Lucinda Williams at Sydney's Enmore Theatre with Steve Earle. Photo: Lucinda Williams Facebook page.
I wrote a post a couple of years ago raving about watching a Lucinda Williams' Austin City special on YouTube and last night I finally saw her live.
I wondered about the impact of the bad stroke she suffered in November 2020, but she was in incredible form. Williams has obviously worked hard to get back to the stage of being able to tour and perform at a very high quality. She had to be led pn and off the stage, she can't play guitar and she was visibly tired from the effort (the only explanation for no encore as the crowd could not have been more pumped for one). But her voice was incredible, the best I can remember hearing it. She's always been more renowned for the quality of her songwriting and the poetic humanism of her stories than her voice but she sung beautifully last night.
Williams' songs are frequently masterpieces. She played some of the songs in that ACL show, the remarkably evocative "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" and a surprisingly upbeat version of "Lake Charles" (one of a few songs she has about those she called "beautiful misfits" and their early deaths).
She also played the sensual "Fruits of my Labour'", "Righteously" (about demanding decent treatment in a relationship) , "West Memphis" (about 3 west Memphis youths framed for murder in a hysterical campaign against "satanists" in a gross miscarriage of justice) and a song she covered on her 2020 album "You Can't Rule Me", originally by a Black woman country blues singer Memphis Minnie from the '30s that Williams dedicated to "The United States Supreme Court". All helped by her tight as hell band Buick 6.
Williams talent in story telling is to remarkable detail for often mundane experiences, such as "Out of Touch" about running into an old acquaintance on the street:
We speak in past tense and talk about the weather
Half broken sentences we try to piece together
I ask about an old friend that we both used to know
You said you heard he took his life about five years ago
She also played a new song from an upcoming album, itself a remarkable achievement post-stroke.
Oh and Steve Earle opened for her. He's a legendary singer-songwriter in his own right, but Steve Earle opening for Lucinda Williams is the correct order of things.
US singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams has revealed she had a stroke in November. The 68-year-old is recovering and although currently unable to play guitar is expected to make a full recovery.
That is good news, because Williams is not just a great songwriter, but a great human. She was expelled from high school in the late 60s for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Alliegence in opposition to the Vietnam War and has remained outspoken in song and beyond all her life (her most recent album is filled with fury about racism and misogyny and the state of her country).
By coincidence, the news of her stroke came just after I went on one of my periodic Lucinda Williams binges, specifically repeatedly watching her brilliant Austin City Limits show from 1998, just after the release of her career-defining albumCar Wheels on a Gravel Road.
The reason was a debate that flared once more on The Very Long Thread (VLT). This is a thread on my facebook wall whose only goal is to generate as many comments as possible. Having started in 2013, so far the VLT has more than 365k comments at an often meandering pace by arguing about such topics as "are song lyrics a form of poetry?".
Now, I argued no. Although obviously similar, the nature of the forms means different pressures and contraints on the writing. It is a semantic argument that can't be resolved because you can just keep shiftng the boundaries and definitions until you finally finally after eight fucking years reach the 500,000 comment milestone (we can only dream).
But inspired by talk about poetry and lyrics, I put on Lucinda Williams. The country/blues/folk/rock (I hate the term "Americana") icon being one of the more poetic and poetry-influenced songwriters that US has produced in recent generations.
The result was I conceded straight away. Williams' ACL show is just song after song of fucking poetry put to a raw mix of country/folk/blues/rock (yes I know "Americana" is less words) played by a tight-as-anything band.
Song after song I found myself yelling "IT'S MORE FUCKING POETRY!" then commented to that effect on the VLT because, after all, we need the comments. God knows when we'll reach 500K and if we can even beat the rapidly escalating climate apocalypse.
It is an incredible show of a great artist at her peak. It deserves more recognition as one of the great live shows that you can find while on a drunken YouTube music binge. Williams' performance features a range of songs that can loosely be divided into three categories: death songs, "fuck you, arsehole!" songs, and deeply felt longing for a lost love songs.
I saw his mama, she was standin' there His sister, she was there too I saw them look at us standin' around the grave And not a soul they knew
They say start as you intend to contnue, and Williams starts with a tough bluesey song about a friend committing suicide. This will not be the last song about the death of a friend nor suicide, not by a long shot!
The song is very well-summed up in this Time magazine piece in which it features on a list of "100 songs of enduring beauty, power and inventiveness". It deserves it's place.
