Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Lucinda Williams

Transcript

Lucinda Williams · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. Lucinda Williams is defining convention while most of her
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: peers have settled into a well worn groove. The sixty
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: seven year old alt country icon just released an album
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: that's way more punk than country. Lucinda's early projects worth
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Folkways Records, and sonically she fit right in with the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: label's other releases by Wittie Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Leadbelly,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: But her first big success came in the late eighties
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: after she left her folky persona behind in favor of
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: a more modern sound, something like a Bonnie Rate meets
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Bruce Springsteen, and now she's changing it up again. She
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: compares her latest albums Raw Grit to early Stooges Records.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Lucinda's snarling and growling all over the place like she
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: was iggy pop, and she's getting critical acclaim. Rolling Stone
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: says her album is electric fine and calls it her
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: best release in years. Lucina spoke with Bruce Headlam from
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: her home in Nashville about her evolving sound and how
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: her new album was influenced by politics and an abusive relationship.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: This is broken record, Liner notes for the digital age,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmonds here's Bruce Headlam and Lucinda Williams. We
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: should mention we are doing this over a zoom. You
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: just lost part of your roof in a tornado. Youre
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: in a tough few months, but there's been real losses too,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: and I don't to dwell on it. But two people
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: you knew, John Prime and Hold Wilner who records. Could
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: you just tell me maybe about the first time you
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: met John Prime? Yeah, well, I was. Yeah. We found
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: out about both of their deaths on the same day,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: by the way, which was yeah, the day from hell. Um. Well,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I was living here in the nineties in Nashville, and
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: in no way a minute. I met John before that,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: after I first moved to Los Angeles in the mid eighties,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: and I want to play at the It's a famous
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: folk festival in Canada that's been going on for a
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: long time. Yeah, I think it was a Miraposa Folk
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: festival and John was there. He was on the bill,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: and I have a photograph of us actually that somebody
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: took from there. And that's when I first met him,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: And then flashed forward several years later, I'm living in
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Nashville as he had. He was living here it's a
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: fairly small city, and it was even smaller then, and
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: you know, so we crossed paths again and he asked
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: me to open some shows farm and then. But the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: story that I always remember that gets that I always
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: loved to tell is when John and I decided to
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: try to write together. And so we met for drinks
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and dinner at this cafe and then we went over
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: to the Old Boys studio, his studio at Old Boy
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Records on Music Row at the time. And it was
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: when I was working on the car songs for Car
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Wheels and I had Drunken Angel I'd been working on forever,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: and I was stuck with that song. I couldn't seem
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: to finish it. So I thought I would show it
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: to him it see if you had any ideas for it.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: And so he came up with some a couple of
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: longs that were great for John Prime song, but not
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: you know, Connie, you know that great fly, witty humor
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: he had right, you know, but they didn't really fit
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: for lis in the Williams song. And he knew that.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I knew it, He knew it, and we just you know,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the rest of the night, and we just laughed and
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: you know, played songs and you know, talked until the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: sun came up, and you know, it's one of the
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: best evenings I've ever spent, you know, with another songwriter
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: and so and of course I sang on a couple
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: of albums with him, a couple of songs on some
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: albums and you know, so tell me about because how
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: will Nor produced one of your albums and I'm how
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Willer produced the West album. Yeah, and that was a shock,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: um because we didn't even know he got the supermar anything.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: You know, he wasn't in the hospital or anything. It
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: was just how will Nor died? You know. So with
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: John we knew, of course, you know, he was in
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the hospital, and you know, there was always that possibility,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: which shouldn't make it easier, of course, But with how
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: we had no for warning at all. Yeah, So we
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: should we should talk. We're gonna talk about a lot
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: of things, but we should talk about the new record.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: It's got a heavy, almost garage band sound. Now you've
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: done that a lot, like and Suffering Me and change
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: these I have done that and I've wanted to do
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: more of that, you know for this one. Did you
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: do you write the songs and then get in the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: studio and think, I know it makes sense or do
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: the songs come prepackaged with like that fuzzy guitar? Oh?
