"If I Had a Boat" /
Lyle Lovett

Years ago, I drove through a howling snowstorm to see my homeboy John Hiatt play a Songwriters Circle show out on Long Island. Now, the Songwriters Circle format features four performers, singing their songs in a dynamic round robin. Two of the other three guys in the Circle were new to me -- Guy Clark and Joe Ely, both of them delightful discoveries. But the fourth I'd heard of, and even seen in a couple movies, and I wasn't particularly interested. Like I said, I was there for John Hiatt.

And then Lyle Lovett, sitting on that stage, opened his mouth and began to sing, and I was bowled over.

Revelation #1: Lovett's creaky, weathered, authentic voice sounds like a real guy singing -- but in person, you learn how strong and true and supple that instrument is. No recording tricks here: This cowboy can really really sing. And as he cycled, in his turn, through several of his songs, Revelation #2 hit me: The man is also a first-class songwriter. Irony, wit, deft turns of phrase, psychological insight, searing moments of emotional honesty -- song after song, he knocked it out of the park.

Did he sing this song that snowy night? I can't even remember. But when I first rooted it out of iTunes, it felt achingly familiar. I doubt I'd heard it on the radio; released as a single in 1988, it never even got to the top 50 on the country charts. It's the lead-off track on his gorgeous 1987 album Pontiac -- yeah, like I ever listened to that before my Lyle Lovett epiphany. It is ranked #87 on Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Country Songs, for what that's worth. Maybe I heard it in a movie? Who knows.  But here it most indubitably is.

 

From the title alone, there's an obvious reference: that classic folk song "If I Had a Hammer", written by Pete Seeger and Lee Lays, first recorded by the Weavers and later (the version I grew up on) by Peter, Paul, and Mary. Lyle Lovett is too smart not to know this precedent. The Seeger song neatly cycles through hammer, bell, and song in the verses; here, Lyle begin with his boat, then brings on a pony -- but then, things go dangerously south. Whereas the folk song is all about social justice and community, Lyle's take is defiantly post-modern and individualistic.

 

That boat? It's for getting away from the hassles of daily life. And yeah, he's bringing his pony on that boat, dammit, but that's it. Western icons like Roy Rogers and the Lone Ranger? Lyle's out to divorce Roy from his wife Dale Evans, and he's totally more with Tonto than the Lone Ranger. ("Well, kiss my ass, I bought a boat, / I'm going out to sea.")  The devil is in the details.

 

I love how, in this video, Lyle's just pacing around his living room, sorting out this little fantasy of his. The boat, the pony, the ocean. Kiss my ass.

 

But what gets me -- what keeps this song in my permanent rotation -- is the quiver of urgency in Lyle Lovett's voice. He needs that boat, he needs that pony, he's in a place where a wife (Dale) or a boss (the Lone Ranger) would shatter his equilibrium. Seeger's melodic line, always rising in plodding tempos, is a trumpet call to action; Lovett's skips all over the place, tentative, playful, neurotic, and plangent as hell.  

 

Which brings me back to that snowbound night in Long Island. Good fangirl that I am, I went to the stage door (in this case a parking lot gate) hoping to let John Hiatt know how much I adore his music. But of the four songwriters, only one bothered to tromp out through the snow to meet fans. Hands jammed in his coat pockets, cowboy boots soaking wet, Lyle Lovett spoke to each of the seven fans at the gate, making eye contact, repeating our names, diligently scrawling his name on our ticket stubs. Making a personal connection. Hoping we liked the show. The perfect Southern gentleman, like his momma raised him right. And I promptly fell in love.

And I know he doesn't need no girlfriend on that boat, but still, a girl can hope....

L Is For . . . .

Working my way through the alphabet, one artist for every letter from A to Z.  Bonus points when both your names start with that letter....

Lyle Lovett / "If I Had a Boat"

So many L's, so little time.  I could have written about Nick Lowe (well, obviously), or Amos Lee, or Lulu or Los Bravos or the Lumineers. But this is where I landed, because -- well, Lyle. I mean, Lyle.

