Songfacts®:

• Easy Money was Rodney Dangerfield's first movie as lead actor. Billy Joel was asked to write and perform the theme song, which he did. Joel wrote it from the point of view of Rodney's character from the movie - a hopeless gambler. Rodney returned the favor by appearing in Billy's video for "Tell Her About It." >>

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  Ken - Louisville, KY
• An Innocent Man was a send-up to the '50s and '60s doo-wop and soul songs of Joel's youth. This track, which serves as the album's introduction, was influenced by Wilson Pickett and James Brown.
• Unlike Rodney's character in the film, Joel is not a gambler. He learned his lesson as a teenager when he lost his life savings at the race track. "I was talked into betting on a horse when I was 16," he told Sirius XM in 2016. "I bet my life savings, which was like $60, on a horse that was a sure thing, and the horse lost. So that cured me of gambling immediately."
• The album was nominated for Album Of The Year at the 1984 Grammy Awards but lost to Michael Jackson's Thriller.
• This was used on Lost in the season 2 episode "Everybody Hates Hugo" to foreshadow a jackpot lottery win.