I heard a song on the radio. What was it?

June 6, 2017 8:37 AM

I know exactly when I heard the song. I know (assume) one of the words in the title of the song. I don't know anything else, not any of the lyrics and at this point I don't even remember the tune, though I'll know it when I hear it. I've searched online and asked the radio station--no luck there.

EVERY SINGLE DETAIL I HAVE

Station: 97.1 "the drive" in Chicago, this is a dad rock station
Time: approximately 8am Saturday May 6

It was playing in a block of songs that all had the word easy in the title, sandwiched between Ballad of Easy Rider and Ringo's It Don't Come Easy. It was NOT The (fucking) Eagles (man).

I searched for it for a few days after in the station's music logs (off the page now, they don't go that far back) but for whatever reason the May 6 list was missing all info between 4am and 9am. ANNOYING.

I contacted the station on facebook with all this a few days later to ask what the song was. They left me on read for a few days. So I checked back in, asking again, and they said "let me see if I can find out." That was on May 17th, and I'm guessing they don't know/dgaf.


So, I turn to you, metafilter! What song could I have possibly heard?

It would have fit in on a classic rock station, almost certainly had the word easy in the title, and was NOT THE FUCKING EAGLES.

It was also not Easy Livin' by Uriah Heep, though that is an excellent song, and it was also not Boston's It's Easy.

Thanks!

posted by phunniemee to Media & Arts (25 answers total)

I'm Easy by Keith Carradine?
posted by holborne at 8:40 AM on June 6, 2017

Nope, wasn't that one.
posted by phunniemee at 8:41 AM on June 6, 2017

Little Feat's Easy to Slip?
The Who's Pure and Easy?

Also you know there are two Eagles songs with easy in the title? Just checkin...
posted by jessamyn at 8:43 AM on June 6, 2017

List of songs with Easy in the title.
posted by vignettist at 8:43 AM on June 6, 2017

I hacked the network request to get the 5/6/17 list and confirm that the 4am-9am data is missing. The server will provide data back to 2013 if you make the right requests, so one thing we could do is scrape the history for songs with Easy in the title and see what they've played before. It looks like at a glance that only the two Eagles songs are in regular rotation, but perhaps they've had an "Easy Like Saturday Morning" day before or whatever. I'll poke at it for a half hour and see what I come up with.
posted by Kwine at 8:57 AM on June 6, 2017

I'm well aware of the various atrocities the Eagles have committed.

So far no hits.
I've also been through that list linked by vignettist and didn't find it, though since that list omits Uriah Heep I'm pretty sure it's not comprehensive.
posted by phunniemee at 8:58 AM on June 6, 2017

Could you describe the song at all? Was it a heavy guitar song or more of a ballad? Did it sound like a newer song or did the production scream "1970s?", etc.

I'm a dad who likes rock, so this is kind of in my wheelhouse.
posted by bondcliff at 9:05 AM on June 6, 2017

Phil Collins, Easy Lover?
posted by praemunire at 9:13 AM on June 6, 2017

I woke up in the middle of the night to pee a few days ago with the tune in my head and didn't remember it at all once I woke up, which is why this search/frustration is renewed. I'm pretty sure it was more of a heavy guitar song type of deal. Definitely not a ballad sort of thing.
posted by phunniemee at 9:14 AM on June 6, 2017

so one thing we could do is scrape the history for songs with Easy in the title and see what they've played before. It looks like at a glance that only the two Eagles songs are in regular rotation, but perhaps they've had an "Easy Like Saturday Morning" day before or whatever. I'll poke at it for a half hour and see what I come up with.

That would be super.

The thing is...I feel like I remember hearing this song not too long before that Saturday. I listen to this station intermittently on mornings/evenings during commutes or on weekends running errands, but didn't listen to the radio AT ALL before the beginning of March (which is when I got a new car with a working radio) so if I heard it on the radio it wasn't before March.

Thinking the same thing as you, when I looked back in May I also did a search for previous days' pages looking for what the song might be and only found those same two damn Eagles songs over and over. So maybe I heard it on a different station (104.3 and 94.7 also serve up a bunch of dad rock). Or maybe I didn't hear it on the radio before at all.
posted by phunniemee at 9:19 AM on June 6, 2017

Easy Wind?

Grateful Dead from Workingman's Dead.
posted by AugustWest at 9:21 AM on June 6, 2017

Easy Come Easy Go by Winger?
posted by knownassociate at 9:42 AM on June 6, 2017

from another radio station:
WBLM--The Easy Does It! Menu Feb 26, 2016:
“Peaceful Easy Feeling” – Eagles / “Easy Livin'” – Uriah Heep / “Slow An’ Easy” – Whitesnake / “It Don’t Come Easy” – Ringo Starr / “Easy To Slip” – Little Feat / “Nothing Is Easy” – Jethro Tull / “Don’t Ease Me In” – Grateful Dead / “Easy To Be Hard” – Three Dog Night / “Easy Now” – Eric Clapton / “It’s So Easy” – Linda Ronstadt / “It Ain’t Easy” – David Bowie / “It Ain’t Easy” – Long John Baldry / “Take It Easy” – Jackson Browne / “Ballad Of Easy Rider” – The Byrds

