Lucinda Williams

00:00:08 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Lucinda Williams is defining convention while most of her peers have settled into a well worn groove. The sixty seven year old alt country icon just released an album that's way more punk than country. Lucinda's early projects worth Folkways Records, and sonically she fit right in with the label's other releases by Wittie Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Leadbelly, But her first big success came in the late eighties after she left her folky persona behind in favor of a more modern sound, something like a Bonnie Rate meets Bruce Springsteen, and now she's changing it up again. She compares her latest albums Raw Grit to early Stooges Records. Lucinda's snarling and growling all over the place like she was iggy pop, and she's getting critical acclaim. Rolling Stone says her album is electric fine and calls it her best release in years. Lucina spoke with Bruce Headlam from her home in Nashville about her evolving sound and how her new album was influenced by politics and an abusive relationship. This is broken record, Liner notes for the digital age, I'm justin Richmonds here's Bruce Headlam and Lucinda Williams. We should mention we are doing this over a zoom. You just lost part of your roof in a tornado. Youre in a tough few months, but there's been real losses too, and I don't to dwell on it. But two people you knew, John Prime and Hold Wilner who records. Could you just tell me maybe about the first time you met John Prime? Yeah, well, I was. Yeah. We found out about both of their deaths on the same day, by the way, which was yeah, the day from hell. Um. Well, I was living here in the nineties in Nashville, and in no way a minute. I met John before that, after I first moved to Los Angeles in the mid eighties, and I want to play at the It's a famous folk festival in Canada that's been going on for a long time. Yeah, I think it was a Miraposa Folk festival and John was there. He was on the bill, and I have a photograph of us actually that somebody took from there. And that's when I first met him, And then flashed forward several years later, I'm living in Nashville as he had. He was living here it's a fairly small city, and it was even smaller then, and you know, so we crossed paths again and he asked me to open some shows farm and then. But the story that I always remember that gets that I always loved to tell is when John and I decided to try to write together. And so we met for drinks and dinner at this cafe and then we went over to the Old Boys studio, his studio at Old Boy Records on Music Row at the time. And it was when I was working on the car songs for Car Wheels and I had Drunken Angel I'd been working on forever, and I was stuck with that song. I couldn't seem to finish it. So I thought I would show it to him it see if you had any ideas for it. And so he came up with some a couple of longs that were great for John Prime song, but not you know, Connie, you know that great fly, witty humor he had right, you know, but they didn't really fit for lis in the Williams song. And he knew that. I knew it, He knew it, and we just you know, the rest of the night, and we just laughed and you know, played songs and you know, talked until the sun came up, and you know, it's one of the best evenings I've ever spent, you know, with another songwriter and so and of course I sang on a couple of albums with him, a couple of songs on some albums and you know, so tell me about because how will Nor produced one of your albums and I'm how Willer produced the West album. Yeah, and that was a shock, um because we didn't even know he got the supermar anything. You know, he wasn't in the hospital or anything. It was just how will Nor died? You know. So with John we knew, of course, you know, he was in the hospital, and you know, there was always that possibility, which shouldn't make it easier, of course, But with how we had no for warning at all. Yeah, So we should we should talk. We're gonna talk about a lot of things, but we should talk about the new record. It's got a heavy, almost garage band sound. Now you've done that a lot, like and Suffering Me and change these I have done that and I've wanted to do more of that, you know for this one. Did you do you write the songs and then get in the studio and think, I know it makes sense or do the songs come prepackaged with like that fuzzy guitar? Oh? I just you know, I go through a writing phase. Well I'm always you know, coming up with lines and notes and this. You know, I keep it running, uh, you know, like a briefcase full of songs that are half finished, or titles for songs, ideas for songs and wet. That's an ongoing thing. But I'm not a little discipline where I'll sit down every single day and say, Okay, I'm gonna work on writing. You know, I don't do that. I should do that, I guess, but whatever that's I've accepted that about myself. You know, it seems to be working for you, so don't change it now. Anyway it comes out, I get them out, so whatever it takes. So I get in that writing mode and then I'm just writing, writing writing, you know, for like two weeks three. This just all came together kind of magically. I mean we went in with with Ray Kennedy. Ray had invited us just to come in and do a couple of tracks just to see what happens kind of thing. You know, it wasn't like this big official, Okay, we're gonna do the whole album with that Ray and with Ray and his studio, So even that was really was kind of spontaneous. You know. We went in and we were in between tours, so we didn't have that much time. We had a couple of few days in between Rhyns, and we went in and started putting a couple of things down, and right off the bat we