Changed the Locks / Lucinda Williams
HELL HATH NO FURY WEEK

Come on. From the very first mention of Hell Hath No Fury Week, you should've known Lucinda would be on the roster.

Unlike most of my favorite chick singers, Lucinda Williams isn't exactly someone I'd invite over to nosh Doritos and giggle over the Golden Globes telecast. She's more like the hard-bitten divorcee down the hall who bums cigarettes off you and asks you to lie to her biker boyfriend if he shows up unexpected. Still, if a man were doing you wrong, who would you ask for advice?  Not sympathy, mind you, but all-men-are-bastards advice?  You betcha.  

For all its world-weary slouch, this song isn't late Lucinda Williams; this tough-girl attitude is where she started out. From her third album, 1988's Lucinda Williams, this is her first track that got some airplay -- not much, granted, but some. In the 1980s, this gutsy hybrid of rock and country-blues wasn't necessarily mainstream taste. Even after Mary Chapin Carpenter's sweetened-up cover of "Passionate Kisses" won Lucinda some songwriting recognition, it would still be another 10 years (with Car Wheels on a Gravel Road) before the world was really ready to listen to Lucinda Williams.

From that opening snarl of guitar, you know she's pissed off and ready to do battle. The drums smack relentlessly, the guitarwork is dirty and a little raunchy sounding. She's way beyond pretty tunes, too -- each "verse" is simply a dogged chant, describing one radical change she's making to scour this man out of her life for good. Her voice is gruff, sarcastic, edged with a bitter yelp. Changing the locks is obvious, and so is switching her phone number.  But the more she goes on -- she's bought a new car, a new wardrobe -- you start to wonder: What did he do to make her so furious?

Normally people change the locks when someone's trying to hurt or harass them.  But is this guy threatening her physically? If she didn't change the locks, she declares, he'd come in and -- whoa, lie down on her couch.  If he could phone her up, he'd "say those things to me / That make me fall down on my knees."  Following her on the street, he might "knock me off my feet" or "call my name out loud." It's hardly what I'd call abuse. The real story, in fact, is that he's trying to woo her back. Romantic, right? Like Ryan Gosling trying to win back Rachel McAdam in The Notebook.  Yet that romantic movie ending is exactly what she doesn't want.

By the time she gets to the last two changes, she's hitting surreal extremes -- "I changed the tracks underneath the train / So you can't find me again," then "I changed the name of this town / So you can't follow me down." So what is she so afraid of?  So "you can't touch me like before, and you can't make me want you more." It isn't him she's afraid of; it's herself, and the self-destructive passion she feels for him.

That's a great twist, a sure sign of smart songwriting. But stop thinking this guy is Ryan Gosling, or Channing Tatum, or even (think 1988) Rob Lowe. He may turn her knees to jelly, but I'm betting he's still bad news, and now she knows it. Quivers of passion animate her vocals -- listen to that trembling uplift at the end of every lne -- but there's also a ragged edge of scorn to her voice.    

And if she can't resist his powerful charm -- well, then, she'd better change the locks, or the town name, or whatever.