Words Are Enough: Lucinda Williams

Singer-songwriters can be done in by their own cleverness. There's nothing wrong with a literate voice, but in a genre that turns on sincerity, self-consciously literary lyrics introduce a layer of artifice between singer and listener; you can picture him staring out the window, sucking on his pencil, searching for just the right image — rather than choking it out while the pain was still fresh, or singing it to someone the moment she felt it. Is that the language of your heart, or your BA? (Or, heaven forbid, your MFA?)

Lucinda Williams tells it plain.

Heavy blankets, heavy blankets, heavy blankets / Cover lonely girls.

Indeed. Having reached the wise side of 50, Williams knows better than to dress up heartache in ribbons and bows. Trailing a storied history of bad breakups, her plea is a simple one: "All I ask, don't tell anybody the secrets that I told you." The prettiness of her voice and straightforwardness of her delivery are perfectly suited to the vulnerability of her lyrics, while underscoring the strength it takes to confess such weakness.

Hold me baby, give me some faith / Let me know you're there / Let me touch your face / Give me love, give me grace / Tell me good things / Tell me that my world is safe

The daughter of poet and professor Miller Williams, best known for his reading at President Bill Clinton's second inaugural, Lucinda Williams has a keen instinct for how much meaning a simple image or phrase can convey. At the same time, raised on the Delta blues, she understands the power of repetition. On songs like "Reason to Cry," the combination is a potent one:

Of everything in this world / I guess I'll never know why / Something as good as this could / Flower up and die

When you lose your happiness / When no one's standing by / When nothing makes any sense / You've got a reason to cry / When nothing makes any sense / You've got a reason to cry

Of course, a singer who can't see beyond her own pain would be quick to wear out her welcome. When Williams broadens her scope, she finds solidarity in our common solitude, as on "Out of Touch":

We may pass each other on the interstate / We honk and cross over to the other lane / Everybody's going somewhere, everybody's inside / Hundreds of cars, hundreds of private lives / We are so out of touch, yeah ...

"Car Wheels on a Gravel Road," a song whose title speaks volumes in its own right, turns down the backwater byways criss-crossing her music to explore the secret shames of childhood, and the adult pain that feeds them.

Broken down shacks, engine parts / Could tell a lie but my heart would know / Listen to the dogs barkin' in the yard / Car wheels on a gravel road

Child in the backseat, about four or five years / Lookin' out the window / Little bit of dirt mixed with tears / Car wheels on a gravel road

Since the release of 1992's Sweet Old World, which dealt in part with the suicide of a family friend, Williams has been seen as a specialist in self-destruction. It's hardly the mantle a person would yearn to assume, but she handles it admirably on "Pineola," avoiding bathos and self-pity by focusing on the inescapable mundane details and endless minutes that keep even the most transcendent tragedy rooted in the here and now.

When Daddy told me what happened / I couldn't believe what he just said / Sonny shot himself with a forty-four / And they found him lyin' on his bed

I could not speak a single word / No tears streamed down my face / I just sat there on the living room couch / Staring off into space

Mama and Daddy went over to the house / To see what had to be done / They took the sheets off of the bed / And they went to call someone

Some of us gathered at a friend's house / To help each other ease the pain / I just sat alone in a corner chair / I couldn't say much of anything

On "Sweet Old World," the loss inspires a litany of reasons to live, a scold to the departed tempered by the despair and self-accusation in its last line.

See what you lost when you left this world / This sweet old world ...

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?

Still, for all her pain and longing, it would be a mistake to think of Williams as just another sob sister. Passion cuts both ways, and the sensitivity and depth of her darker material make the brighter moments all the more intense, ringing with the sound of juke joints and revival meetings, torrid affairs and plainspoken lust. And at the end of another long day in this world,

I take off my watch and my earrings / My bracelets and everything / Lie on my back and moan at the ceiling / Oh my baby

Think about you and that long ride / I bite my nails, I get weak inside / Reach over and turn off the light / Oh my baby

Indeed.

— J. Daniel Janzen (jdaniel at flakmag dot com)