I realize that I have already treated you to such Lyle Lovett beauties as "Nobody Knows Me" ,   "She's Already Made Up Her Mind", and "In My Own Mind". But in my ongoing quest to earn this genius the recognition he deserves (outside of country music circles, who hardly pay him any attention at all anyway), here's one of his most iconic songs.

And you have to pay respect to an artist who was already hitting the "most iconic" level on his sophomore album. Pontiac came out in 1988, and seriously, this guy was already this good.

Some artists I'd wonder if I'm just imagining the DNA of a song, but with Lyle? Underestimate him at your peril. I'm sure he knew the Pete Seeger classic "If I Had a Hammer" and had it firmly in mind when he wrote this.

Yeah, it starts off all folkie and simple. "If I had a boat / I'd ride out on the ocean." But he quickly throws a country-western curveball into the song: "And if I had a pony / I'd ride him on my boat."

Horses hate boats. Lyle grew up on a ranch; he knows horses. So yes, we're in magical realism territory. "We could all together / Go out upon the ocean / I said me upon my pony on my boat." I see Lyle, with that wild crop of curly hair, sitting on his cowboy paint pony, staring out to sea.

And the ironies keep on coming. He's channeling 1950s cowboy star Roy Rogers -- "If I were Roy Rogers / I'd sure enough be single / I couldn't bring myself to marry old Dale [Evans, Roger's wife and co-star] / It'd just be me and Trigger [Roy's horse] / We'd go riding through those movies / And then we'd buy a boat / And on the sea we'd sail." Is it just me, or is there a kind of Coen brothers madness to seeing this ark fill up with cowboys and their ponies?

He goes on from there to mess with the Lone Ranger legend ("But Tonto he was smarter / And one day said 'Kemo Sabe / Kiss my ass, I bought a boat / I'm going out to sea.'") Allying yourself with the Native American point of view? Priceless.

And yet and yet and YET. Here's the genius of this song: There's something so plangent, so yearning about that folk-inflected melody that it trumps everything else. Lyle's earnest mellifluous vocals, the simple acoustic finger-picking, with just a touch of pedal steel behind -- it's delivered with such conviction. The wink-wink cultural references dovetail right into a genuine vein of desire. He WANTS that boat, he WANTS that pony, He WANTS to be Roy and Tonto. And we, listening, want that too.

This song's been covered by everyone from Jimmy Buffett to Dave Matthews. I swear I've heard it in movie soundtracks, and when I hear it, it always lifts my heart. Yet it's not sappy; it's the total antithesis of sappy. It's just plumb beautiful.    

A Shuffle for Holt

This is the way life goes: in the end stages of the 52 Girls project, a landmine of sorrow went off under my feet. My brother Holt Hughes died on March 7, after a nearly five-year fight against cancer. His memorial service was on Saturday. 

I went back and forth for days trying to pick one song to post about in his memory, and then I realized -- of course, a shuffle!  Holt was himself a shuffle kind of guy, always moving on to the next thing, his enthusiasms too multitudinous to be ticked off in one box. So here's a random sampling from the four-hour playlist I made for his memorial....


1. "You've Got A Friend in Me" / Randy Newman & Lyle Lovett (1995)
My brother was above all one of my best friends. He was always there for me. And, PS, he loved Lyle Lovett too. (The old John Hiatt connection ran deep for both of us....)

2.  "The Water Is Wide" / James Taylor (1991)
The old angel-voiced folkie, doing one of those old English folk songs about "crossing over," which I always interpret as death. But there's something so warm about James Taylor's voice, like an old pair of jeans, I collapse right into its comfort.

3.   "Strangers" / Norah Jones (2009)
Love the Kinks' original, a Dave Davies beauty; this is my favorite cover of it. (Sorry I couldn't find an MP3 -- it was a bonus track from Norah's album The Fall.) It's about brotherhood, it's about the spiritual journey. "Holy man and holy priest / This love of life makes me weak at my knees" -- my brother was a priest and he loved life. Perfect.

