Lucinda Williams’s name goes well with her music: It’s poetic, symmetrical, and paired with a stubborn set of syllables that require emphasis.
That’s the same quality in her songs, which span decades and dig their heels into love, loss, and the people and places of the American South with a ragged Delta rock fervor that threw the music industry for a loop when her breakthrough album, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, was released in 1998. When I called Williams up on the phone one recent afternoon and she mentioned being 69 and trying to reach listeners who might be 29, I enthusiastically intoned that she’d succeeded.
But success—of which the decorated Williams has much of—doesn’t mean she’s ready to hang up her guitar. In 2020, Williams released her latest album, Good Souls Better Angels, a riled-up LP that looks contemporary issues in the eye. Her latest tour comes on the heels of a sold-out, yearlong Car Wheels on a Gravel Road anniversary tour, as well as a touring stint with Bonnie Raitt. Ahead of her tour stop at the Haw River Ballroom, the INDY spoke with Williams about Emily Dickinson, her cover songs, and not being afraid to push buttons.
INDY: You’re just coming off a tour with Bonnie Raitt. How long have y’all known each other?
LUCINDA WILLIAMS: It was really good—we hadn’t really known each other, but during the tour, we started to finally get to know each other, and she is just a sweetheart.
I assumed you would’ve crossed paths!
No. I know, it seems like we would’ve but we just never did. I mean, you know, there were a couple of shows we did together but usually, when you’re doing those things, you don’t get to talk to people that much. But on this last tour, we did—she always went out of her way to, you know, come down with me and visit and talk a little bit about everything.
You did a cover series, Lu’s Jukebox—how did you choose which songs to cover?
Sometimes we’ll be sitting around and I’ll say, “I’d love to cover that, I want to do that song.” I was always saying that about other people’s songs and Tom came up with the idea—Tom, I mentioned before, is my husband and manager. So he brought it up. He said, “You know, we should just do some covers of the songs you’re always talking about that you like so much.”
And then we decided to do the Livestream thing and fans really loved it. I was standing in front of the computer watching the comments roll in.
People called your last album “topical.” Does that feel accurate?
Yeah. I’ve always wanted to delve into that. Those kinds of songs are harder to write for me. I feel like, you know, there’s your basic love song—those are always easier to write than a topical song about what’s going on in the world. I always loved, as a teenager in the sixties, listening to Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War.”
How is the process different for you, writing a political versus a love song?
Political songs are harder because you don’t want to sound corny, too much like “OK, brothers and sisters, let’s hold hands and dance in a circle.”
Or too preachy.
Yeah, exactly, too preachy or too flowery. Or too mean or gruff-sounding. It depends on who your audiences are, I guess. I sang “Masters of War” one time after 9/11 and this woman was offended. But I like to push people’s buttons a little and wake them up. And people seem to really enjoy those songs. At the end of shows a lot of the time we’ll sing “Rockin’ in the Free World,” things like that, and people clap and sing along.
I think people need it—we’re living through wild times right now.
One hundred percent, definitely. And people might not want to admit they need it ’cause they think it’s corny or something. You’d be surprised at my audiences—it reminded me of the sixties when everyone used to sing together and have these demonstrations and marches with everyone singing “We Shall Overcome” and all this, there was this feeling of togetherness and it just felt good to do that, but people have become so cynical.
So I was surprised when I saw my audiences basically doing that. At the end of “Rockin’ in the Free World,” I was standing at the edge of the stage and encouraging people to join in on the refrain. And they did—they loved it and just jumped right in. It’s like a sea of arms and hands, and it was really cool. Just like the old days.
Do you think audiences are more cynical these days?
It just seems like people are more like that now. But it’s kind of just best to ignore it if possible. I’ll stand onstage and give everyone the power sign and the peace sign and everything else, I’m like, to heck with it. I like to feel like I’m helping people by going out there and singing songs and talking to people. There’s one song I learned from a blues artist, “You Can’t Rule Me”—it goes “You can’t take my money and try to rule me too”—it’s a really cool song. I started dedicating it to the United States Supreme Court and then I do the song. Everyone loves it.
Was this before or after the Roe v. Wade decision?
Oh, after.
You talked about your process for writing topical songs. What’s it like writing love songs?
One of the things I like to do when I’m writing a love song or romantic song is making sure that it will appeal to everyone regardless of gender or anything like that. I don’t know if it’s working or not.
I think it’s working. You’re Lucinda Williams.
Well, good. That’s the other thing—I’ve got a lot of fans of different races and genders that like my music, and different ages too. That’s the other thing, is being cognizant of that. Someone who’s 29, how is he or she going to respond to a song written by someone who’s 69? I’ve noticed, I was just talking about this with Tom recently, is that more younger people are coming to see me, it feels like. That’s a good feeling.
You’ve talked about how in other musical and literary forms an artist’s aging adds more dimension than irrelevancy. I’m spitballing, but maybe since your music taps into those, it has more resonance for people as you age.
Yeah, I’d like to think that, because I was inspired by all those things when I was learning how to play and learning how to write songs. I was heavily inspired by poetry and jazz and blues.
Do you still read poetry, and if so, who?
Well, my dad [the poet Miller Williams]. I guess I’m kind of biased there. I was reading some of Frank Stanford’s poetry and realizing how great he was. You know who I really got into recently, a couple of years ago? You would have thought it would’ve been sooner, but, Emily Dickinson. I got turned on to Emily Dickinson and I was like, “I get it, I get it, I get why people like her!” I fell in love with her stuff. [I love] the simplicity of it—apparently she was’t formally trained, as I understand. She was very spontaneous in her writing and she didn’t follow the rules of poetry, she wrote just the way she wanted to. And at first people were kind of appalled, I guess—in those days, you can’t do that kind of thing. But she would anyway, and after a while it just became her way of writing. I just thought that was really brave and rebellious and really cool.
I heard you’re writing a memoir—is that true?
Yeah, I am. It’s a big undertaking.
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