Philip Bailey/Phil Collins — Easy Lover and the Loma Prieta Earthquake
1. Philip Bailey
When the Loma Prieta earthquake hit at 5:04pm on October 17th, 1989, I was a senior at the University of California, Santa Cruz. I had just returned from Logo’s Books and Records, a used copy of Earth, Wind & Fire’s 1975 album That’s the Way of the World in a square paper bag on the passenger seat next to me. A mostly-empty large soy chai from Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company sat in the cracked plastic cup holder between the seats of my rusted, rust-colored Toyota Corolla.
I was parked in front of the house where I rented a room with my new housemates Dennis and Albert whom I’d met through campus homeshare. The semester had just begun; it was the start of the third week of classes and everyone was just beginning to fall into the familiar rhythm of studying, partying, working, partying, sleeping, partying.
I sat in the car, listening to the warm-up radio chatter on KNBR-680 before the third game of the World Series, the first ever featuring both Bay Area teams, the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A’s. I was a huge baseball fan, and had watched my favorite team, the Giants, get clobbered in games 1 and 2. I felt certain that tonight, things would play out different.
I would find out just how different that night would become thirty seconds later.
When the first jolt hit, I thought something had smashed into my car. When the Corolla began to sway from side to side it became unmistakably clear that it was an earthquake. It felt strong, but not that strong. When the initial rumble subsided 20 seconds later, everything seemed okay. I heard no one scream, no buildings had collapsed, so I gathered my bags and headed into the house. The only ominous sign that it might have been a major earthquake, was a large plume of black smoke rising in the sky, coming from the direction of the shopping district downtown, from where I’d just returned.
It would soon be reported that the coffee shop that had mere minutes ago prepared for me a frothy soy chai, had collapsed in the quake, killing two customers and injuring several more. But I wouldn’t learn of this tragedy for a couple days. Instead, I carried on somewhat normally, setting my new record down on my unmade bed then helping my roommates pick up the dozen or so plates and glasses that had fallen from the dish rack and smashed onto the linoleum tile. The house was hardly damaged though, maybe a crack or two in the walls — but it’s also possible the cracks were already there. College boys aren’t the most aware breed. The power was out though, so it seemed silly to stay inside. And once the first aftershock hit a couple minutes later, we all stayed outside for good.
It would be four days before the power in the house would turn back on, four days before I would be able to listen to “Africano,” the 2nd song on side two of That’s the Way of the World, the song that comes right after Earth Wind & Fire’s huge hit “Reasons,” featuring the soaring falsetto of lead vocalist Philip Bailey.
The reason I had purchased this particular album was not that I was a huge Earth Wind & Fire fan and completist, but because I was the percussionist in a fairly popular college band named Snack Pac and our bassist Burke really wanted us to add the song to our set list. I needed to familiarize myself with it before our next rehearsal.
Snack Pac was a septet that played funk, soul, and rock, both covers and originals. We’d been together for almost three years, since the beginning of my sophomore year. Jon sang and played guitar, Jeff played sax, keyboards and sang backing vocals. There was Harold on trombone, Burke on bass, Mike on drums and our newest member, Shana, on trumpet. I played hand drums: congas, bongos and assorted noise-making knick knacks. Shana would quit the band by the holiday break — spending time with six immature, fart and sex obsessed college dudes eventually became too much — but for those two post-earthquake months, we’d expanded our repertoire to include full horn-section laden songs from the likes of James Brown, The Ohio Players and Earth Wind & Fire.
“Africano,” a high-energy instrumental, would be the only Earth Wind & Fire song Snack Pac would attempt (successfully I might add, though sadly no audio proof exists), as none of us could sing falsetto. It’s the main reason there are so few successful Earth, Wind & Fire cover bands. Only the most vocally dexterous could approximate the silky smooth 4-octave range of the great Philip Bailey.
2. Phil Collins
When the Loma Prieta earthquake hit at 5:04pm on October 17th, 1989, I was a virgin. Six hours and 36 minutes later that status would change.
Odds were better than average that this milestone would have been reached by the end of October, November at the latest. But there’s nothing like Mother Earth literally shaking our foundations to the core to remind us of how precious and short life could be, leading us to send caution to the wind, grab our new lovers by the waist and demand, in the words of the great Phil Collins, to “take, take me home.”
I’d started dating Jennifer eight days before the Loma Prieta earthquake. We both were being trained as campus shuttle bus drivers, a highly sought-after and decently paying college job. We’d taken (and passed) our Class B drivers license tests together, along with four other students, and during a celebratory shuttle driver party that evening, became taken with each another as well.
Jennifer was confident, brash and assertive. I was the opposite, though tried to hide it behind indoor sunglasses, creatively sculpted facial hair and a wall of percussion (see photo above). I’d had a couple of college girlfriends before Jennifer, but both were shy virgins like myself and the pressure of “doing the deed” kept it from being done. I needed to find an experienced but patient girl, one who would make the first moves, or if not the first, then the 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
That first week, Jennifer and I had made out, had fooled around a little bit, but there was no genital contact of any sort. Not even almost. It was clear that we were really into each other, and I became both excited and filled with anxiety at the thought of finally ending my far too extended virgin status.