4.  "I Don't Wanna Go Home" / Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (1987)
A great rousing farewell anthem -- "I know that it's getting late / But I don't want to go home." My brother was a chronic night owl, and visiting him always meant we'd be up way past midnight, goofing around. He just never wanted to let the day go.  "I know we had to try / To reach up and touch the sky, baby" -- yep, that was Holt, too.

5.  "Circles" / Ten Years After (1976)
A little hippie-dippie folkie track, full of restless questioning spirit, just like my bro.  Dig that third verse: "I have got what I once dreamed of / As a child, so long ago / But my life just goes in circles / 'Cause one answer I don't know / Does it matter what I do / Who will hear me if I cry? / Does it matter what I do / Does it matter if I die?"  Holt, I hope you have the answers now that you've preceded us into the light.

6. "Here Comes the Sun" / The Beatles
A great message of hope, transformation, and renewal, especially for those of us -- like my brother -- who believe in reincarnation. And the consoling refrain, "It's all right" -- just what we need to hear.

7. "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright" / Simon & Garfunkel (1970)
Another valedictory song, a gentle samba in honor of someone who could "change your point of view." "When I run dry, I stop awhile and think of you" -- yes, that's how I feel.

8. "Just A Song Before I Go" / Crosby Stills & Young (1977)
Okay, really this is a break-up song, but its gentle bittersweetness suits my mood. And those gorgeous CSN harmonies -- I was still stuck in my British rock phase when these guys came along and I generally missed them, but I know my brother listened to this album a lot back in the day.

9. "Daughters" / John Mayer (2003)
Holt loved this song, because he loved his two daughters. "Fathers be good to your daughters" -- and Holt always was.

10. "All Kinds of Time" / Fountains of Wayne (2003)
FoW wistfully captures a moment in time when the golden boy -- in this case, a high school quarterback -- reviews his life as he goes out for the pass. My brother couldn't play football for anything, but his life had this same sort of glorious equipoise. I only wish he had had all kinds of time -- but then again, who does?

Love you forever, Homes.

The Saturday Shuffle

At last -- a free hour in my day!  Let's turn on the old shuffle machine and see what it yields...

1. Do You Want It All? / Two Door Cinema Club
From Tourist History (2010)
Tasty little morsel of British indie pop, sort like Death Cab for Cutie meets the Kooks. (And no, that's not a reference to the sadly kaput marriage of Ben Gibbard and Zoe Deschanel). The production values are quirky, almost lapidary, with fragments of phrases repeated urgently, like mantras, over a peppy rhythm track spiced with space-age sound effects. But absolutely radio friendly!

2. When in Rome / Nickel Creek
From When Will the Fire Die? (2005)
Sitting sweetly at the intersection of bluegrass and indie pop, this wonderful trio (also, sadly kaput) composed of fiddler Sara Watkins, her guitarist brother Sean, and mandolinist Chris Thiele (now of Punch Brothers) was a real find for me. Snarky lyrics and modernist rhythms, textured with Americana  instrumentation -- trust me, it's a winning combination.

3. The Rat's Prayer / The Soft Boys
From A Can of Bees (1980)
And now for something completely different -- at least on the surface -- Sir Robyn Hitchcock's first band, psych-folk-punk renegades the Soft Boys. Garage-y guitars and drums, herky-jerky tempos, folky harmonies, and best of all, wickedly absurdist lyrics.: My. Cup. Of. Tea.

4. Better Days / Roseanne Cash
From This One's For Him (2012)
No, not the Kinks' "Better Things," but a wise and rueful Guy Clark song, covered here by real Nashville royalty, Twitter queen Roseanne Cash. This new tribute album is one of the finest country albums of many a year -- with Clark's warm and witty songs as the foundation, it should be brilliant, and it is.