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I just you know, I go through a writing phase.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Well I'm always you know, coming up with lines and
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: notes and this. You know, I keep it running, uh,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: you know, like a briefcase full of songs that are
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: half finished, or titles for songs, ideas for songs and wet.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: That's an ongoing thing. But I'm not a little discipline
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: where I'll sit down every single day and say, Okay,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna work on writing. You know, I don't do that.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I should do that, I guess, but whatever that's I've
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: accepted that about myself. You know, it seems to be
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: working for you, so don't change it now. Anyway it
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: comes out, I get them out, so whatever it takes.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: So I get in that writing mode and then I'm
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: just writing, writing writing, you know, for like two weeks three.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: This just all came together kind of magically. I mean
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: we went in with with Ray Kennedy. Ray had invited
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: us just to come in and do a couple of
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: tracks just to see what happens kind of thing. You know,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: it wasn't like this big official, Okay, we're gonna do
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the whole album with that Ray and with Ray and
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: his studio, So even that was really was kind of spontaneous.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: You know. We went in and we were in between tours,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: so we didn't have that much time. We had a
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: couple of few days in between Rhyns, and we went
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: in and started putting a couple of things down, and
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: right off the bat we knew, you know, there's we
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: got something here, you know, and somehow rageous. I mean,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: he just tuned right in to you know, the sound
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: and everything. I guess there's a combination of Ray's expertise
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: that acoustics in the studio. You never really know, you know.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: At one point I asked Thomas, said, you know, just hypothetically,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: what would happen if we took Ray and went to
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: a different studio, you know, would we get this same sound?
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: And at one point Tom said, I don't think we would.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just all those things, you know, happening
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: at the same time to make it work. And do
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: you think it's a sound that just suits these songs? Yeah,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: that's the thing. And we cut some other ones too,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: but it became evident at a certain point, there's a
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: certain sound here and these sort of songs are working
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: really well that you know, it's starting to come into
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: place like that. A lot of people have talked about
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: the sound of the record, but to me, what was
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: really a shift few was a lot of the language
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: in the record, because and I think most people when
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: they think of you, think of you know you very
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: evocative language and not just visual images. You know, you've
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: car wheels on a gravel road and maybe one of
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: my favorite lines of years, which is heavy Blankets cover
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Lonely Girls Girls. Yeah, this album, the language is much
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: more it's it's more direct, but it's more apocalyptic. For
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the lack of a better I don't know, yeah, was
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: it was it deliberate? Were you trying to put away
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: some of your older ideas or not really? Because you know,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I have some of their songs that are more you know,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: they're kind of like what you're talking about, but you know,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I just didn't put them on this album. It just
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: felt like the right time to do. I just right
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: off the bat. I loved the sound that we were
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: getting in the studeo and it felt very free, It
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: felt liberating, it cathartic to the band felt this way too.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Everybody's in the same you know, we're all feeling this
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: amst and this frustration and anger, and but it's a
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: healthy anger. It's you know, that kind of anger like
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: I want to change things and we got to do something.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: It's kind there's a sense of desperation, I think right now,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it's pretty things that reached a
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: pretty uh crucial point, right you know, in this country,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: and so I guess I just felt like this is
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: a hand to kind of, you know, take myself out
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: of it a little bit and just kind of but
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I'm still in there though, you know. Yeah, But but
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: it's just they're more kind of universal, not necessarily political songs,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: just more songs for humanity. I guess maybe the thing
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: is that all started happening at the same time that
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Tom and I got engaged and got married and everything,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: and so that that was obviously a big, huge change
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: in my life. And as a songwriter, I was aware
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: of the fact that, you know, it was kind of
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: a test also to tell you the truth, you know,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: to see if I could do this, because you know,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: I couldn't keep writing unrequired love songs forever. Yeah, you know,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I had to branch out into other things, which I've
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: been wanting to do. Anyway, is that work? I mean
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: it's a pretty dark record, yeah, but but I feel
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: like it's a hopeful still. But you know, I've always
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: had people say my music was dark, even as far
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: back as Sweet Old World, you know, because I had
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: two songs on there about suicide. Yeah, you know, Sweet