We'd put on ZZ Top And turn 'em up real loud I used to think you were strong I used to think you were proud I used to think nothing could go wrong All I ask Don't tell anybody the secrets...
Slightly cheerier in that it's a song remembering a lost love with fondness. But it's not that cheery, due to the whole lost love thing. An up-tempo country rock track whose lyrical quality reminds me of the more recent and much-lauded Jason Isbell (with whom she's performing with in July in her first post-stroke shows, and who would be the first to name her as an inspiration).
Sittin' in the kitchen, a house in Macon Loretta's singing on the radio Smell of coffee, eggs and bacon Car wheels on a gravel road
Williams' signature song, or at least the glorious title track from her best album. A catchy honky tonk tune through which Williams evokes nostalgia with imagery of the minutia of daily life. It's key line comes right at the end: "A little bit of dirt, mixed with tears". This would be Lucinda Williams' best song if "Drunken Angels" didn't exist.
Not a day goes by I don't think about you You left your mark on me it's permanent a tattoo Pierce the skin and the blood runs through Oh my baby...
This is definitely a cheerier song and that's because this folk-rocker is all about masturbation! More specifically, it's a vividly poetic and gleeful account of taking the time to pleasure yourself as you think of someone who.... well of some who "moves right in time with me".
Anyway, I think we shoud move on, not ... ahaha... because I am in any way unfomcortable with an open embrace of sexuality and self-delivered pleasure or anything. God no! It's just... what's the next song?
Sun came up it was another day And the sun went down You were blown away Why'd you let go of your guitar Why'd you ever let it go that far...
Back on the familiar ground of death! This is a souring anthematic epic about her friend, little known Texas-based country singer Blaze Foley who was killed in tragic circumstances. Foley was shot trying to defend a friend from being robbed by his own son, with the jury aquiting the son of murdering Foley apparantly on the basis no one could understand what a white guy like Foley was doing in the home of his Black friend in a Black part of town in Austin, Texas.
The notoriously down-and-out Foley, who never got far career-wise due to a mix of bad luck and drunken self-sabotage, has since become cult figure with a documentary and film staring Ethan Hawke about his life. The fact John Prine and Merle Haggard recorded him is a sure sign Blaze Foley could write a song. And as this song shows, so can Lucinda Williams.
Empty bottles and broken glass Busted down doors and borrowed cash Borrowed cash, oh the borrowed cash Go back to Greenville, just go on back to Greenville
This is a superficially tender-sounding country ballad. Don't be decieved. It's the first of the "fuck you, arsehole" songs! And it is certainly not tender in its sentiments towards to bloke to whom she repeatedly insists "just go on back to Greenville".
With an intesity that slowly builds through the song, she savages the sort of ego-centric, fucked up, selfish areshole you can imagine infesting the artistic circles around places like Austin, Texas through which Williams moved. The lines, "Looking for someone to save you, looking for someone to rave about you..." just nails the type.
You know the type. They're on Twitter right now whinging about how woke cancel culture interferes with their God-given right to be a genius. Well, fuck you arsehole coz this song is genius.
I know that I shouldn't but I want you so bad I know it couldn't be but I want what we had I know our love is gone And I can't bring it back Still I long for your kiss
A straight up tender country ballad! No death, no suicide, no murder and seemingly no arseholes! I mean it's still sad of course. It's about a desperate longing for someone you can no longer have. This is, after all, country music. But it's possibly the most convention love song on here and it's fucking great, the band really go to town with this one.
He was born in Nacogdoches That's in East Texas Not far from the border But he liked to tell everybody He was from Lake Charles
Oh my God this is another death song. It's about an ex-lover and I beg of you, for the love of God, do not listen to this song if you've been drinking whiskey. Or at least waterproof your house from the tears that will flow should you be so reckless.
This song is truly poetry put to music. A strong challenger to "Drunken Angels" and "Car Wheels" for "best Lucinda Williams song ever". Fuck it's a heart-breaker.
I changed the kind of clothes I wear so you can't find me anywhere And you can't spot me in a crowd, and you can't call my name out loud I changed the kind of clothes I wear
This is another "fuck you, arsehole" song, with the guitars unleashed. Williams is determined to get a toxic guy out of her life, but for a while I struggled to get the full signficance of all the lines. I think because it's take on complex personal gender politics from a female perspective it is just a little above the head of another dumb man.
Bascially, this song isn't just saying "fuck off" to a former lover, but acknowleging ongoing feelings of attraction. It took me while to fully get that this is because 1) people are complicated and therefore can still feel attraction to someone they no longer want anything to do with; and 2) this is something toxic arseholes try to cynically manipulate.