knew, you know, there's we got something here, you know, and somehow rageous. I mean, he just tuned right in to you know, the sound and everything. I guess there's a combination of Ray's expertise that acoustics in the studio. You never really know, you know. At one point I asked Thomas, said, you know, just hypothetically, what would happen if we took Ray and went to a different studio, you know, would we get this same sound? And at one point Tom said, I don't think we would. You know, it's just all those things, you know, happening at the same time to make it work. And do you think it's a sound that just suits these songs? Yeah, that's the thing. And we cut some other ones too, but it became evident at a certain point, there's a certain sound here and these sort of songs are working really well that you know, it's starting to come into place like that. A lot of people have talked about the sound of the record, but to me, what was really a shift few was a lot of the language in the record, because and I think most people when they think of you, think of you know you very evocative language and not just visual images. You know, you've car wheels on a gravel road and maybe one of my favorite lines of years, which is heavy Blankets cover Lonely Girls Girls. Yeah, this album, the language is much more it's it's more direct, but it's more apocalyptic. For the lack of a better I don't know, yeah, was it was it deliberate? Were you trying to put away some of your older ideas or not really? Because you know, I have some of their songs that are more you know, they're kind of like what you're talking about, but you know, I just didn't put them on this album. It just felt like the right time to do. I just right off the bat. I loved the sound that we were getting in the studeo and it felt very free, It felt liberating, it cathartic to the band felt this way too. Everybody's in the same you know, we're all feeling this amst and this frustration and anger, and but it's a healthy anger. It's you know, that kind of anger like I want to change things and we got to do something. It's kind there's a sense of desperation, I think right now, you know, I mean, it's pretty things that reached a pretty uh crucial point, right you know, in this country, and so I guess I just felt like this is a hand to kind of, you know, take myself out of it a little bit and just kind of but I'm still in there though, you know. Yeah, But but it's just they're more kind of universal, not necessarily political songs, just more songs for humanity. I guess maybe the thing is that all started happening at the same time that Tom and I got engaged and got married and everything, and so that that was obviously a big, huge change in my life. And as a songwriter, I was aware of the fact that, you know, it was kind of a test also to tell you the truth, you know, to see if I could do this, because you know, I couldn't keep writing unrequired love songs forever. Yeah, you know, I had to branch out into other things, which I've been wanting to do. Anyway, is that work? I mean it's a pretty dark record, yeah, but but I feel like it's a hopeful still. But you know, I've always had people say my music was dark, even as far back as Sweet Old World, you know, because I had two songs on there about suicide. Yeah, you know, Sweet Old World and Pontyola and right. You know, people would say, oh god, you know your songs are so dark. But I've always dug in there. You know, I've always like gone beneeds a surface and dug out the dirt and pulled it up for everybody to see. You know. It's like, this is come on people, you know, I wake off. I mean that's always been me, and I guess this is it just kind of maybe pushed it a little bit more that way, you know, and people are going, well, it really couldn't have come out at a better time. You know, everybody's just responding. It's like a salve that that's the response I'm getting more as people are saying thank you, I needed this, kind of saying tell me a bit about you don't run. Sorry, you don't run me. Um, I got the name wrong. Oh you don't rule me, you don't rule me. I'm sorry. Listen, we're all on the same It's like, yeah, you find it hard to focus. Yeah, I mean a lot of people are talking about that. It's hard to focus. That's why I'm glad I have all this press and everything right now, because it gives me something to focus on, you know, like I have to get up by a certain time. I have to do this, you know, because otherwise I'm just I'm like sitting on the caps and crosser puss right, you know too. Actually, I was getting a big step in my mind with U you Don't Own Me that Leslie Gore song, and I was like, oh, I love that song song, you know what? And they're similar actually, um, but anyway, yeah, I got that from there's a Memphis Minting song by the same title. And yeah, I discovered her music a long time ago, back in the seventies. Yeah you did. You did Me and my Chauffeur on your record, that Me and My Chauffeur blues on the first Folkways album. So you know, she was a real important um musical figure for me because you know, to my knowledge, she was at least not the only one, but one of a handful. You could probably count them on one hand of women who played guitar and wrote their own songs. You know. Um, so this is one that she recorded that her version is more the personal thing, you know, to the to her man saying you can't rule me, you can't take my money to you know, she always wrote, all of her songs are about all these bad moons, you know, you did her wrong and everything. So you know, I kind of made it more topical, I guess, or you know, this is you can't rule me beautiful love that dotted line, uh line, Yeah, the the dotted line Aben song. I love that. I admit a little