5. Martha My Dear / The Beatles
From The White Album (1968)
Paul McCartney in full music-hall mode -- scrumpdillyumptious.  I say music-hall, but alongside the oom-pah/ragtime beat Sir Paul can't help tossing in a bossa nova groove here and there.  And yes, we all know he really wrote this about his Old English sheepdog ("hold your head up, you silly girl / Look what you've done" -- poop on the carpet!), but it's still a crazy mad wonderful song.

6. (I Wanna) Call It Love / Sondre Lerche
From Duper Sessions (2006)
Remember the Steve Carell movie Dan in Real Life? Probably not; it was highly missable.  But I loved the soundtrack tunes by this sweet Norwegian singer-songwriter, and immediately plucked several other tunes out of his slim catalog. There's a little soft-shoe jazziness here too, a smooth strain of Cole Porter romanticism, but with a touch of Scandi angst, too.  Well, why not?

7. Groovy Movies / The Kinks
From The Great Lost Kinks Album (1973)
Sorry, no link -- it's a bootleg. (Got to solve this mp3 posting conundrum...) This album only hit the market for a nanosecond before the horrified Kinks demanded it be withdrawn; most of it was discarded demos, scraps of songs that Ray Davies had written for other projects, padded out with some Dave Davies solo work.  This is one of the Dave tracks, sloppy rather than whimsical, but kinda endearing all the same.

8.  Cry Like a Baby / The Box Tops
From The Best of the Box Tops (1968)
Hard to believe this came out the same year as "Martha My Dear"; it's soul-saturated Memphis pop, with horns instead of oom-pah, Farfisa organ instead of plinky piano, and a raft of gospel back-up singers.  And the divine vocals of Alex Chilton...

9. I'm a Soldier in the Army of the Lord / Lyle Lovett
From Smile: Songs from the Movies (2003)
Full-on gospel -- whoever said Lyle Lovett could only do country?  This track appeared in the 1997 Robert Duvall film The Apostle (searing performance, Bobby D!) and it sure enough gives me that old-time religion. Do I love this cat's voice or what?  That supple vibrato with just enough creak and twang -- there's no one else sounds even remotely like him.

10. We Should Be Making Love / Huey Lewis & The News
From Hard At Play (1999)
Lazy, loungy, soulful pop, as easy on the ears as Huey himself is easy on the eyes (Huey and Daryl Hall: my two big 80s music crushes.)  And one of my favorite song premises:  Our singer hero is always listening to his woman friend's romantic issues, until now he's finally 'fessing up that he longs to BE her romantic issue.  You could slide into this like a pair of warm moccasins, girl.  Why not?

SATURDAY SHUFFLE
 
Okay, okay, the book's done, the kitchen's back in working order, the kids have finished school. I've run out of excuses -- I'm back in the saddle. (Thanks for the nudge, Lori!) 

1. I Know What You're Thinkin' / Bill Lloyd
From Set To Pop (1993)
If you like jangly guitar pop -- and you know I do -- you've gotta check out Bill Lloyd. Despite a turn in Nashville as half of Foster and Lloyd, he really shines when he goes electric, revealing his debts to the Beatles and the Kinks (I first learned of him from his cover of "This Is Where I Belong").  Don't let those catchy melodies and hooks fool you -- he slices and dices relationships like nobody's fool.  Jangly guitar pop with an edge; that's even better.

2. Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa / Vampire Weekend
From Vampire Weekend (2008)
Why, yes, thank you, I will go to the Cape this summer!  An irresistibly catchy bit of indie polyrhythm; love that little Bach fugue they throw in on the organ towards the end.

3. Summer in the City / The Lovin' Spoonful
From Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful (1966)
Probably THE best song ever written for an urban summer night, as I've mentioned before. The back of my neck's been getting pretty dirty and gritty lately, now that you mention it. 

4. Ackee 1-2-3 / English Beat
From Special Beat Service (1982)
But you know, Vampire Weekend didn't invent this indie polyrhythm sound; the English Beat and all their ska revival pals had it down in the early 80s. Another great urban summer song, with sassy horns, a touch of steel drums, an infectious sloppy singalong chorus, even a dog barking at the end.   

