
Despite winning a Grammy for her song “Passionate Kisses,” which was performed by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lucinda Williams spent many years overlooked by the music industry: she was too country for rock, too rock for country. In 1998, American music caught up to her, and her album “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” broke through. The staff writer Ariel Levy sat down with Williams at the New Yorker Festival, in 2012, to talk about God, Flannery O’Connor, and the musician’s path through the industry. Williams topped it all of with a live performance.
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From one World Trade center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios.
David Remnick
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. In 2012, staff writer Ariel Levy sat down with one of the most acclaimed American songwriters of recent years, Lucinda Williams. Williams has released 13 albums and she's written songs for everyone from Mary Chapin Carpenter to Tom Petty. She's a winner of three Grammy Awards. And now here's Lucinda Williams with Ariel Levy.
Ariel Levy
A lot of your music strikes me as really spiritual. And you've got God on your belt buckle. And you told me, get right with God, get right with God right on your belt buckle. Just like your song.
Lucinda Williams
Yeah.
Ariel Levy
And you were telling me that you've got. That you had your house naturally, this.
Lucinda Williams
Wall of crosses, different crosses. Yeah, like art, Day of the Dead kind of stuff and Santeria.
Ariel Levy
And you got. And both your grandfathers were ministers.
Lucinda Williams
Methodist ministers. Yeah.
Ariel Levy
So tell us a little bit, if you would, about the role that religion and God have played in your life and in your music. And I'm particularly interested in concepts of sin and redemption which I think come.
Lucinda Williams
Up in your music a lot. My dad's father, for instance, was a Methodist minister. You know, he was what I liked, what I describe as a Christian in the true sense of the word. You know, he was for women's rights, he was a CO in World War I and was involved in the Southern Tenant Union's farmer's struggle and all of that, you know, and then my dad, by the time I was born and growing up and everything, my dad described himself as agnostic. So what about you?
Ariel Levy
Do you consider yourself agnostic?
Lucinda Williams
No, but I don't have, because I don't believe in original sin. So I'm not a Christian, you know, I guess, except I feel like I live my life more like a Christian than a lot of Christians.
Ariel Levy
Uh huh.
Lucinda Williams
You know, it's all. Everybody knows what I'm talking about. But I just love the folklore and the mythology and the symbolism of it all.
Ariel Levy
You know, one of the things I really envy about religious people is that they can walk through life with a sense of destiny. And it seems to me that a lot of artists have that same blessing, you know, like at what point in your life did you know or did you feel that music was your calling?
Lucinda Williams
Well, at least probably from the time I was about 12 years old, which is when I started taking guitar lessons. And it was the same year I first heard Bob Dylan, Highway 61 revisited in 1965. There was always a piano around the house because my mother played, you know, music. Books would be laid around and music being played in the house. My dad was listening to everyone from Hank Williams to John Coltrane, Chet Baker, Lightning Hopkins, you know, and so when.
Ariel Levy
Did you start writing? When did you start doing your own songs?
Lucinda Williams
Well, I mean, I was, you know, fooling around with it and everything, but from the age of probably about 13 or 14, you know.
Ariel Levy
And your father is this great poet, Miller Williams. Was he a big influence on you in terms of writing?
Lucinda Williams
Yeah, yeah.
Ariel Levy
He encouraged you?
Lucinda Williams
Yeah, he encouraged me. I mean, you know, there were other writers, poets and novelists in the house, you know, a lot. And he taught at different universities. So I grew up in that academic environment, you know, and it's very, you know, stimulating and just, you know, he'd have people over at the house and it would just be people like, you know, John Clelland Holmes and John Chardy and James Dickey, and that was the environment.
Ariel Levy
Tell us a little bit about when you. When you first started playing music, singing as a job, you know, in New Orleans, when you were real young and you were playing in bars. Was that a fun time in your life? Tell us about that a little bit.