bit of me I want I went back a little bit of me wanted that to be in the Memphis Mini version. I went back and looked it wasn't. Yeah, it's real similar. It's it's funny how that song and the Leslie Gore song they're they're personal songs that sort of become political songs in a way. Or yeah, what Aretha Franklin did with respect. Yes that's a I love that. Yeah, I love that analogy that comparison. That's great. When you write a political song like that or a song that's politically changed, how's that different than when you're writing a personal song. Are they come easier? Are they harder? I still approach it a lot in the same way. I mean, um, because I still have to feel like I'm in it and it's coming from me. You know. It's something that I'm frustrated about too, So it's not like I'm separating myself from the song, but um, I think it is. To me, it's been harder in the past to write political songs or topical songs in the way that because I always wanted to be able to write one like Masters of War, you know, the Bob Dylan protest songs that I grew up listening to. Hard Rain's Going to Fall, you know, times they are changing, and you know those kinds of songs. Those are you know, taking a stab at it over the years. But to me, like, I don't really call them protest songs. That's why don't we call them that, because it's more about the suffering of people and humanity and and the rights of people, and like I have five the same feelings or that song, you know, more and to be loved. You weren't born to suffer. You weren't born When I sing, when I wrote that song, when I see it, I think about child abuse, you know, I think about the rights of that children don't have and these little kids that are you know, abused and beaten up and thrown into a closet, and you know a lot of dark stuff that's that's in that song. But it might not just be writing your face, right, you know, you do have a very harrowing song on this album about an abusive relationship. Yeah, that was me. Yeah, I used to judge and say, oh, you know, um, that's never gonna be you know, I wouldn't let that happen, you know, And there I was. You know, I met this guy. He was sober. When I met him. He was living in a The most stupid thing I've ever done. He was living in a sober living house. Right, that's the aubrety of it. And I'm thinking, why could possibly go wrong? The guy's sober. Isn't a siber living house, you know, I didn't know, you know, stupid me. Hello, is somebody's in a sober living house. They're there for a reason, They're not supposed to leave, you know, and move in with you. You know, so he moves out of the sober living house in with me, and surprise, surprise, you know, starts first. It just starts off with a little drinking X thing. You know, he's you know, down in the basement of the house shooting speedballs, you know. So, um, you know, it just escalated. The only one I could look at it now, it was a it was a you know, it was a lesson. It was just a proofing point that it doesn't matter you know what race you are, you know, what class you're from, or what you know, any of that. You know, you can find yourself in those situations. You know. Do you ever think sort of bay analogy because you're talking about the political situation? Um, you said, like, how did you let yourself get into a bad personal situation? Do you ever wonder how you see the country getting in a bad political situation? Yeah, I guess it's a it's interesting when you said that, I started suddenly seeing this kind of metaphor something running between the domestic abuse you know situation, and then the situation with you know, Trump and his cronies and everything, you know, because I mean it does feel like abuse. It feels like a national abuse, right, you know, we're all being abused. Actually, you know, we don't feel we don't feel cared for, we don't feel comforted. We'll be right back with Lucinda Williams. After a quick break, we're back with more of Bruce's conversation with Lucinda Williams. Do you worry that because your stuff hasn't been explicitly political before, that it's going to turn off some of your audience. I'm probably gonna lose some fans, you know, But so be it. I mean I thought about it, honestly. I thought the song that was going to desturb people that most would be waking up, you know, because it's so just right in her face. But the song that's been the one but that's not really a political song, but the song that's probably obviously most people you would probably think would be the one that it is happening with. So, which is man without a soul? And you did you? I read a story that you posted that that's it. There was an article it came out in New Yor Times that ironically and I said something like, um, where is the where is the soul of Donald Trump or something like that, and we were all welling, Wow, this is really interesting. I wonder if he ever wrote the article had heard the song, or is it just a coincidence. So anyway, we posted a link to the article with a link to the song. Man, I thought a soul on my Facebook page and I started looking at it one night and started seeing all the comments that were coming in, and I was shocked to see some of them. One of them said, well, I thought Lucinda was a compassionate person. You know, she wrote that song compassion. This isn't compassionate. She has no right to write a song like this. This isn't right. That really bothered me, Like I am a compassionate person. Well, wasn't that one of the songs that was taken from one of the poems of your father Noah. That's what they were talking about, you know, they said, He's he were here ever once, and she wrote this song compassion. He says, I don't see anything compassionate at all about this, Like I was