5. We Won't Dance / Greg Trooper 
From Noises in the Hallway
Aw, what a great song, and Troop's original is sooooo much sexier than Vince Gill's cover (from the album that made him a star, 1989's When I Call Your Name). The premise is, he's saying goodbye to an old girlfriend, with a shiver of regret that they won't, ahem, dance together anymore.  (Wink wink, nudge nudge...) "You won't dance with him / The way you danced with me..."

6.  Hollywood / Guy  Clark
From Someday the Song Writes You (2009)
Well, speaking of brilliant folk-country songwriters, here's the Texas master, spinning another gently weary cautionary tale about tinsel dreams going all tarnished.  I love Clark's scuffed-up voice, the acoustic twang of his guitar, but what I love most about his songs is something even rarer -- hard-won wisdom.       

7. Radar Love / Golden Earring  
From  Moontan (1973) 
Surprise! Not my usual fare, I'll grant you.  But I often listen to my iPod in the car, and well -- sometimes you need to put the pedal to the metal, and this is the song that'll do it for you.  Who are Golden Earring?  A Dutch heavy metal band?  I'm pretty sure I never heard another song from them, but Wikipedia tells me they're still together, still performing, still recording, with multiple hits in Holland, so what do I know? This is one hell of a track. 

8. Tell You / Ron Sexsmith
From Grand Opera Lane (1987)
Sure, there's poppy jangle here, but Sexsmith's sweet yearning vocals make it hard to be cynical.  I can't think of many modern songwriters who can honestly write about things like joy and  faith. Refreshing.

9. I Can't Love You Anymore  / Lyle Lovett
From The Road to Ensenada (2008)
You know, if that "Anymore" were spelled "Any More," this would be a different song.  And I know that Lyle knows this.  Compared to the usual dumbed-down Nashville fare, Lyle's intelligence and songcraft amaze me over and over. (I don't even consider him country, anymore -- well, maybe Western.) No wonder he's buddies with Hiatt.  

10. Wild Honey Pie / The Beatles
From The Beatles (The White Album) (1968)
A minute of anarchy -- and I hang on every note.

11. Trusted  / Ben Folds
From Songs for Silverman (2005)
Okay, let's say "Wild Honey Pie" doesn't count.  Because how could I cut off Ben?  This was the first of his albums I ever bought, and it absolutely astonished me -- those perfect pop hooks, the emotional melodies, the sharp lyrics, the edgy relationships.  I can't get certain lines out of my head -- "I thought  you could read my mind / Then I came home early and saw that a drawer'd been opened / Looks like you were reading my diary instead" or "That's when I know / She's gonna be pissed when she wakes up / for terrible things I did to her in her dreams."  These ARE the sorts of things that drive people apart, and it's horrible, and Ben dissects it with fearless ferocity, sailing along on crashing piano chords and arpeggios.  This guy's stuff absolutely rivets me....

"In My Own Mind" / Lyle Lovett

TEXAS MUSIC WEEK

The third sign that it was time for a Texas Music Week:  Someone at Friday night's Nick Lowe show handed out copies of this month's Elmore music magazine, and right there on the cover, darting a wary smile my way, was none other than Lyle Lovett, of Klein, Texas -- rancher, part-time bullrider, and fulltime Texas troubador.  If you think Doug Sahm had a wide range of musical styles, check out Lyle, who's been known to alternate gospel, acoustic folk, roots rock, Western swing, Nashville twang, Memphis R&B, and big band songbook all on the same album.  

Now I have to 'fess up to a huge fangirl crush on Lyle.  I know some people don't get this -- they make fun of his weird hair and oddly craggy face, or are perplexed by his subdued, almost courtly stage persona. How could anybody have a fangirl crush on that?  Well, I do. I don't go for country singers normally, but then Lyle's not really a country singer; he's been at odds with the Nashville establishment from the get-go.  There's just something about his voice that makes me swoon, that blend of honey and grit, with a true poet's knack for phrasing and nuance. And he's got that air of a wounded romantic that always steals my heart -- the guarded smile, the hurt eyes -- behind his droll humor and suffer-no-fools satire you just know he's a gentle soul longing for love.