This was way before the days of cell phones and the internet so the only way I could reach Jennifer and find out if she was safe, was to call and leave a message on her home answering machine, which I did. Jennifer lived alone in a studio apartment in Capitola, though I hadn’t yet seen the place. With the power out at my house, I decided to drive up to my friends Dave and Christie’s house which was closer to campus, where I’d heard they still had power and I knew I could hang out for a while.
I'd brought a battery-operated TV with me in my car (don’t ask why I had one — it still boggles my mind that I did) and when I arrived at Dave and Christie’s and discovered their power was out too, we all huddled around the 5” black & white screen in the candle-lit backyard, trying to make out the network news reports amid the fluctuating signal and static. On the drive over to their place I’d heard on the radio about the Bay Bridge collapsing and how there were multiple fires and dozens, maybe hundreds, of collapsed structures in Oakland and San Francisco, more than 75 miles from the epicenter in Watsonville. Ten miles southeast of Santa Cruz.
At around 8pm, Jennifer called and said she was safe, that she had been working, driving the shuttle when the quake hit. “I didn’t know what the fuck to do!” she cried, still clearly traumatized by the experience. “They didn’t give us earthquake preparedness training!”
She’d spent the last three hours driving students back to their dorms and even to their homes off campus. UC Santa Cruz was on a hill and the damage to the campus was minimal. The flatlands, the areas near the beaches, though, were a complete mess. Roads were buckled, apartment buildings cracked and crumbled, many houses leaning in unsafe, awkward directions.
“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” Jennifer said to me. Then she explained which roads were safe to travel to make my way to her apartment.
I showed up around 9 and as soon as I knocked, Jennifer opened the door and wrapped herself around me. I don’t remember if the power in her apartment was out as well, but I have a vague image of the room being lit by a dozen of those 12” glass Jesus advent candles. I also recall music playing from a tape deck or a boombox, but it could have been battery operated.
The details of the rest of the night are fuzzy. And not just because you don’t need to know all the nitty-gritty play-by-play.
Well, here’s some.
I do remember that we cuddled in bed for a good long time before anything physical, anything sexual started. It was slow, almost timeless, and there were a lot of long caresses. Jennifer took charge, but in a kind, calm, guiding way; she was all about being present and letting things unfold naturally. And eventually that would become the space I would sink into too.
Although being a virgin way longer than pretty much everyone else I knew was a uniquely consuming, shaming experience, I felt it was all worth it to have my first time be amazingly unselfconscious, safe and with someone I truly cared about.
I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure the cassette that played during the most intimate part of that night was Phil Collins’ 1989 album …But Seriously. I want to think it was the classic “Another Day in Paradise” that soundtracked the climactic moment, but it was probably “I Wish it Would Rain Down.” Or maybe it was a custom Phil Collins mixtape. And our first lovemaking experience was to Collins’ cover of the Supremes hit, “You Can’t Hurry Love.”
What I’m definitely sure of is that it was not the 1985 Philip Bailey/Phil Collins hit single “Easy Lover” which played that night so many decades ago. There’s just no way. No way. No. Way.
3. Easy Lover
Phil Collins was at the height of his popularity (if not critical acclaim) when “Easy Lover” was released in November of 1984. Though the song would never appear on any of Collins’ solo albums, it was released on Philip Bailey’s 1985 album Chinese Wall. The single would remain in the Billboard top 10 for eight weeks.
Just for context, Genesis — the progressive rock band of the 1970s turned pop-rock band of the 80s after Peter Gabriel left the band and Collins took over vocal duties — had released their multi-platinum self-titled album in 1983 and would release Invisible Touch, another top-selling album, in 1986. A few short months after the release of “Easy Lover,” Collins’ recorded the most critically acclaimed album of his career, No Jacket Required. Phil was, in the mid-80s, against all odds, peaking creatively and commercially.
The two Phils apparently wrote and recorded “Easy Lover” in one night, which, no offense, doesn’t surprise me. The key to fully enjoying the song is to not pay close attention to the lyrics. The borderline-border crossing misogyny is hard to ignore by today’s standards, and maybe by 1985 standards too. I doubt it though, as we were only beginning to enter the Hair Metal era, where women as sex-objects would be taken to entirely new extremes.
At least in this song it’s the man who is down on his knees (or possibly another woman, or a non-binary person — if trying to place in today’s gender environment). But let’s be real. These are two straight dudes singing this in 1984 — almost 40 years ago — and clearly the two Phils were tapping into a growing fear of callous, sexually non-monogamous women ripping out the hearts of sensitive men everywhere.
She’ll take your heart and you won’t feel it.
She will play around and leave you
Leave you and deceive you
Better forget it
Oh, you'll regret it
A more in-depth exploration into the all too common song-writing trope of men fearing the strong, sexual woman (Hall & Oates “Maneater” anyone?) is a topic for another day.
For today, just enjoy the undeniably catchy, earworm worthy musical strains of “Easy Lover” and dance around the room, car, office or wherever you happen to be.