just I had gone over the line, right. See. Now I'm worried about this song. Man. It's out a soul. There's an enough compassion, and I'm gonna be worried. Now you should stop worrying. That songs completely transformed when you do it that way. Yeah, it's it's it doesn't it's like it just tightens around your heart that time. I know. I want to let's see. I like the acoustic version I did on this, the demo version I like better than I like my vocal better on I don't know, maybe I'll put out a put out an acoustic version. Yeah version, you know, it is a different thing, it's a different feel. Yeah, this song was. Tom brought this song to me, He brought the idea to me, and I actually resisted it first, you know, because I started felt that way like you know, remember that song that Neil Young, that line in a Neil Young song where he says, even Richard Nixon has got sould. And we talked about you know, I said, well, you know, everybody's got a soul. Even Donald Trump has a soul, I mean, you know. And then Tom said, well, just look at it as an expression, don't. It's not meant to be taken literally. And and also Tom said when he was first writing the song, when he was looking at it, he was imagining the guy in my abusive relationship, he said he was to him, it's as much about something like that as it is the present United States. It's not necessarily you know, he keeps He was telling he would tell me, don't tell people it's about Trump. It doesn't have to be, you know. And I said, well, I'm not telling people it's about Trump. They're telling me, you know, people here and they go that song about Trump. You know. Yeah, So now I'm kind of stuck with that. And you know, will let me ask you, do you have the guy in the abusive relationship? Do you feel compassion for him in some way or not? Yes, I feel compassionate for you know, that's just how I am. I mean, I feel sorry for Donald Trump, you know I do. He said, he's mentally ill. He needs help, he needs, but he doesn't need to be trying to run the country. If you just you just hurry out an album called I Feel Sorry for Donald Trump. I think all your fans will come. We'll just come back. You can walk the streets of Tennessee and you'll be safe. People are losing friends over this, I mean, never mind fans. You know, people are unfriending people right and left on Facebook. You know. I mean, I have a cousin. I have a first cousin who I've adore, I love and simply adore, who became a Trump person, Trump supporter. And I was shocked because our grandfather was a socialist, Democrat, methodist minister, civil rights supporter and equal rights and all of that. That's the family I come from my dad's side, and here is my cousin. What happens to people? I do want to talk a bit more about your family. Not everybody grows up in the in a household with a famous poet. Did he influence your early writing directly? I'm sure. I'm sure he did. I'm sure as work did. I mean, when I started writing songs, I would show him, you know, I was. My father and I were real close. We bonded for when I was very young, you know, because if my mother was suffering from pretty severe mental illness, and so my dad would kind of take the you know, sort of take up the slack, so to speak. You know. So he and I were really close. And so as soon as I learned to read and write, I was writing little points and stories and things, you know. You know, then that turned into I started taking guitar lescens when I was twelve years old, the nineteen sixty five, and then I started, you know, writing songs and all. And you know, the more I got into that I started, I would show in some things and he would he would critique it really like a real you know, professor. You know, he would be real honest with me and but gentle, but honest, you know, and give me constructive criticism and suggestions. And so I certainly learned definitely from it. Was almost like an apprenticeship in a way, you know, um or built in creative writing course at home, you know, because I never studied it in school. So that was kind of that was that was where I learned probably the craft of it of it. I did hear a story that your father once took you to meet Flannery O'Connor. Yeah, we were living in Macon, Georgia, and that's where I went to. UM first, I started school there, So I was I was pretty young. I was about six years old, I guess maybe. And um she lived in Miligile, Georgia in her old family farm farmhouse. And um so my dad and she he considered her his his teacher, you know, she was his mentor. They had been communicating and talking on the phone and writing letters mostly, and so now that we were in Mapon, she invited my dad to go to drive over to Millageville and visit it one afternoon. So he took me with him Flan where he had a very regimented writing schedule, you know. And so when we got there, she wasn't quite done with her writing period, you know. We got there about half an hour before she was finished. So my dad said he remembers seeing her the Venetian blinds to close, you know, and she was working in the room and she pulled the blinds down, and her housekeeper came out. We were on the front porch, and her housekeeper came out and said, mister Williams, but missus flan where he's not quite done yet. You'll have to wait out here on the porch. Very southern, very old South, you know. And um, so we waited on the porch, and then after a little bit the housekeeper came opened the front screen door and said, okay, mister Williams, you can come in, and and I stayed outside and played with her chase or peacocks apparently. So that's my memory of it. But and then I when I became a teenager, I read everything of herst I just devoured it. Yeah, she had a great line. Um, uh, you know, somebody