Whether or not this bears any relation to the real Lyle Lovett doesn't matter, of course.  I've got my records, and that's all I need. (Check here for previous posts on "She's Already Made Up Her Mind" and "Nobody Knows Me".)  Since this is Texas Music Week, let's go for one of Lyle's twangier numbers.



I love the surreal charm of this video.  Sure, the song comes across as a laidback country two-step, but when you think about it, it's really a treatise on perception and objective reality.  So why not have him morph from one scene to another?  I do love Lyle's deadpan performance (it's no surprise he's had a sideline as an actor), that dreamlike way he sails through it all unfazed, suit and tie neatly pressed.  (I could watch this man ride a horse all day.)

And of course, it's also a country man's statement of faith in wide open spaces and good clean air. "Out here in my own mind / I live where I can breathe / Ain't nothin but a cool breeze / Nobody that it won't please."  The trees, the river, the tall grass, the cows, the horse, the faded barn -- it's where he belongs. The song's language is equally spare and simple, with short lines, often unrhymed, stating one simple detail after another.  The melody, too, is fluid and unfussy -- note how the verses repeat one light scrap of melody over and over, while the chorus just expands that melodic phrase, letting it roam farther up and down the scale, giving it room to breathe. 

Classic songwriting structure: Each verse progressively develops the idea.  Verse One savors his peaceful solitary morning, doing his chores, standing on the porch looking out over his fields. (Love that laconic description of the year's cycle: "I turn it all over / Plow it all under / I plant 'em in the springtime / Pick 'em in the summer.")  Verse Two widens his circle to greet the two ranch hands, comic sidekicks in their slogan T-shirts -- though notice they aren't even there at the moment, but off hunting or fishing.  That's the thing about perception -- you can move through all the seasons in the blink of an eye, or visualize people who exist somewhere else.  We don't even know we're doing it.

He's taking his time, but at last in Verse Three he gets to the romantic heart of it:  Finding his sweetheart in the kitchen, cooking breakfast.  (He's already made the coffee, of course.) Look at how vivid this scene is: "Hardwood floor creakin' / Bedroom door squeakin'" -- we're moving through the the old house with him, hunting for her.  And then his surprise when he finds her: "She's standing in the kitchen / I thought she was still sleepin'" -- another psychological flicker, comparing his expectation to reality.  And then there's this wonderfully tender domestic exchange: "Kiss her on the forehead / Asked her how she slept / She says, 'honey it's so early, / We probably shouldn't speak yet'." What a beautiful, understated moment, and how much it tells us about their relaxed relationship.

Easygoing as this song is -- I love that tempo, like the clop of hoofbeats -- there's always a tinge of melancholy in a Lyle Lovett song.  It's a lovely pastoral scene, but he's still aware of his separateness. The ranch hands show up when they show up; his wife might sleep late or not; even the crops follow nature's laws, not his.  He's just there, gliding through it, observing.  And the spare lyrics, the lonely croon of his voice, speak to me of shyness, brooding, a haunted quality that resonates throughout the song.

It's a breathtaking, soul-shivering effect, really, and Lyle Lovett pulls it off with effortless grace. The ancient poets knew about this, the lacrymae rerum -- the "tears of things," the fundamental sorrow of our earthly existence.  But damn, who expects to find this in a country song?