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Old World and Pontyola and right. You know, people would say,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: oh god, you know your songs are so dark. But
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I've always dug in there. You know, I've always like
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: gone beneeds a surface and dug out the dirt and
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: pulled it up for everybody to see. You know. It's like,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: this is come on people, you know, I wake off.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I mean that's always been me, and I guess this
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: is it just kind of maybe pushed it a little
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: bit more that way, you know, and people are going, well,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: it really couldn't have come out at a better time.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: You know, everybody's just responding. It's like a salve that
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: that's the response I'm getting more as people are saying
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: thank you, I needed this, kind of saying tell me
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: a bit about you don't run. Sorry, you don't run me. Um,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I got the name wrong. Oh you don't rule me,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: you don't rule me. I'm sorry. Listen, we're all on
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: the same It's like, yeah, you find it hard to focus. Yeah,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people are talking about that.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: It's hard to focus. That's why I'm glad I have
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: all this press and everything right now, because it gives
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: me something to focus on, you know, like I have
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: to get up by a certain time. I have to
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: do this, you know, because otherwise I'm just I'm like
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: sitting on the caps and crosser puss right, you know too. Actually,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I was getting a big step in my mind with
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: U you Don't Own Me that Leslie Gore song, and
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I love that song song, you
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: know what? And they're similar actually, um, but anyway, yeah,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I got that from there's a Memphis Minting song by
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: the same title. And yeah, I discovered her music a
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: long time ago, back in the seventies. Yeah you did.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: You did Me and my Chauffeur on your record, that
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Me and My Chauffeur blues on the first Folkways album.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: So you know, she was a real important um musical
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: figure for me because you know, to my knowledge, she
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: was at least not the only one, but one of
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: a handful. You could probably count them on one hand
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: of women who played guitar and wrote their own songs.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: You know. Um, so this is one that she recorded
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: that her version is more the personal thing, you know,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: to the to her man saying you can't rule me,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: you can't take my money to you know, she always wrote,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: all of her songs are about all these bad moons,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: you know, you did her wrong and everything. So you know,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: I kind of made it more topical, I guess, or
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: you know, this is you can't rule me beautiful love
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: that dotted line, uh line, Yeah, the the dotted line
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Aben song. I love that. I admit a little bit
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: of me I want I went back a little bit
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: of me wanted that to be in the Memphis Mini version.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I went back and looked it wasn't. Yeah, it's real similar.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: It's it's funny how that song and the Leslie Gore
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: song they're they're personal songs that sort of become political
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: songs in a way. Or yeah, what Aretha Franklin did
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: with respect. Yes that's a I love that. Yeah, I
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: love that analogy that comparison. That's great. When you write
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: a political song like that or a song that's politically changed,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: how's that different than when you're writing a personal song.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Are they come easier? Are they harder? I still approach
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: it a lot in the same way. I mean, um,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: because I still have to feel like I'm in it
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: and it's coming from me. You know. It's something that
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: I'm frustrated about too, So it's not like I'm separating
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: myself from the song, but um, I think it is.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: To me, it's been harder in the past to write
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: political songs or topical songs in the way that because
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I always wanted to be able to write one like
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Masters of War, you know, the Bob Dylan protest songs
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: that I grew up listening to. Hard Rain's Going to Fall,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: you know, times they are changing, and you know those
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: kinds of songs. Those are you know, taking a stab
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: at it over the years. But to me, like, I
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: don't really call them protest songs. That's why don't we
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: call them that, because it's more about the suffering of
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: people and humanity and and the rights of people, and
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: like I have five the same feelings or that song,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: you know, more and to be loved. You weren't born
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: to suffer. You weren't born When I sing, when I
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: wrote that song, when I see it, I think about
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: child abuse, you know, I think about the rights of
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: that children don't have and these little kids that are
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: you know, abused and beaten up and thrown into a closet,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and you know a lot of dark stuff that's that's
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: in that song. But it might not just be writing
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: your face, right, you know, you do have a very
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: harrowing song on this album about an abusive relationship. Yeah,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: that was me. Yeah, I used to judge and say, oh,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: you know, um, that's never gonna be you know, I
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: wouldn't let that happen, you know, And there I was.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: You know, I met this guy. He was sober. When
