The portents seemed good for Kris Kristofferson's eighth album. Though his sixth and seventh LPs had missed the pop Top 100, his profile had increased due to his involvement in the film A Star Is Born, with its million-selling soundtrack featuring his pop singles chart entry "Watch Closely Now." And his first compilation, Songs of Kristofferson, had been a good seller. All of that allowed him more than a year and a half to craft Easter Island. He responded with an effort that combined ponderous, highly poetic compositions with several commercial-sounding love songs that might have been expected to assure the set's popular success. "Risky Bizness" opened the album with the image of a boxer who had some of the characteristics of Jesus Christ, an image picked up again toward the end of the album on "The Fighter." The title track considered those mysterious stone heads on Easter Island, while "The Sabre and the Rose" and "Spooky Lady's Revenge" treated romantic encounters in heightened language. "Living Legend," which closed the album, sounded like it could have been written for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, the 1973 film that Kristofferson co-starred in and Bob Dylan scored. Any one of the four conventional love songs — "How Do You Feel (About Foolin' Around)," "Forever in Your Love," "The Bigger the Fool (The Harder the Fall)," and "Lay Me Down (And Love the World Away)" — all of them co-written with Mike Utley and Stephen Bruton, sounded like it might be a country hit. Monument chose "Forever in Your Love," but it didn't catch on. (Six years later, Kristofferson and Willie Nelson's remake of "How Do You Feel" was a country chart entry.) As a result, while the album marked a slight improvement over Kristofferson's recent sales, it was another commercial disappointment.
KRIS KRISTOFFERSON
EASTER ISLAND
Monument JZ-35310February/1978
Produced by David Anderle
Jerry McGee, Stephen Bruton - guitar/mandolinMike Utley, Donnie Fritts - keyboards/synthesizer
Dennis Belfield - bass
Sammy Creason - drums
Vocals:
Rita Coolidge, Billy Swan, Terry Paul, Mike Utley, Stephen Bruton, Donnie Fritts
1.
RISKY BIZNESS
(Kris Kristofferson) « © '78 Resaca Music, BMI »Eight ounce gloves now it's title time
You can use your choosen tools and I'll choose mine
I'm afraid we've gone and laid it on the line it's a risky bizness
Oh in the garden time to go show them crazies who's the one who runs the show
While they gamble in your corner for your robe it's a risky bizness
And the best that you can do is buy some time till they can find somebody better
It don't matter what they call you
When you know you've been the best that you could be
Give 'em hell boy while you can make 'em fight to take the title you defend
Till they nail you with some double-cross again it's a risky bizness
**********
2.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT FOOLIN' AROUND
(Kris Kristofferson - Stephen Bruton - Mike Utley) « © '78 Jody Ray Publishing, BMI / Resaca Music, BMI »So many people got so many lines they've all been tried and it's true
They've all got so many reasons for changin' your mind
And there ain't none of 'em new
But there's just so little distance between me and you I think we're two of a kind
We don't do nothing you don't wanna do and I won't tell you no lies
So tell me how do you feel about foolin' around down from your head to your toes
Ain't nothin' realer than right here and now if that's as far as it goes
And it goes and it goes it goes ha-ha
[ piano ] Hey you'll never miss nothing we've never known you'll never know till you try
Hey we can take it or leave it alone but we got so little time
So tell me how do you feel about...
So tell me how do you feel about...
**********
3.
FOREVER IN YOUR LOVE
(Kris Kristofferson) « © '78 Resaca Music, BMI »Lovers make believe in dreams
Dreamers make believe in making love to last forever
Losers can't believe in anything at all
Hey we never meant to fall so hard but don't be sorry
Think of all the love we made us since you used to be afraid of
Staring at those starry skies above our lives and now you're free to
Be the best that you can be now from here to eternity
And I'll be here forever in your love
[ guitar ] Nothing ever stays the same
Sometimes lovers even learn to change and turn to strangers
If we never see a single dream come true
Hey I still believe in you and me and I'm not sorry
Think of all the love we made us...
Be the best that you can be now...
**********
4.
SABRE AND THE ROSE
(Kris Kristofferson) « © '78 Resaca Music, BMI »Feet hit the ground feet leavin' town quicker than a bullet or a knife
Fallin' ain't no fun when you're on the run honey we was running for our life
When Stagger Lee had drunk his fill of moonlight
He turned his burning eyes upon my soul
It's time my God to spend this night with someone else he said
Squeeze a little pleasure from the gold love and glory
We can take it easy when we're old
He said we'll take us into town lay our money down
I'll bring you to the sweetest thing that grows
Because the fairest ones in sight are bloomin' every night
At a tavern called the Sabre and the Rose
We swang into the saddle sick as breathing
And slapped 'em once for pleasure with the reins
The horses snorted frosty in the moonlight
Somethin' dark was singing in my veins older than the voices in my brain
He said this place you're gonna see is why they live and breathe
And sink down a little bit deeper everyday
And sometimes at night when the wind is running right
You can hear it suckin' thirty miles away
Then the light was crimson and I found her all naked and eternal and insane
Secred as the mysteries around her like a veil nothin' but her prison was profane
All we had in common was our chains
Oh burn it down boys burn it to the ground boys burn it on down
Feet hit the ground feet leavin' town quicker than a bullet or a knife
All there was she ran holdin' to my hand runnin' for the river and our life
Slidin' from the moonlight into shadows silent as the river as it flows
Swimmin' to the place they'll never find us all we left behind us was our clothes
And the stories children sing about the Sabre and the Rose
**********
5.