Thursday Reverb

I promised I'd tell you the story of How I Learned to Love Lyle Lovett. Here's most of it, to which I will add that after this show I hung around the stage door -- in waist-high snowfall, mind you -- to say hi to John Hiatt. But John had already left for his hotel; the only one of the four songwriters who came out for the meet and greet was Lyle Lovett, who stood chatting pleasantly -- snow soaking into his cowboy boots -- for at least half an hour. I was already smitten with him from the show; standing there in the snow that night, he completely melted my heart.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

"Nobody Knows Me" / Lyle Lovett

Growing up in Indianapolis, I was hard-wired to hate country music -- it seemed all HeeHaw and Midwestern Hayride to me, strictly Not The Thing My People Listen To. Between that, and his extra-terrestrial appearances in Robert Altman films (not to mention that inexplicable marriage to Julia Roberts), Lyle Lovett had no chance of getting onto my playlist. But then I saw him live, doing an accoustic songwriter show with John Hiatt and Guy Clark and Joe Ely, and whoo boy, the scales fell from my eyes.

For one thing, I realized Lyle Lovett is NOT a country artist. He is a Western singer, and unapologetically so. Sure, there's folk in there, and blues, and tent-revival gospel, and dance-hall swing -- all Good Stuff. What he doesn't have are those corny cliches, reactionary pieties, and trumped-up drawls that ruin country music for me; apparently he has spent his entire career, 20-some years now, tactfully bucking the country-music stereotype and inventing his own genre.



In this particular song, for example, as he spins a description of a lazy weekend morning -- "I like cream in my coffee, I like to sleep late on Sundays...I like eggs over easy, with a flour tortilla" -- I just have to picture it in Texas, from that acoustic guitar, the tinny piano, the wheeze underneath that could be a cello but could just as easily be a squeeze-box -- and yet the folky tenderness of it, the jazz-like counterpoint, you'd never expect on a country-music station. And of course I want to be waking up in that sun-drenched house, smelling that coffee, frying those eggs for this man.

Surprise No. 2: That unhurried, mellow voice of his is a much more marvelous instrument than I'd expected; as effortless as his singing seemed, he overpowered those other three guys on the stage that night. In this song, on the repeated line "Nobody knows me like my baby," I love the way his voice soars hopefully on the long o's of "nobody" and "knows", gives a protective flutter over "like my," then cracks wistfully on "my baby." I don't really care whether he's thought this all out or just intuited how to deliver the song; it's just about perfect.

Revelation Three: Lyle Lovett in person is one of the most magnetic individuals I've ever seen. His odd, off-kilter manner simply reads as shyness, reinforced by a refreshing politeness -- gentlemanly to a fault. The long square jaw, the deep grooves either side of his mouth, the taut watchful eyes, even that improbable mass of curly hair on top his head -- in a photo he looks straight out of one of those James Agee WPA photos, but in person he is dead sexy. Just take my word for it.

So this has become The Thing I Listen To now; I play these songs over and over again. I like having Lyle Lovett in my head...I like it A LOT.

“She’s Already Made Up Her Mind” / Lyle Lovett

Is there any sound in the world lonelier than the drawn-out twang of a pedal steel guitar? I’m listening here to this song from Lyle Lovett’s 1992 album Joshua Judges Ruth, and there’s a single quavering note, repeating over and over like a faraway train whistle, that just give me goosebumps.

I used to think Lyle Lovett was a country singer. After Joshua Judges Ruth, that image was shattered forever. Despite that pedal steel, this track features an elegant piano counterpoint that’s way more jazz lounge than roadhouse; the acoustic guitar and drums are held firmly in the background, letting Lyle’s hushed, melancholy vocal shimmer on its own. The lyrics are brooding, reflective, artfully unrhymed, plunging us into a fraught mood rather than telling a story. “She said something about going home,” he launches into it, adding uncertainly, “she said something about needing to spend some time alone” (almost whispering “alone,” as if he can barely choke it out). That word “something” is so arresting; the details are irrelevant, because he knows as well as she does that going home is just an excuse. “She wondered out loud what it was she had to find,” he continues, then stoically, softly, concludes, “She’s already made up her mind.”