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I met him. He was living in a The most
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: stupid thing I've ever done. He was living in a
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: sober living house. Right, that's the aubrety of it. And
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, why could possibly go wrong? The guy's sober.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Isn't a siber living house, you know, I didn't know,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: you know, stupid me. Hello, is somebody's in a sober
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: living house. They're there for a reason, They're not supposed
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: to leave, you know, and move in with you. You know,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: so he moves out of the sober living house in
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: with me, and surprise, surprise, you know, starts first. It
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: just starts off with a little drinking X thing. You know,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: he's you know, down in the basement of the house
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: shooting speedballs, you know. So, um, you know, it just escalated.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: The only one I could look at it now, it
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: was a it was a you know, it was a lesson.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: It was just a proofing point that it doesn't matter
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: you know what race you are, you know, what class
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: you're from, or what you know, any of that. You know,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: you can find yourself in those situations. You know. Do
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: you ever think sort of bay analogy because you're talking
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: about the political situation? Um, you said, like, how did
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: you let yourself get into a bad personal situation? Do
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: you ever wonder how you see the country getting in
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: a bad political situation? Yeah, I guess it's a it's
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: interesting when you said that, I started suddenly seeing this
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: kind of metaphor something running between the domestic abuse you
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: know situation, and then the situation with you know, Trump
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: and his cronies and everything, you know, because I mean
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: it does feel like abuse. It feels like a national abuse, right,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: you know, we're all being abused. Actually, you know, we
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: don't feel we don't feel cared for, we don't feel comforted.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back with Lucinda Williams. After a quick break,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: we're back with more of Bruce's conversation with Lucinda Williams.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Do you worry that because your stuff hasn't been explicitly
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: political before, that it's going to turn off some of
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: your audience. I'm probably gonna lose some fans, you know,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: But so be it. I mean I thought about it, honestly.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I thought the song that was going to desturb people
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: that most would be waking up, you know, because it's
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: so just right in her face. But the song that's
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: been the one but that's not really a political song,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: but the song that's probably obviously most people you would
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: probably think would be the one that it is happening with. So,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: which is man without a soul? And you did you?
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: I read a story that you posted that that's it.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: There was an article it came out in New Yor
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Times that ironically and I said something like, um, where
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: is the where is the soul of Donald Trump or
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: something like that, and we were all welling, Wow, this
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: is really interesting. I wonder if he ever wrote the
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: article had heard the song, or is it just a coincidence.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: So anyway, we posted a link to the article with
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: a link to the song. Man, I thought a soul
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: on my Facebook page and I started looking at it
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: one night and started seeing all the comments that were
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: coming in, and I was shocked to see some of them.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: One of them said, well, I thought Lucinda was a
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: compassionate person. You know, she wrote that song compassion. This
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: isn't compassionate. She has no right to write a song
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: like this. This isn't right. That really bothered me, Like
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: I am a compassionate person. Well, wasn't that one of
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the songs that was taken from one of the poems
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: of your father Noah. That's what they were talking about,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: you know, they said, He's he were here ever once,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and she wrote this song compassion. He says, I don't
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: see anything compassionate at all about this, Like I was
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: just I had gone over the line, right. See. Now
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: I'm worried about this song. Man. It's out a soul.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: There's an enough compassion, and I'm gonna be worried. Now
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: you should stop worrying. That songs completely transformed when you
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: do it that way. Yeah, it's it's it doesn't it's
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: like it just tightens around your heart that time. I know.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I want to let's see. I like the acoustic version
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I did on this, the demo version I like better
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: than I like my vocal better on I don't know,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: maybe I'll put out a put out an acoustic version.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah version, you know, it is a different thing, it's
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: a different feel. Yeah, this song was. Tom brought this
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: song to me, He brought the idea to me, and
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I actually resisted it first, you know, because I started
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: felt that way like you know, remember that song that
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Neil Young, that line in a Neil Young song where
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: he says, even Richard Nixon has got sould. And we
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: talked about you know, I said, well, you know, everybody's
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: got a soul. Even Donald Trump has a soul, I mean,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: you know. And then Tom said, well, just look at
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: it as an expression, don't. It's not meant to be
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: taken literally. And and also Tom said when he was
