Actor Keith Carradine introduced his hit song "I'm Easy" in the 1975 movie Nashville. Directed by Robert Altman, the satirical film follows a group of country and gospel musicians in the days leading up to a political convention. Carradine plays Tom Frank, a guitarist in a popular folk-rock trio who's hoping to become a solo artist. During an open mic, he sings the tender ballad, full of yearning for a special someone in the audience. Unfortunately, Tom is a cad who uses and abuses women, so many of the ladies in attendance think the song is about them. It's really aimed at his next conquest, gospel singer Linnea Reese (Lily Tomlin), who'd been resisting his advances.
Altman insisted his cast write and perform their own songs for the movie, and Carradine was excited to dust off the love song. He wrote it to woo Shelley Plimpton, his castmate in the original Broadway production of the hippie musical Hair in 1968. It worked, but the relationship didn't stick (it did, however, produce a child - actress Martha Plimpton). At 19 years old, Carradine was mostly being genuine when he wrote the vulnerable lyrics about giving his heart to the woman he loves, though he admitted he was "just trying to get laid." Still, he was surprised when Altman spun the song into "an entreaty from an abject narcissist."
"It wasn't the simple love song that I had written - it became something else. It became an incredible manipulation," Carradine explained in a 2013 documentary about the making of Nashville. "There was something kind of beautifully cynical about it, but that was Bob."
Altman and Carradine previously worked together on the 1974 movie Thieves Like Us. During a party at the director's house, the actor busted out his guitar and started playing some of his original tunes, including "I'm Easy" and "It Don't Worry Me." Altman was blown away, and the seed for Nashville was planted.
"When I heard them, I knew I wanted to base a whole movie around them, a movie that would simply give me an excuse to put them in," Altman is quoted in the 2003 book The Nashville Chronicles: The Making of Robert Altman's Masterpiece by Jan Stuart.
Gary Busey was originally supposed to play the role of the womanizing musician, with Carradine acting as his bandmate Bill, but he pulled out to pursue a TV pilot. The song would have served an entirely different function in the movie from Bill's point-of-view as a singer struggling with his failing marriage.
Busey was with the production long enough to provide the song "Since You've Been Gone," which ended up being sung by Bill, Mary and Tom (Allan F. Nicholls, Cristina Raines, and Carradine).
In the movie, Carradine performs this as a spare acoustic-guitar ballad, but he re-recorded it in a slightly faster tempo with percussion, synthesizers, and keyboards added to the arrangement. That version was released as a single and went to #17 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Easy Listening chart in 1976.
This was Carradine's sole hit single in the US (he had a minor hit in Canada with "Mr. Blue" in 1978). He hoped to parlay its success into a singing career, releasing a pair of albums,
I'm Easy (1976) and
Lost & Found (1978), but it never took off. But he did continue to incorporate music into his acting career by portraying another singer-songwriter in the movie
Welcome To L.A., appearing in Madonna's "
Material Girl" video, and starring in the Tony Award-winning musical
The Will Rogers Follies. In 2023, he played the part of an aging rock star on the TV series
Accused in the episode "Billy's Story."
This won the Oscar for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards in 1976. Among other tunes, it beat "
Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)," which was a #1 hit for Diana Ross. It also took home the Golden Globe for Best Original Song (Motion Picture) the same year.
While Carradine was pining for Plimpton, the actress was already seeing someone else. In the lyrics, he expresses that he's not willing to make a one-way commitment despite his feelings. "It's not my way to love you just when no one's lookin'," he sings. "It's not my way to take your hand if I'm not sure."
Of course, we know the exact opposite is true for his character in the movie, who has no intention of devoting himself to one woman and is perfectly happy to hide his affairs behind closed doors.