Made up her mind to do what? Lyle never tells us, but this whole song is steeped in regret (all those diminished chords); I have to guess it’s the end for them. His friends have been predicting it (she’s too young, they warn), and even the standard folk-ballad vocabulary (“There is nothing so deep as the ocean / And there is nothing so high as the sky / And there’s nothing so unwavering as a woman / Who’s already made up her mind”) clue us in to how inevitable that farewell is.

And yet he resists saying it out loud, for that would destroy his last shred of hope. I love how Lyle portrays himself, hanging on her every word, trying desperately to guess what’s going on inside her head. He’s like a private eye, hunting for evidence: “Now she’s sitting at one end of the kitchen table / And she is staring without an expression / And she is talking to me without meeting my eyes / She’s already made up her mind.” That last line falls like a sentence of death.

Can we ever really read somebody else’s mind? Tons of love songs have been written about “my baby thinks this” and “my lover wants that,” just perpetuating the great romantic lie. And now here’s Lyle, admitting freely that a) he hasn’t got a clue, and b) he knows he never will – not because he’s stupid, but because the woman he loves is a separate person. The very fact that he recognizes that, and respects it, makes him a hundred times more sensitive than any guy who claims to be a mind reader.

It’s a perfect song for Lyle’s supple, edgy voice; it’s a perfect song for his wary, introspective persona. (Lyle may be a Texan, but he's never seemed like a good ol’ boy.) And when that pedal steel sends out that one sorrowful note, like a shooting star across the wide East Texas skies -- well, it’s perfect, and perfectly heartbreaking.

She's Already Made Up Her Mind sample

"Nobody Knows Me" / Lyle Lovett

Growing up in Indianapolis, I was hard-wired to hate country music -- it seemed all HeeHaw and Midwestern Hayride to me, just Not The Thing My People Listen To. Between that, and his extra-terrestrial appearances in Robert Altman films (not to mention that inexplicable marriage to Julia Roberts), Lyle Lovett had no chance of getting onto my playlist. But then I saw him live, doing an accoustic songwriter show with John Hiatt and Guy Clark and Joe Ely, and whoo boy, the scales fell from my eyes.

For one thing, I realized Lyle Lovett is NOT a country artist. He is a Western singer, and unapologetically so. Sure, there's folk in there, and blues, and tent-revival gospel, and dance-hall swing -- all Good Stuff. What he doesn't have are those corny cliches, reactionary pieties, and trumped-up drawls that ruin country music for me; apparently he has spent his entire career, 20-some years now, tactfully bucking the country-music stereotype and inventing his own genre.



In this particular song, for example, as he spins a description of a lazy weekend morning -- "I like cream in my coffee, I like to sleep late on Sundays...I like eggs over easy, with a flour tortilla" -- I just have to picture it in Texas, from that acoustic guitar, the tinny piano, the wheeze underneath that could be a cello but could just as easily be a squeeze-box -- and yet the folky tenderness of it, the jazz-like counterpoint, you'd never expect on a country-music station. And of course I want to be waking up in that sun-drenched house, smelling that coffee, frying those eggs for this man.

Surprise No. 2: That unhurried, mellow voice of his is a much more marvelous instrument than I'd expected; as effortless as his singing seemed, he overpowered those other three guys on the stage that night. In this song, on the repeated line "Nobody knows me like my baby," I love the way his voice soars hopefully on the long o's of "nobody" and "knows", gives a protective flutter over "like my," then cracks wistfully on "my baby." I don't really care whether he's thought this all out or just intuited how to deliver the song; it's just about perfect.

Revelation Three: Lyle Lovett in person is one of the most magnetic individuals I've ever seen. His odd, off-kilter manner simply reads as shyness, reinforced by a refreshing politeness -- gentlemanly to a fault. The long square jaw, the deep grooves either side of his mouth, the taut watchful eyes, even that improbable mass of curly hair on top his head -- in a photo he looks straight out of one of those James Agee WPA photos, but in person he is dead sexy. Just take my word for it.

So this has become The Thing I Listen To now; I play these songs over and over again. I like having Lyle Lovett in my head...I like it A LOT.