I mentioned in my post about “If I Am A Stranger” that I felt like it didn’t fit with the rest of the tracks on Cold Roses. Well, if you made me pick what I thought was the quintessential Cold Roses song, I’d go with “Easy Plateau.” It’s relaxed, natural, and has a really nice jammy quality to it. Of course, the band tends to destroy that peacefulness when take off into a distortion-laden space when they perform it live…
This song is about the kind of joy everyone finds in something. Maybe that thing is writing a song, reading, performing… The narrator is looking forward to finding his easy plateau, where everything feels right. Of course, the plateau doesn’t last forever, so you can only rest your head “for a little while.” Still, it’s nice to have the opportunity to enjoy yourself while you can. I love the line “Bad nights lead to better days/It never happens/But I think about it anyway.” Real life is a drag… But things are all good on the plateau!
Even with the space that adds a whole new emotion to the song, I feel like a live performance of this song is waaaaaaaaaaay better than the studio version. (which is still pretty great) You can tell that performing is a plateau for the Cardinals, which is really cool. You know they mean it…
So my verdict on Easy Plateua: It’s really nice and loose, which is a pleasant escape from the hustle and bustle of real life.
I love those lines too -“Bad nights lead to better days/It never happens/But I think about it anyway.”
The band has played this live several different ways. They were doing a really long drawn out jam for a while, particularly in the 2007 shows. Lately, it’s taken on more reverb and distortion in the ‘jam’ part. There’s several shows, including one I saw, where Ryan starts screaming Easy Plateau, I want an easy plateau over and over while the guitars go crazed. I actually really like that, because truthfully, the easy plateau is kind of a fantasy, a dream, and the song seems to be acknowledging that with a little bit of freakout when they play it that way. The studio version seems tame and bland after that, though it really is a pretty great song however it’s done.
I think the song is about struggling. I also tink it absolutely rocks, studio or live. One of my absolute favorites.