asked her Southern Gothic, you know why, why is the South? I have so many freaks, and she said, we don't have more freaks than anybody else, We're just better at recognizing them. Yes, that was such a great line. Why can't I think it's something I'd like that to say? Oh, you thought of plenty things, plenty of I mean when I when I read her stuff though, it all just made so much sense to me. I mean, I just so God, I know what that person. I've seen that person obviously now you know, my mother's son of the family. For God's sake, you know. We'll be back with more from Lucinda Williams. After a quick break, we're back with Lucinda Williams performing Shadows and Doubts from her new album Good Souls, Better Angels. Wow. That was fantastic. Thank you. Yeah, I'm real proud of that one. Where did that come from? Well, um, you know it's open for interpretation. You know, I wrote it about someone I know personally who was having problems with this the whole me Too movement thing, and had been accusing some things, and um, you know, so the first time I've known anyone who was going through that, and you know, nothing had been proving you but of course, you know, all the accusations start rolling in and storming in, you know, and you know, everybody abandoned him. He lost his management, and he was supposed to have an album or two albums were supposed to be coming out. Those got shelved, and I mean just you know, his whole world's collapsed for and you know, he's an artist I've always admired, you know, as far as his artistry. Yeah, and you know I was able to It's a song about compassion again, you know, and it could be about I think it could be about anybody who's a victim, if you will of you know, the press or and all of that. You know, people are talking about you, and you know the misunderstandings that come from with all that. You know, tell me about when the Way gets dark. Well, you know, that's one of my simpler songs that at first I thought even I wondered if if it was even good enough. I guess because it didn't really have those, you know, I guess that kind of depth or something, you know, lyrically, but there's something about it, the simplicity, I think one out, you know, And I started experimenting with that kind of writing when I did when I was doing Essence, the songs or Essence, because the thing is like Car Wheels really set the bar, you know, from our song writing goes. And so as soon as I had to start working on songs for the next album after Car Wheels, it was really challenging because I thought, well, what am I gonna do. I'm gonna have to always be writing songs, and you know, these narrative involved songs that some of which take a long time to write, you know. So with Essence, I gave my self permission to kind of just write some of these like are You Down, you know, which is as far by the music a short day, by the way, is that right? Okay? And it's just like this little simple song. But now when we play it, it's a great lot because the band takes off and does this whole you know, kind of musical interlude thing and people are dancing and stuff, and you know, I kind of have to every now and then I have to remind myself it's okay. Every single song doesn't have to be this literary infused narrative masterpiece, you know, like so, you know, but sometimes I worry about that. Have you been tempted? And I'm sure you're asked this all the time to do sort of a bigger literary form like a novel or a short story or being a songwriter. One time I got asked to I think actually Rosie and Cash was this was years and years ago in the nineties, who was asking as songwriters to take one of their songs and make a shark story out of it. And I thought the first one that came to mind at that time. I was going to try it with Connie Old that song because it had such a great story behind it, you know. But I sat down to try to do it and found it to be I felt, you know, found it to be very challenging. And I don't know, maybe it's because I grew up around poets and novelists and I sort of felt, like, you know, my dad kind of drummed and kind of drilled into me that, you know the difference between portray and songwriting for instance, you know, like I remember one time I gave him something that I thought might become a poem and because I wasn't sure, you know, and so I gave it to him and he said, you wrote me back and said, honey, I think this wants to be a song, you know. And there's kind of that sense of like I'm deploy the songwriter. Well, I think you should go back. You should go back and do that. Throws in cash. I have the I have this fantasy of, you know, when I'm older, having a big old house and one of those big, nice control desk and control chairs, and I'm sitting there, you know, working on my novel Shining comes in mind, and bringing little sandwiches and then looks at the you know, looks at the typewriter and I'm typing the same thing over and over again. Now, I think you should do it, and you should call the book cover version. You have to cover your own songs in short stories. Okay, I've taken up so much your time. It's been really wonderful. Yeah, it has. I thought I've made any fun round. Thanks for listening to Williams, for taking the time to chat with and perform for Bruce. You can hear a new album and all our favorite loosen to Williams songs. But heading to Broken Record podcast dot com and be sure to check out our YouTube channel. We're putting up all our old episodes and our new ones, sometimes with bonus content. You can subscribe at YouTube dot com slash broken record Podcast. Broken Record is produced with help from Jason Gambrell, Neil LaBelle, Leo Rose, and Martin Gonzalez for Pushkin Industries. Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.