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“If it Don’t Come Easy”
Tanya Tucker
Written by Dave Gibson and Craig Karp
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
June 3, 1988
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
July 2, 1988
The strangest thing to me about Tanya Tucker’s run of hits from this era is the disconnect between her persona in real life and her persona on record.
Tucker nails the victim queen aesthetic flawlessly, but like Tammy Wynette before her, she won’t put up with any of that nonsense in reality. That’s just a character she plays on LP.
But there are a couple of exceptions to this “woe is me” rule that we get to cover, and “If it Don’t Come Easy” is one hell of an exception. Like an audiobook of He’s Just Not That into You arriving a generation early, Tucker pierces through layers of self-denial with a candid and kindly delivered wake up call: You’re being used because you’re forcing a situation on another person who is using your devotion to their advantage.
“If it don’t come easy,” she sings, “There’s no natural flow. Don’t make it hard on your heart.”
Her message is aided by a buoyant arrangement that is all joy and horns, reinforcing the idea that happiness comes from letting go. It’s a sharp and emotionally intelligent record that previews where the women of the nineties are going to take the genre, and Tucker bought her ticket to join them with this hit.
“If it Don’t Come Easy” gets an A.
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I was always fascinated by the fact that Tanya Tucker’s comeback was punctuated by a pop-friendly sound largely at odds with her previous work and the direction country music was going generally. This record was the pinnacle of her pop confectionary era, sounding like a holdover from 1983. I can easily imagine Janie Fricke or Charly McClain having a big hit with this song five years earlier with a similar arrangement but less skillful production. No disrespect to those ladies, but I’m glad this went to Tanya Tucker instead as she infuses it with the energy equivalent of a half dozen Red Bulls. In some ways, it’s hard to match the lyric with the party-hour vibe, but Tanya makes it work and turns it into one of the best hits of her catalog.
And just like “I Told You So” before it, the lyric is extremely relatable. On more than one occasion when in a budding relationship that didn’t seem to be working out, this Tanya Tucker chorus rolled through my head and either guided my decision moving forward or foreshadowed its inevitable sunset at the hands of the other party. Not sure how I feel about having taken so much life advice from Tanya Tucker! One year later, I’d get to see her perform at my county fair, and it remains one of my favorite fair concerts.
Grade: A
Unmistakably, Tanya Tucker! And among her very best of an impressive catalog of classic hits.
I can’t help but hear this song as a bridge between Anne Murray and Shania Twain. The arrangement and sound owing to much of Murray’s work, and the brassy confidence of the lyrics and messaging owing to Twain.
On several hits now, Tucker’s vocal have rightly been celebrated as singlehandedly elevating the impact of a song.
That’s the case here too.
Tucker had an energy,charisma, and charm that was all her own.
I think I’m with most listeners as regarding Tanya’s work for Capitol/Liberty, on the whole, was her best work. Not gothic as in her Columbia days, and not too youthful as in her MCA years, nor too out there as in that dud of an album she did for Arista. Her recordings on Capitol/Liberty are aimed at adults and she usually hits the bullseye with these recordings (including a lot of album tracks that did not receive much airplay.
“If it Don’t Come Easy” is a solid A, verging upon A+ .