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■MmMVWmifr &
LUCINDA WILLIAMS TO THE RESCUE
It was my first night on a recent research trip to Paris (Yeah,
nght.). No, it's true, and strictly business. You have my word. That's
where I was, still dealing with jet lag in my typically un-air-condi
tioned hotel room on the sixth floor (which Europeans count as the
fifth). Late summer in Paris, meaning most actual Parisians clear out
and leave the tourists to the Dog Day climate conditions.
So you hove to have the window open, regardless of the street
noise. I want the central location my hotel provides, so I try to
endure the racket coming up from below. Only this time, it isn't the
commotion in the street. It's the obscenely late (2-4 a.m.) revelry
coming from the building across the street, from one floor below
mine and a little down the street.
I can hear them for a painfully long time: drinking, talking,
yelling and guffawing as loudly as possible. Murder in my heart for
sure. Then I see them. Or, that is, I can just see into their apart
ment. I can see most of a young guy seated near the window which
they have no choice but to leave open. I study him: t-shirt, short
hair—the continental equivalent of a loutish Clayton Street shit-
head bubba. As in the Oswald mythology of The Warren Report I
start to ::-jgine bullet trajectories and angles. If he remains seated
where he is, I can just squeeze off the necessary kill shot. Wouldn't
that put a damper on their
partv' Crazed with sleep depn- 3
vanon, such are my thoughts. 3
It's a good thing for all con- ®
cemed I am unarmed. 2
I do the one thing I can to *
pretend I have control over the 5
situation. I fish out my Sony ji
Discman and look through the 2
half-dozen CDs I have brought
along for just such a contin
gency. I select Lucinda William ,'
Essence and then, since the res-
saflon of the neighbors' bac ha-
nalia is hours away, I listen to it
straight through about four
bmes, each time almost drop
ping off to sleep dunng the
healing balm, the final track,
“Broken Butterflies," provides,
then snapping awake again as
the party sounds return. Back I
go to the play button.
But there is some good in
everything, I guess. This
episode plunged me deeper into
one of the most worthwhile
albums I ever expect to hear
from a singer who gets better
with each impressive outing.
Hard as it may be to imagine a
better album than 1998*5 Cor
Wheels On a Grovel Rood,
Williams has achieved it in
Essence, co-produced with
Chariie Sexton. This album of
doomed love, undeniable lust,
and the God-haunted Southern
landscape exudes Nashville pro
fessionalism, with ace session drummer Jim Keltner and guest
appearances by Bo Ramsey and Jim Lauderdale. But, of all things, it
was recorded m Minneapolis. Most importantly, the musical accom
paniment is spare and appropriate for the necessary highlighting of
the singer and her powerfully affecring songs.
Although I remain eager to get past the first track, "lonely
Girls," which seems slight compared to the nches that follow. At its
worst it can seem even plodding and somnolent, but I must admit it
still outshines most other singers' best efforts. The next track, "Steal
Your Love," begins to introduce the head-turning mix of tenderness
and menace that marks much of Essence. Next comes tne desperate
romanticism of "1 Envy the Wind," setting you up for the wrench-
mgly plaintive “Blue " Here blues roots meet Patsy Cline as the
singer's voice cracks in alt the nght grooves. "Go find a jukebox/
and see what a quarter will do/ I don't wanna talk/ I just wanna go
back to blue." Never has Williams' voice sounded more distinctive or
genuine When everything comes together—the lyrics, the playing,
the way the singer feels and finally embodies and becomes the
song—all you can do is admire
four tracks and already the emotional territory charted is stun
ntng But she has more in store “Out of Touch" profiles the awkward
strangers who populate our contemporary version of the lonely
crowd, while "Are You Down" suggests an exasperated conversation
with a lover who just doesn't 9et it. But now for the rifle track. Has
anyone ever written a song that conveys addictive lust and longing
more powerfully? "Baby, sweet baby, you're my drug/ Come on and
let me taste your stuff." New meaning to the concept of "waiting for
my man." Williams' voice throbs and burns with raw desire, and she
flaunts the contradictory state of someone who can sing "Baby,
sweet baby. I wanna feel your breath/ even though you like to flirt
with death." This touches something deep within the human enter
prise of myth-making, where breath connotes spirit and therefore
brings up as close to death as to life.
Already this would have been enough for any two or three
albums. But much more remains in store. "Reason to Cry" returns to
themes of loneliness and abandonment as abject and forlorn as the
title suggests." Then, at just the right point (let’s hear it for the
almost lost art of song sequencing), Lucinda and her stalwart band
launch into "Get Right With God." a biblical romp that kicks ass like
nothing since Bob Dylan in his early-'80s evangelical phase.
For this listener, the final two tracks yield the greatest treasures.
"Bus To Baton Rouge" bears comparison to Eudora Welty or Walker
Percy, as it describes a return to childhood environs that still prove
haunting. It reaches me in a way no song has since "Some New
Highway" by the Swimming Pool Qs (1984). The singer alludes to
uncomfortable visits to an ancestral home filled with "precious
things that I couldn't touch."
She evokes the embalmed, fune
real atmosphere of a house that
contained "the company couch
covered in plastic/ little books
about being saved/ the dining
room table nobody ate at/ the
piano nobody played."
"Broken Butterflies" closes
out the eleven-song sequence,
and I don't want it to end (not
just when I'm enduring loud
neighbors). In this mournful
portrait of a relationship beset
with psychological cruelty,
Williams traces the outlines of a
monster of selfishness and lacer
ating anger, and enhances the
narrative through a return to the
biblical imagery found elsewhere
on Essence. She charges, "You
spread your anger on sharp-
edged knives/ Cut my skin and
make it bleed/ Like Pilate in his
self-righteousness/ You're a
traitor and a thief." Then later
she laments "I wish you had
what Ruth possessed/ But then I
don't expect that of you/ Grace,
and honor ana faithfulness/ And
the love that you refuse."
She begs for redemption and
forgiveness from her stony
hearted lover who may yet have
the power to "fix the broken
butterflies." The song is a prayer
for healing, and the cool breeze
of the singer's humming as the
track fades out feels exaefly like
that. You feel yourself to be healed, set down again in a comfort
able place after an emotionally volatile journey.
In Essence. Lucinda Williams provides what alt great art does:
raaicatty new insights that can change you as Rilke urged in one of
his most famous poems (Du musst dein leben andern—"You must
change your life") even as you are being returned to a place you
have occupied before but now learn to recognize anew. We would
not want to be the monster she describes in "Broken Butterflies,"
but sometimes that is what we may become, especially with those
we are supposed to love. Luanda Williams holds a minor up to our
conflicted and contradictory emotional personae.
Jim Winders
Jim Winders is the author of European Culture Since 1848: Erom
Modern to Postmodern and Beyond, just published by Palgrave/St.
Martin’s Press.
WHO Lucinda Williams and her band. w/Matthew Ryan
WHERE Georgia Theatre
WHEN Thursday. November t
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