Lucinda Williams
Well, I mean, you're talking about the first little gig I got in New Orleans. Yeah, I was in between. Well, my dad always wanted me to, you know, get a degree in something so I could have something to fall back on. And we were encouraged to, you know, have a career, whatever it was. So I was at. I got into the University of Arkansas where he was teaching in 1971, and. And I was going down to the Quarter because we had lived there for a while when I was growing up. I went to high school there, everything. So I had some friends there and all. So I was going down to the French Quarter and hanging out, and there was this little folk club called Andy's on Bourbon street, right in the middle of all the strip joints. It was really odd. And anyway, I got offered a little gig plan there, like, you know, three nights a week for tips, which was a huge deal for me. This was in 1972 or something. So I called my dad and I said, you know, I don't want. Instead of coming back to school in the fall, I want to stay down here and do this. And he said, okay. That was probably the biggest turning point in my entire. What became, you know, my career.
Ariel Levy
Because he gave you permission to be an artist, essentially.
Lucinda Williams
I needed to have his permission, you know, uh, huh.
Ariel Levy
Uh huh.
Lucinda Williams
And we were talking about that, like, it's important for, you know, kids to have at least one or someone they don't want to disappoint. Doesn't have to be one of your parents, but somebody, you know that you don't want to disappoint them.
Ariel Levy
Uh huh.
Lucinda Williams
You know, so that was my dad for me. So, you know.
Ariel Levy
And then another big turning point after that is when you get your first development deal. And you must have thought. When you moved to la, and you must have thought, my ship is in.
Lucinda Williams
I made it, I'm there, I've made it. I was on cloud nine.
Ariel Levy
Yeah.
Lucinda Williams
Yeah. Well, there was a guy at RCA at the time and he really liked me and, you know, saw something there. So they used to do this back then. They call it a development deal. And this was in 1985, I guess. And they give you enough money to live on for six months or something. It was. And so I had enough for the first time, I didn't have to work a day job. And all I had to do was write some songs. And then they send you in the studio to do a demo tape and hopefully they sign you after that.
Ariel Levy
And there were some great songs on that demo tape, weren't there?
Lucinda Williams
There's the same ones that ended up on the Rough Trade album, Passionate Kisses and Crescent City and All.
Ariel Levy
And Passionate Kisses was the first song that you won a Grammy for.
Lucinda Williams
Yeah, that was Mary Chapin Carpenter, years.
Ariel Levy
Later, not until 1994, but the Grammy. So she recorded. You win for Best Country.
Lucinda Williams
I won for Country Song of the Year. That was kind of a funny thing. It was really, because Mary Chaffee Carpenter was being marketed in the country arena. She picked that song up and recorded it. And at the time, her label or whoever was in charge said, no, we don't want that to be the single. It's not country enough. Mm. And she stood her ground and they put it out as a single and then it won a Grammy for Country Song of the Year.
Ariel Levy
And so it wins a Grammy for Country Song of the Year. But it was on that first demo of yours that you did for the development deal, which they didn't pick up.
Lucinda Williams
Right.
Ariel Levy
That's gotta be gratifying.
Lucinda Williams
I got passed on by everybody. Yeah, it's gratifying later on to win.
Ariel Levy
A Grammy for a song they didn't pick up.
Poetry Reader
Yeah.
Ariel Levy
I mean, you could just.
Lucinda Williams
Well, I couldn't get signed for Ethics. I mean, because at the time back in the mid-80s, there was no Americana, there was no Alternative country. There was no, you know, all of this. So they didn't know. I literally fell in the cracks according to them, between country and rock.
Ariel Levy
But in terms of music, you know, people always give you a lot of credit for having a lot of integrity.
Lucinda Williams
Oh, yeah.
Ariel Levy
Staying true to your sound, which I can certainly understand. But you think sometimes you. That that's been about fear.
Lucinda Williams
It was a lot of. It was just, you know, when I was first starting out, I was, you know, terrified of being overproduced and all of this, you know, because I had seen other folk blues heroes kind of of mine who had made these horrible, horrendous albums. Like the 70s, you know, the disco thing came along and all of a sudden, you know.
Ariel Levy
Uh huh. Uh huh. So I think of you as one of the great erotic poets of our time.
Lucinda Williams
Wow.
Ariel Levy
And it seems like you're really comfortable and really uninhibited as well as really brilliant writing and singing about sex. Do you feel like.
Lucinda Williams
Yes, I like to. The truth is, I like to push people's buttons a little bit.
Ariel Levy
Uh huh.