When Williams sings she changed her phone number so he can't call her up "and make me fall down to my knees" or change the car she drives so "you can't chase me up the street and you can't knock me off my feet", it is a statement of a refusal to have her complicated emotional life manipulated by a toxic arsehole.
And I go with my baby What man like a woman with a sassy child I won't have to ask him no questions Man, because he knows the reason why
This is the only track in the show not written or co-written by Williams. By an old Lighting Hopkins associate Melvin Jackson, this straight up blues number is nonetheless still about saying "fuck you, aresehole". But it has a happy ending. The singer finds a man with lots of money and therefore no longer needs wake up early in the morning "coz i won't have nothin' in the world to do".
Once I get to Lafayette I'm not gonna mind one bit
Oh it's another tear-jerking tender country ballad. Like "Still I Long For Your Kiss", this is a relatively straight-forward tale of longing. It is, at the same time, absolutely pure and beautifully written poetry.
Williams likes to incorporate a sense of place into her songs, and this is the third of these songs to be named after a place. This one goes further and names a different place across the US South in each verse. When you are onto a good thing, take it up a notch!
The breath from your own lips, the touch of fingertips A sweet and tender kiss The sound of a midnight train, wearing someone's ring Someone calling your name Somebody so warm cradled in your arms Didn't you think you were worth anything
It's another death song! Specifically, another suicide song. An almost impossible mix of grief and beauty, this is a note to a loved one to ask them the hopelessly futile question: "How could you leave?"
Is it too much to ask I want a comfortable bed that won't hurt my back Food to fill me up And warm clothes and all that stuff Shouldn't I have this Shouldn't I have this Shouldn't I have all of this, and Passionate kisses
This very catchy track is the only hit song Williams has written to date, with Mary Chapin Carpertner's 1993 version breaking into the top 5 of the US country charts.
It is a manifesto of Williams' "personal is political" brand of feminism. Williams has essentially produced her version of the famous poem "Bread and Roses" by socialist suffragette Helen Todd, which delcared: "Yes, it is Bread we fight for—but we fight for Roses, too."
In "Passionate Kisses", Williams insists on her right to a fulfiling life and "passionate kisses too". It should not be a radical sentiment, and yet...
14. Something About What Happens When We Talk (56:54)
If I had my way, I'd be in your town. I might not stay, but at least I would have been around
It's another country ballad full of longing. But like all Williams' songs it doesn't just repeat a cliched formula. It's filled with little pockets of unique depictions of a very specific, personal relationship. By the time the guitar solo hits, this song has captured an emotional state best described as: "I've been drinking and listening to sad songs like this again".
This is a straight-up all-out rocker of a "fuck you, arsehole" song. It's not complicated. Some areshole took her joy and she wants it back. This being a Lucinda Williams song, it also name-checks a bunch of locations across the US South.
Says he's sorry then he pulls me out I got a big chain around my neck And I'm broken down like a train wreck Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
The last song, with the band working themselves into a final frenzy as Williams delivers one her "longing" songs with a dash of "fuck you, areshole" chucked into the mix too. If only the arsehole also died it could have summed the whole thing up. Still, a fitting end.
Yes... a fucking poem. Not a joke poem. I usually restrict myself to joke poems out a self of basic human decency.
But I wrote this when a facebook friend specifically asked me, after I made a joke about no one paying for my poetry, to write a poem about "Utopia", coz why have a simple topic.
So I figured, seeing as I wrote it, this Godforsaken blog might as well be subjected to it.
It is about the 2005 World Festival of Youth and Students, an annual gathering of thousands of left-wing and progressive youths from around the world, that was held in Caracas that year. I was there with a "solidarity brigade" from Australia.
At the opening of the event in a huge stadium in Caracas, then president Hugo Chavez address probably tens of thousands of youth from all over the world, divided into contingents by country. Chavez had only recently declared the goal of the Bolivarian revolution he was leading must be "socialism of the 21st century" -- and that this should be the goal for the whole world, lest we face extinction. This was the basic tenor of his festival speeches.
As Chavez spoke, one of the brigade organisers took a phone call on their mobile and somehow my sister had gotten through. I had been very sick and in hospital. First of all, the private hospital I was taken to just milked me for travel insurance cash, putting in antibiotics that made me sicker, and I was pretty ill.
The doctors in charge were white, upper-middle class and hostile to the government. When they weren't around, the dark-skinned nurses declared themselves Chavistas. There is a photo of me somewhere, sick as a dog on an IV drip, with two nurses, all of us with our fists raised.