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: first writing the song, when he was looking at it,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: he was imagining the guy in my abusive relationship, he
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: said he was to him, it's as much about something
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: like that as it is the present United States. It's
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: not necessarily you know, he keeps He was telling he
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: would tell me, don't tell people it's about Trump. It
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: doesn't have to be, you know. And I said, well,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not telling people it's about Trump. They're telling me,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: you know, people here and they go that song about Trump.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, So now I'm kind of stuck with that.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: And you know, will let me ask you, do you
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: have the guy in the abusive relationship? Do you feel
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: compassion for him in some way or not? Yes, I
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: feel compassionate for you know, that's just how I am.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, I feel sorry for Donald Trump, you know
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: I do. He said, he's mentally ill. He needs help,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: he needs, but he doesn't need to be trying to
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: run the country. If you just you just hurry out
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: an album called I Feel Sorry for Donald Trump. I
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: think all your fans will come. We'll just come back.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: You can walk the streets of Tennessee and you'll be safe.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: People are losing friends over this, I mean, never mind fans.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: You know, people are unfriending people right and left on Facebook.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: You know. I mean, I have a cousin. I have
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: a first cousin who I've adore, I love and simply adore,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: who became a Trump person, Trump supporter. And I was
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: shocked because our grandfather was a socialist, Democrat, methodist minister,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: civil rights supporter and equal rights and all of that.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: That's the family I come from my dad's side, and
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: here is my cousin. What happens to people? I do
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: want to talk a bit more about your family. Not
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: everybody grows up in the in a household with a
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: famous poet. Did he influence your early writing directly? I'm sure.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he did. I'm sure as work did. I mean,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: when I started writing songs, I would show him, you know,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I was. My father and I were real close. We
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: bonded for when I was very young, you know, because
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: if my mother was suffering from pretty severe mental illness,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: and so my dad would kind of take the you know,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: sort of take up the slack, so to speak. You know.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: So he and I were really close. And so as
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: soon as I learned to read and write, I was
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: writing little points and stories and things, you know. You know,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: then that turned into I started taking guitar lescens when
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I was twelve years old, the nineteen sixty five, and
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: then I started, you know, writing songs and all. And
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: you know, the more I got into that I started,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I would show in some things and he would he
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: would critique it really like a real you know, professor.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: You know, he would be real honest with me and
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: but gentle, but honest, you know, and give me constructive
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: criticism and suggestions. And so I certainly learned definitely from it.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Was almost like an apprenticeship in a way, you know,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: um or built in creative writing course at home, you know,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: because I never studied it in school. So that was
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: kind of that was that was where I learned probably
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: the craft of it of it. I did hear a
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: story that your father once took you to meet Flannery O'Connor. Yeah,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: we were living in Macon, Georgia, and that's where I
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: went to. UM first, I started school there, So I
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: was I was pretty young. I was about six years old,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I guess maybe. And um she lived in Miligile, Georgia
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: in her old family farm farmhouse. And um so my
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: dad and she he considered her his his teacher, you know,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: she was his mentor. They had been communicating and talking
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: on the phone and writing letters mostly, and so now
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: that we were in Mapon, she invited my dad to
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: go to drive over to Millageville and visit it one afternoon.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: So he took me with him Flan where he had
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: a very regimented writing schedule, you know. And so when
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: we got there, she wasn't quite done with her writing period,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: you know. We got there about half an hour before
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: she was finished. So my dad said he remembers seeing
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: her the Venetian blinds to close, you know, and she
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: was working in the room and she pulled the blinds down,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: and her housekeeper came out. We were on the front porch,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: and her housekeeper came out and said, mister Williams, but
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: missus flan where he's not quite done yet. You'll have
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: to wait out here on the porch. Very southern, very
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: old South, you know. And um, so we waited on
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: the porch, and then after a little bit the housekeeper
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: came opened the front screen door and said, okay, mister Williams,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: you can come in, and and I stayed outside and
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: played with her chase or peacocks apparently. So that's my
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: memory of it. But and then I when I became
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: a teenager, I read everything of herst I just devoured it. Yeah,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: she had a great line. Um, uh, you know, somebody
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: asked her Southern Gothic, you know why, why is the South?