The Easy Does It! Menu April 27, 2016:
“It Don’t Come Easy” – Ringo Starr / “Ballad Of Easy Rider” – The Byrds / “Easy Money” – U.F.O. / “Peaceful Easy Feeling” – Eagles / “Nothing Is Easy” – Jethro Tull / “Easy Does It” – Supertramp / “Easy Now” – Eric Clapton / “Easy Livin'” – Uriah Heep / “It Ain’t Easy” – David Bowie / “Easy To Be Hard” – Three Dog Night / “Easy Street” – David Lee Roth / “Take It Easy” (live; solo acoustic) – Jackson Browne / “EZY Rider” – Jimi Hendrix / “Easy To Slip” – Little Feat / “Roll ‘Um Easy” – Little Feat / “It’s So Easy” – Buddy Holly & The Crickets
posted by calgirl at 9:43 AM on June 6, 2017

2500 “Classic Rock” song titles listed here. And "Ctrl-F" to search for "Easy" within the page.
posted by at at 10:06 AM on June 6, 2017

Easy Money - Billy Joel
Easy to Love You - Grateful Dead
posted by Iridic at 10:15 AM on June 6, 2017

Script is running.

CONTEST:
MeMail your guess of "How Many Times Has WDRV played "Take It Easy" since 1/1/2013?"

Price is Right rules. I'll donate $25 to the charity of the winner's choice. Contest ends at Noon Pacific.
posted by Kwine at 11:05 AM on June 6, 2017

CONTEST:
MeMail your guess of "How Many Times Has WDRV played "Take It Easy" since 1/1/2013?"

One of these stations has a daily song where you call the station when it's playing and win money, and sometimes they play it twice a day for double the money when you call. I'm sure this is not unique.

Anyway, today's song was Take It Easy and my immediate thought was "wow, they're only gonna play it twice today!"

3,498 times.


Also, I need to take a break from listening to these for a while because everything's becoming muddled and I'm not sure I trust myself to know what the song is anymore. I don't think I've heard it yet but at this point who the heck knows.
posted by phunniemee at 11:11 AM on June 6, 2017

Take it Easy by the Eagles. I think I know that song.

My guess is 1111 times.

Now ask me about Hotel California...
posted by AugustWest at 11:29 AM on June 6, 2017

The playlist for the show only lists these:

ALL THOSE YEARS AGO – George Harrison
CENTERFOLD – The J. Geils Band

8am
THEME: EASY DOES IT
TAKE IT EASY – The Eagles
EZY RIDER – Jimi Hendrix
IT DON’T COME EASY – Ringo Starr

THEME: FEELINGS
FEELS LIKE THE FIRST TIME – Foreigner
MORE THAN A FEELING – Boston

I included the 2 before and after in case it was one of those.
Full list here: http://wdrv.com/time-warp/?pid=219039#archive

This Saturday morning show has its own page (I used to work in radio and my guess is that it's probably syndicated which is why it's not included in their normal logs.)
posted by gennessee at 11:44 AM on June 6, 2017

That is excellent sleuthing, gennessee. Jimi Hendrix is so distinctive that I'll be surprised if that's phunniemee's song, but it seems like the only viable candidate in that list.
posted by Kwine at 11:52 AM on June 6, 2017

Oh man, you know what, it might have been Hendrix. It was when going through calgirl's list above that I decided I needed to stop listening for a while, because I listened to part of Ezy Rider and thought "gee, that could be it! but surely I would have recognized Jimi Hendrix...so probably not."

But man, with gennessee's info it seems like that almost has to be it!
posted by phunniemee at 12:04 PM on June 6, 2017

No guesses were low enough to win by Price is Right: 924 "Take It Easys" is the rough number I pulled out. Also, the script is only looking for "easy" spelled correctly, so it wasn't going to pick up the Hendrix song anyway :(

My number wouldn't include the syndicated blocks as gennessee discovered, so the actual number might be a hundred or two higher-it doesn't look like there is a lot of syndicated content on this station, but it's hard to tell. You might be thinking, "Come on baaaaby, don't say maaaybe," but we're looking at on the order of 55-60 hours of Take It Easy on WDRV over the last 4.5 years. When it comes to data mining, we may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again.

I'll award the prize to AugustWest, the lowest guess I received. To which organization should I send the funds?

Output file
Source file
posted by Kwine at 12:32 PM on June 6, 2017

I am a big supporter of public education. Send it to any charity in your area that supports public education. Thank you!!!!
posted by AugustWest at 4:00 PM on June 6, 2017

I donated to Washington's Paramount Duty, a grassroots organization working to compel our state legislature to raise revenue to fully fund public education in Washington state in a sustainable and fair way, as demanded by the Washington state constitution and unanimously ordered by the state supreme court.
posted by Kwine at 6:26 PM on June 6, 2017

Thank you! I will make a matching donation to Paramount Duty.

Great question. I heard some easy and terrific music today. Thank you to Kwine!
posted by AugustWest at 7:00 PM on June 6, 2017