Eventually, the supporters of the Chavez government and the pro-poor Bolivarian revolution who were looking after our brigade brought in a couple of the Cuban doctors working in the poor communities in Venezuela due to a deal with the Chavez government, where they staffed the free health clinics. The Cuban doctors, careful not to speak in front of hospital staff so their Cuban accents didn't give them away. (they were were hated by the private health doctors).
They looked at the charts next to my bed, declared I should definitely get out of there or the mistreatment could kill me, and so, still so sick I needed to be on a drip, the unhappy hospital had no choice but to discharge me.
I was taken to one of the new clinics in a poor area run by the Cubans providing free health care to the poor -- the fact that, as a journalist for Green Left Weekly, I was there in part to report on clinics like the one I was now lying in seemed to bring endless amusement to the medical staff.
Compared to the lush private hospital room, it was austere. Just three beds on a concrete floor and the food, and I use the term loosely, was bought from some nearby streetvender. But whereas I got worse in the three days in the private hospital, here, I got better over the next three days, and, being discharged,was handed the medicines I needed, no charge.
While still recovering, I logged in to check my email for the first time in ages. My sister wanted to get in touch urgently. Someone else, with no connection to my sister, also wanted to get in touch with me urgently. I couldn't for the life of me think what possible common issue would have both desperate for me to get in touch, but I was in Venezuela for a couple more weeks. It was clearly gonna have to wait.
It waited until that stadium in Caracas when I was handed the phone while Hugo Chavez spoke of youth in the forefront of a global revolutionary transformation. Justin was my best friend. I spoke about him a little bit here a couple of weeks ago in relation to different issues.
There is a lot that could be said on the topic. I wasn't there, I hadn't spoken to him for months, I don't really understand the circumstances. I didn't go to his funeral or memorial as I was half way around the world. I am not sure if that is better or worse.
The main thing I take away is that "Utopia" only has meaning in relation to the darkness of today.
I promise don't intend to keep being so serious fucking thing. I've been to serious lately, what with pieces on the death of Irish comic Sean Hughes, heartfelt ruminations on homophobia and
Justin would walk away from me in disgust if he know I'd written a fucking poem.
Regardless, here is a song by Lucinda Williams, who has something of a tendency to write about this type of thing (this is the new version she has recorded of this track, originally released in 1992). Her lyric, unshockingly, make better poetry than my effort.
Then again, Lucinda Williams wasn't standing in the stadium in Caracas listening to Hugo Chavez urge the a new world, so it certainly isn't the same. Still she can fucking sing this story.
See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world The breath from your own lips, the touch of fingertips A sweet and tender kiss The sound of a midnight train, wearing someone's ring Someone calling your name Somebody so warm cradled in your arm Didn't you think you were worth anything...
Millions of us in love, promises made good Your own flesh and blood Looking for some truth, dancing with no shoes The beat, the rhythm, the blues The pounding of your heart's drum together with another one Didn't you think anyone loved you...
Songs telling people who deserved to be told to get fucked to "get fucked" has a long and proud tradition in popular music, from Dylan's "Positively Fourth Street" (dripping in venom, with its sneered opening line "You gotta lot of nerve to say you are my friend", before really laying into the unnamed backbiter), Carly Simon's "You're So Vain", as devastating a sustained put down as it is an insanely catchy song, to English pop singer Lily Allen's entire 2006 debut album Alright, Still.
One with more than a few songs on arseholes is US bluesy country singer Lucinda Williams, and like with Simon and Allen's savaging of fuckboys who had it coming, she clearly speaks from experience of having known her share.
One of her finest examples is "Greenville", off her 1998 classic Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, which contains more great songs than any album has a natural right to include.
The song lacks the bombast of many other examples of the genre. It feels understated — but the impression is superficial. It is quiet, stripped back and builds slowly, but in its poetic simplicity, it finds its mark just as surely. Each verse further strips away the layers of the man in question's pretensions, revealing an intolerable arrogance that spreads pain in its wake.
By the end, without any sneering just a strong sense of how sadly pathetic he is, Williams offers up the observation "Looking for someone to save you. Looking for someone to rave about you. To rave about you oh to rave about you..."
The man, and there is no doubt it is a man any more than it is a real man Williams had the misfortune to become entangled with, is told repeatedly to go back to Greenville. This is the name of towns in several US states, and it could be any of them, but it is one of them.