Lucinda Williams
I think it's from growing up as, you know, with my dad, a poet and all the poets and everything. I mean, they didn't censor themselves. And that was one of the things my dad taught me about writing. Don't censor yourself. You know. So that's the way I approach songwriting. And although I like to do it in a sort of elegant somewhat, you know, it's not like a punk theme. That's a whole different thing, you know, So I don't want to like cram it down people's throats.
Ariel Levy
Yeah, you're trying to make people feel something. You're not trying to assault them.
Lucinda Williams
Yeah, but so it just made me.
Ariel Levy
It is sort of punk. I was just thinking about, wasn't there a thing where a woman, sort of. You were playing Essence and there was a woman at a show who sort of spontaneously.
Lucinda Williams
Oh, my God. Yeah. Fervor. She was at the House of Blues in New Orleans and it was after Hurricane Katrina. So there was this really odd energy in the. You know, you could feel it in the whole city, really. This kind of, sort of, kind of subliminal anger or something, you know. Anyway, so I was there with the band. We played Essence and the place was packed and I didn't see it, I didn't witness it, you know, but apparently there was a woman who was there who was masturbating and they called the cops and apparently she was kicking the policeman because she wasn't finished yet. Or something which I could totally understand, you know, So I don't know if she was on ecstasy. I don't know what the hell, but it's a very sexy song. I felt this kind of little pride about that, you know, like, you know, damn. I mean, that's pretty gutsy, not ballsy. I hate saying that about when it's a woman. I hate that.
Ariel Levy
Has anything changed about the way you write songs?
Lucinda Williams
I feel like I'm more confident now. I feel like I'm actually writing more. I used to just barely have enough songs for one album, but in the beginning, I mean, I was just so painfully shy, and I would just kind of look down like this and, you know, and I still get nervous, you know, but it helps to have a great band behind you, you know, and have that connection and feel secure. And when I first started out, I really didn't think of myself in terms of being a great singer. I mean, so that's one reason I decided to learn how to write good songs.
Ariel Levy
Was it Emmylou Harris or somebody?
Lucinda Williams
Emmy Lou Harris was another one.
Ariel Levy
But who said to you.
Lucinda Williams
Oh, yeah, she said one time, you know, your limitations or your strength, your limitations become your strength and all.
Ariel Levy
Well, speaking of great songwriting, great vocals, let's have a big round for Lucinda the person.
Lucinda Williams
This is called World Without Tears.
Poetry Reader
If we live in a world without.
Lucinda Williams
Tears.
Poetry Reader
How a bruise is fine face to eye palm how with scars fine skin to etch themselves into Heartbroken found a bone if we live in a world without tears how would heart be snow when it stop? How would blood know which body to flow outside of? How would bullets find the gun? And if we live in a world without tears how would misery know which back door to walk through? How would trouble know which mind to live inside of? How sorrow find a home? And if we live in a world without tears I would bruise this fire the face to lie upon how with scars fine skin to etch themselves into how it broken on the bone how bullets find the gun how would sorrow find a home?
Lucinda Williams
Thank you.
David Remnick
Ariel Levy talking with singer songwriter Lucinda Williams. I'm David Remnick. Please join me next week and until then, have a great week.
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Episode: Lucinda Williams Talks with Ariel Levy
Date: May 21, 2019
Host: David Remnick (introduction), Ariel Levy (interviewer)
Guest: Lucinda Williams (singer-songwriter)
This episode centers on an in-depth, personal conversation between New Yorker staff writer Ariel Levy and the acclaimed American songwriter Lucinda Williams. The discussion covers Williams' creative roots, the influence of religion and family, her experiences navigating the music industry, her fearless approach to songwriting, and insights into her celebrated career. The episode captures Williams’ honesty, independent spirit, artistic vulnerability, and her determination to stay true to her craft.
The episode closes with Lucinda Williams performing her song “World Without Tears,” blending poetic lyrics with musical vulnerability. The words meditate on the idea of sorrow, empathy, and emotional pain as integral to the human experience, asking: if there were no tears or heartbreak, how would we know love, connection, or even ourselves?
Through candid anecdotes and personal philosophy, Lucinda Williams offers a vivid portrait of the messiness, joy, and battles of the creative life. Listeners are treated to not just the narrative of a musical icon but to Williams’ raw, resonant wisdom on family, faith, artistic confidence, and the courage to chart an original path.