With 357 appearances, “Make It Easy” is the 22nd most played Yes song in concert, according to setlist.com. That’s more performances than classics such as “Going For the One” or “Onward.”
I suspect that all of those performances were as a prelude to “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” which it has been connected to by both Yes and ARW. The original version, written by Trevor Rabin, can be found on the extended remixed version of 1983’s 90125.
The powerful jazz-fusion intro with Rabin, Alan White and Chris Squire, though sounding very un-Yes like, works extremely well. Perhaps that’s due to “Make It Easy” really being a Cinema song which could have also fit on a Rabin solo release more easily than that of Yes.
The synthesizer parts (probably played by Rabin instead of co-founding Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye) are sparse yet totally fitting the song’s melody, which is less compelling than the fusion intro. Rabin does a workman-like job with the lead vocal. In the end, despite White’s fine rock drumming, there’s not much of interest in a song that’s really just a footnote in the Yes canon.
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