" (live) | Rose | 3:03 | ||||||
| 4. | "Move to the City" (live) | Stradlin, Del James, Chris Weber | 3:41 | ||||||
|
Total length:
|
13:55 | ||||||||