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: I have so many freaks, and she said, we don't
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: have more freaks than anybody else, We're just better at
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: recognizing them. Yes, that was such a great line. Why
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: can't I think it's something I'd like that to say? Oh,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you thought of plenty things, plenty of I mean when
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: I when I read her stuff though, it all just
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: made so much sense to me. I mean, I just
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: so God, I know what that person. I've seen that
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: person obviously now you know, my mother's son of the family.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: For God's sake, you know. We'll be back with more
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: from Lucinda Williams. After a quick break, we're back with
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Lucinda Williams performing Shadows and Doubts from her new album
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Good Souls, Better Angels. Wow. That was fantastic. Thank you. Yeah,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: I'm real proud of that one. Where did that come from? Well, um,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: you know it's open for interpretation. You know, I wrote
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: it about someone I know personally who was having problems
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: with this the whole me Too movement thing, and had
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: been accusing some things, and um, you know, so the
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: first time I've known anyone who was going through that,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: and you know, nothing had been proving you but of course,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: you know, all the accusations start rolling in and storming in,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: you know, and you know, everybody abandoned him. He lost
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: his management, and he was supposed to have an album
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: or two albums were supposed to be coming out. Those
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: got shelved, and I mean just you know, his whole
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: world's collapsed for and you know, he's an artist I've
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: always admired, you know, as far as his artistry. Yeah,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: and you know I was able to It's a song
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: about compassion again, you know, and it could be about
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: I think it could be about anybody who's a victim,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: if you will of you know, the press or and
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: all of that. You know, people are talking about you,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: and you know the misunderstandings that come from with all that.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: You know, tell me about when the Way gets dark. Well,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: you know, that's one of my simpler songs that at
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: first I thought even I wondered if if it was
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: even good enough. I guess because it didn't really have those,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: you know, I guess that kind of depth or something,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: you know, lyrically, but there's something about it, the simplicity,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I think one out, you know, And I started experimenting
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: with that kind of writing when I did when I
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: was doing Essence, the songs or Essence, because the thing
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: is like Car Wheels really set the bar, you know,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: from our song writing goes. And so as soon as
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I had to start working on songs for the next
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: album after Car Wheels, it was really challenging because I thought, well,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: what am I gonna do. I'm gonna have to always
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: be writing songs, and you know, these narrative involved songs
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: that some of which take a long time to write,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: you know. So with Essence, I gave my self permission
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: to kind of just write some of these like are
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: You Down, you know, which is as far by the
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: music a short day, by the way, is that right? Okay?
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: And it's just like this little simple song. But now
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: when we play it, it's a great lot because the
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: band takes off and does this whole you know, kind
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: of musical interlude thing and people are dancing and stuff,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: and you know, I kind of have to every now
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: and then I have to remind myself it's okay. Every
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: single song doesn't have to be this literary infused narrative masterpiece,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: you know, like so, you know, but sometimes I worry
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: about that. Have you been tempted? And I'm sure you're
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: asked this all the time to do sort of a
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: bigger literary form like a novel or a short story
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: or being a songwriter. One time I got asked to
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: I think actually Rosie and Cash was this was years
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: and years ago in the nineties, who was asking as
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: songwriters to take one of their songs and make a
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: shark story out of it. And I thought the first
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: one that came to mind at that time. I was
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: going to try it with Connie Old that song because
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: it had such a great story behind it, you know.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: But I sat down to try to do it and
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: found it to be I felt, you know, found it
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: to be very challenging. And I don't know, maybe it's
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: because I grew up around poets and novelists and I
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: sort of felt, like, you know, my dad kind of
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: drummed and kind of drilled into me that, you know
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: the difference between portray and songwriting for instance, you know,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: like I remember one time I gave him something that
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I thought might become a poem and because I wasn't sure,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: you know, and so I gave it to him and
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: he said, you wrote me back and said, honey, I
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: think this wants to be a song, you know. And
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: there's kind of that sense of like I'm deploy the songwriter. Well,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I think you should go back. You should go back
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: and do that. Throws in cash. I have the I
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: have this fantasy of, you know, when I'm older, having
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: a big old house and one of those big, nice
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: control desk and control chairs, and I'm sitting there, you know,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: working on my novel Shining comes in mind, and bringing
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: little sandwiches and then looks at the you know, looks
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: at the typewriter and I'm typing the same thing over
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: and over again. Now, I think you should do it,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: and you should call the book cover version. You have
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: to cover your own songs in short stories. Okay, I've
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: taken up so much your time. It's been really wonderful. Yeah,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: it has. I thought I've made any fun round. Thanks
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: for listening to Williams, for taking the time to chat
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: with and perform for Bruce. You can hear a new
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: album and all our favorite loosen to Williams songs. But
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: heading to Broken Record podcast dot com and be sure
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: to check out our YouTube channel. We're putting up all
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: our old episodes and our new ones, sometimes with bonus content.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: You can subscribe at YouTube dot com slash broken record Podcast.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced with help from Jason Gambrell, Neil LaBelle,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Leo Rose, and Martin Gonzalez for Pushkin Industries. Our theme
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.