Bellow is the album version, with Emmy Lou Harris providing backing vocals, followed by Williams singing the song on the BBC TV music show Later... With Jools back in 1999.
Don't want to see you again or hold your hand Cause you don't really love me you're not my man You're not my man oh you're not my man Go back to Greenville just go on back to Greenville
You scream and shout and you make a scene When you open your mouth you never say what you mean Say what you mean oh say what you mean Go back to Greenville just go on back to Greenville You drink hard liquor you come on strong
You lose your temper someone looks at you wrong Looks at you wrong oh looks at you wrong Go back to Greenville just go on back to Greenville Out all night playin in a band
Looking for a fight with a guitar in your hand A guitar in your hand oh a guitar in your hand Go back to Greenville just go on back to Greenville Empty bottles and broken glass
Busted down doors and borrowed cash Borrowed cash oh the borrowed cash Go back to Greenville just go on back to Greenville Looking for someone to save you Looking for someone to rave about you To rave about you oh to rave about you Go back to Greenville just go on back to Greenville
Now, I know what you are thinking. After everything in this post so far and with no obvious segue, can I still force in a plug for my solo show at the Sydney Fringe Comedy festival, "Inspired?" on at the Factory in Marrickville on September 27 & 29 and October 1?
The answer is no. Obviously I cannot actually elbow in a reference to my show, which attempts to grapple with how to stay inspired in a world so horrific while also telling amusing jokes and is a fundraiser for Green Left Weeklyand at which you can book tickets here.
It would ridiculous! Worse, to even try might be seen as an example of the sort of arrogant men that Lucinda and others slay in their songs!
Sorry, but I just won't do it. However, if you are desperate for details, I guess you could click on the ad on the right hand side of this blog. If you want to.
'She is an example of the best of what country at least says it is.'
Despite her share of critical acclaim, American country singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams remains underrated when her success is compared to her talent. Emmylou Harris said of Williams, "She is an example of the best of what country at least says it is. But, for some reason, she's completely out of the loop. And I feel strongly that that's country music's loss."
Williams has long been an artist I have been aware of as the kinda singer I'd like. Whenever I came across her, she impressed me -- and made me think "I should really investigate her stuff more seriously". For some reason, it was only recently I did -- first, these being the times they are -- via random songs on YouTube and then more seriously, album by album, on Spotify.
From the start, I was deeply impressed -- even blown away by the quality of the songwriting and, in the live clips, Williams' ability to inhabit a song and draw out all of its emotional power. In fact, the combination brought to mind Tom Waits in its potency -- which anyone who has read this blog knows is not small praise from me.
So here are five Lucinda Williams songs. They are not an attempt to be her "Five Best Songs", but a taster -- five songs that seem to me to be able to can draw out some of her power as a performer, which is why all five are clips of live performances. It is also a YouTube playlist.
* **
'Little bit of dirt mixed with tears...' A wonderful poem about daily life put to great music and performed very solidly in this clip. When I decided it was time to start looking at what Lucinda Williams had to offer on YouTube, this was the very fist clip I played -- and I was instantly hooked. From the 1998 album of the same name.
'How would broken find the bone?' Well... talk about great poems... this one is beautiful and hopeful and melancholic and devastatingly, heartbreakingly sad all at the same time. It is songs like this that are needed to process the world around us, in all it horror -- big and small. This is what art is for. From the 2003 album of the same name.
...Take the high road or take the low
No one but you and God will ever know
And you might play rough and win or lose
Either way, love, you'll get the blues
From the cradle to the grave
You will always be a slave
To the quiet darkness of your memories
And that's the truth, my friend
The ugly truth, my friend...
Yeah well, start to finish, a killer track that one. From Williams' most recent album, 2011's Blessed.
'Sun came up it was another day. And the sun went down you were blown away...' Williams' scintillating, heartfelt song for down-and-out Texas country singer Blaze Foley, tragically killed in 1989 defending a friend. The jury let the killer off, in part, it has been said, due to a lack of belief the white Foley would have been in a predominantly poor Black area simply because he friends with a Black man rather than a more sinister reason. From 1998's Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.
'Please come find me and help me get fucked up ...' Sometimes, love is meant to be a bit fucked up and accompanied by some really cool guitar playing. From the 2001 album of the same name.
* * *
BONUS TRACK!!!
'Hush a wild violet, hush a band of gold. Hush you're in a story I heard somebody told...' Williams spinetingling cover of Tom Waits' 'Hang Down Your Head'. There was noway I'd get through an *entire* blog post without Waits in some form.