SPOOKY LADY'S REVENGE
(Kris Kristofferson) « © '78 Resaca Music, BMI »Looky here who's in focus now hard and clear to the bone
No more fears that you'd notice now like a tear cast in stone
And she comes from a spring to a fountain on the wings of her song
She's the king of the mountain she's so good Lord and she's gone
Cause she's a star see her shining she'll go far for a price
But she's hard in the heart like a diamond flashin' fire cold as ice
[ guitar + piano ] She's a star see her shining...
She's a star see her shining...
She's a star
**********
6.
EASTER ISLAND
(Kris Kristofferson - Mike Utley) « © '78 Resaca Music, BMI »Guardin' the carcas we stripped and divided
To carve up and covet they wait there alone
Keepin' the secret the rest have forgotten and starin' in silence from sockets of stone
Built and obeyed with the best of intentions
Stranger than truth and as lost and alone
Stranded like dogs in a star-spangled manger no good to nothin' not even their own
Holy-o-my-God I can't see the stars in the skies for the sun in my eyes
She's like a dream that a world quit believin' caught in the action back to the sea
How many more might have come from that mountain
Barely the creatures they struggled to be
Surely the death of so grand and illusion left us with legends too great to ignore
Stone cut survivors of ancient dimensions lost in the wonder they came to explore
Holy starlight far brighter than the sun in your eyes singin' Thy will be gone
Holy starlight far brighter than the sun in your eyes singin' Thy will be gone
**********
7.
BIGGER THE FOOL (THE HARDER THE FALL)
(Kris Kristofferson) « © '78 Resaca Music, BMI »Hey doesn't it still look easy as it did to you hey wasn't it true after all
I couldn't help myself girl and I can't blame you
The bigger the fool the harder the fall
Livin' on old illusions and some make believe that mattered to me most of all
Closin' my eyes to changes I've refused to see the bigger the fool the harder the fall
Somewhere in your future on the far side of your world
You might read my writing on the wall
Think of the easy dreamer who believes in you the bigger the fool the harder the fall
[ guitar ] If somebody you wake up in a world that's turned on you
And nobody answers when you call
Hey think of the crazy dreamer who believes in you
The bigger the fool the harder the fall
Think of the easy dreamer who believes in you the bigger the fool the harder the fall
**********
8.
LAY ME DOWN (AND LOVE THE WORLD AWAY)
(Kris Kristofferson) « © '78 Resaca Music, BMI »I'm not mad at nothing baby try to understand I don't care what happened yesterday
I'm just glad that you're so glad to see my face again
That's all that's important anyway
And I believe the hardest part is over wakin' up without you everyday
Nothin' matters now that we're together lay me down and love the world away
[ guitar ] We've no way of knowing baby how it's gonna end maybe we'll be sorry one more time
It just feels so good to me to feel so good again I'll just lay my chances on the line
Cause I believe the hardest part...
I believe the hardest part...
**********
9.
FIGHTER
(Kris Kristofferson) « © '78 Resaca Music, BMI »I seen an old fighter tired and in trouble who just couldn't take anymore
Something inside him kept fightin' to finish with only his feet on the floor
Lord I know that it's worth any price you could pay to see truth in whatever disguise
But I'd've played double for one look of pleasure a piece of relief in his eyes
Ain't that clown laughin' like crazy ain't his eyes empty and deep
Don't he sound sad as a baby when she cries out in her sleep
We measured the space between Waylon and Willie and Willie and Waylon and me
But there wasn't nothin' like Billy Joe Shaver what Billy Joe Shaver should be
When he showed up sick later all bit by a spider and crazy to look in the eye
He put on a show that was sad as it should've been and nobody even knew why
Ain't that clown...
**********
10.
LIVING LEGEND
(Kris Kristofferson) « © '75 Resaca Music, BMI »Was it bitter then with our backs against the wall
Were we better men than we'd ever been before
Say if she came again today would you still answer to the call
Tell the truth my friend don't it matter anymore
We were simple men by her side when she was born
It was simple then like the freedom when you fall
And we were smaller then you see but soon we gathered like a storm
They don't understand what that thunder meant at all
[ piano ] Was he crucified was he done in by the law-men
Are you satisfied that he'll never ride again
Some people say he got away they say he never died at all
If that story's true does it bother you my friend
Was it bitter then...
**********
