By the mid 1990s, Chris Gollon was using the music he played in his studio to help him judge whether a painted image had the same energy as the music. He would also seek in his work that same feeling of travelling that Bob Dylan achieves in ballads such as 'Desolation Row', which informed his 'Road to Narragonia' series. While painting that series, he also noticed how song lyrics might lead to ideas for images, as in this early work, which was loaned to the museum exhibition 'CHRIS GOLLON: Beyond the Horizon' in (2019 - 2020).

The painting takes its title and partial inspiration from the track 'Happiness is Easy' by Talk Talk, (Colour of Spring album, 1986).

"From 1993 to 1998, when my gallery first started representing Chris Gollon, music mainly played the role in his studio of a simple yardstick. Whether he was listening to classical music or to Bob Dylan, Talk Talk, Roxy Music or others, it helped him realise--with some form of objectivity--that if the painting he was working on fell short of the energy, life or “bigness” (as he used to say) of the music, then he knew he needed to destroy the image, to change it radically or to work on it more. Chris Gollon also loved Fellini’s films and in particular Amacord, even owning a recording of the film’s soundtrack. He loved Fellini’s absurd human situations, peopled with mysterious characters and parallel narratives, which inexplicably cohered through music. Indeed, “ridiculous” was a word Chris Gollon often used, with a unique verbal emphasis that seemed to make the meaning stretch even further."

Art historian Mary Rose Beaumont, writing in the Road to Narragonia catalogue (1997), noted: “Chris Gollon has a fine sense of the ridiculous”. At this juncture, he started to combine that with the use of song lyrics, the latter as footholds from which to develop his imagery, a process that he would continue to the end of his life. Along with hundreds of art books, there were always CDs and cassettes piled high in his studio. He often listened to Talk Talk at that time, songs like My Foolish Friend and Happiness is Easy, with Mark Hollis’ distinctive lonely voice. If you find the song Happiness is Easy, then look at the painting of the same title in this catalogue and exhibition, the latter is not at all an illustration of the song lyrics: yet, there is a deep parallel of feeling. In her biography of 'Chris Gollon: Humanity in Art', art historian Tamsin Pickeral finds this painting of a man hemmed in by huge nails and falling into a crevasse “strikingly moving, yet profoundly simple”, and she aptly notes:

“The gentle but dry humour and relentless irony […] lend his paintings poignancy and allow the artist to depict subjects from the basement of human experience, whilst maintaining a balance between pathos and humour that, with rare exception, prevents his subjects from becoming either blatantly cartoonish, or hellishly without hope. Depiction of humanity, in all its forms of weakness, strength and the diabolical, has, since the Narragonia series of paintings, been a fairly consistent theme throughout Gollon’s work. His approach is heavily steeped in irony, with an appreciation of the ridiculousness of human situations, mostly self-induced, but with a definitive empathy. He might paint humorous and/or disadvantaged characters, but he does so without mockery, suggesting instead a genuine sincerity and understanding that encourages the viewer to identify with, and appreciate, the subject matter with sensitivity.”

Excerpt from the foreword by exhibition curator and catalogue editor, David Tregunna, for the museum retrospective 'CHRIS GOLLON: Beyond the Horizon' (2019 - 2020).