Aussie Article about Lucinda

Thx for the link. Good stuff.

Here’s an interview with ABC Australia’s Sunday Arts Program 5th April 2009(http://www.abc.net.au/tv/sundayarts/txt/s2533495.htm)

You can also attempt to download the ep if you like from http://www.abc.net.au/tv/geo/sundayarts/ I’m at work so I haven’t tried it myself. Sorry if the length of this post offends anyone…

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Lucinda Williams, welcome to Sunday Arts and welcome back to Australia.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Thank you.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: You’ve been here a few times, haven’t you?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: I have. It’s been a while.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: I’ve got to ask you now you’re back in Australia, what’s a nice girl from Louisiana doing recording an Australian classic like Long Way To The Top?

(LUCINDA WILLIAMS LAUGHS)

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: How did that come about?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: We were looking for just ragged classic rocker to close the album with.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Uh-huh.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: So we thought about doing a cover of something. And we were kind of searching around. So we tried it out. I wasn’t sure how it was gonna go.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Were you very familiar with AC/DC? Did you like them beforehand?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: I did. And I was familiar with them probably the way a lot of people are, hearing them on the radio and so forth. But I didn’t know the song myself. I mean, we’d never performed it before.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Well, it’s a fabulous version and something happens when you listen to that song and those lyrics are sung by a woman. Getting beat-up, broken bones. That was always an amusing line when Bon Scott sang it. When you sing it it actually starts to have this edge.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been able to really identify with the song, cos I don’t do that many covers and I wasn’t really sure how it was going to go until we did it. I learned it on the spot in the studio.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: You seem to extend yourself in different ways on every record, is that a conscious thing?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Yeah, I’m not really consciously doing it. I think it’s just part of the process. The way I look at my art is my art reflects my life and my personal life. So as a I grow and hopefully mature and expand my personal life, that also crosses over into my art and singing. I’m learning how to use my voice in different ways, you know.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: It’s really interesting you say that and you were mentioning before about working with the phrasing, that’s one of the key Lucinda Williams things is this extraordinarily unique phrasing that you have, finding your way around those words.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Yeah.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Tell me about that process, is that very conscious for you or does it just happen when you’re with the song?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: It’s not a con… I don’t think it would work if I were really conscious of, you know.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Although there’s work required. I mean, clearly.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: There is, yeah. But I’m not really sure how I do what I do, you know, all the time. I mean, you know…

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Even after all these years?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: It’s an interesting question. It’s an interesting process. I don’t know.

(LUCINDA WILLIAMS SINGS) I might not stay

But at least I would’ve been around

Cos there’s something

About what happens when we talk

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: There is that part of my brain that’s kind of pushing myself to try different things, but at the same time I have to hold back enough and not be too aware of what I’m doing. You know, so then it becomes natural. I mean, it’s probably similar to what you do.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Well, you can’t be too self conscious, can you?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Right.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: You’ve got to get into a flow.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: There has got to be a natural organic flow, but then you also have to be, you know, there is the craft of it.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Well, let’s talk about the craft. I mean, because you come from a strong literary background. Your father’s a poet.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Right.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Has that shaped your view as a songwriter from the very beginning?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: I’d say probably so. I mean, that’s another thing that I probably absorbed a lot by osmosis. Because I never really studied writing formally in school, but I was just around it a lot and around writers. My dad sort of acted as my mentor almost when I was growing up. When I started writing songs, I would show him what I was working on…

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: That’s a wonderful trusting relationship.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Well, I wanted his approval, you know. So I would keep showing him things and he would give me constructive criticism. So it was really like a built-in creative writing course. You know?

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: With a poet who I think, didn’t he recite at Bill Clinton’s second inaugural? Oh, yeah, that’s someone good to have in the household.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Yeah, and he’s a great editor.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: So you learnt about what to leave out?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: I learnt about what to leave out, yeah.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: That’s one of the hardest things.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: It’s really hard and it’s really important. And I learnt about the economics of writing, you know. Just, you know, getting to the point and not being too flowery.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Do you still run your lyrics past him?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Not anymore. I finally… One time he said to me, “I’m not always going to be here for you to be able to do this.” I think the last time I really got his feedback on some stuff before I recorded it was probably for Car Wheels, some of the songs in Car Wheels. I remember when I was working on Lake Charles, the song Lake Charles, and I was working on the refrain where it says, “Did an angel whisper in your ear?” And my dad said, because I’d already written Drunken Angel, and he says, “I think you should look for another word besides angel because you’ve already used that word in another song.” I struggled with that for a while and finally I just decided, it’s just going to have to be angel there’s nothing else that’s going to work. And my dad said, “Well, OK, but you can’t have any more songs with angel in it.” That’s the last one. You know, like, you’ve used up your…

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Your quota of angels.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Your quota of angel, the word angel. I said, “OK. OK.”

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: You said, “Yes, Dad.”

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Yeah. You know.

(LUCINDA WILLIAMS SINGS) It didn’t matter what my friends would say

I was going to see you anyway

I just wanted to see you so bad

I just wanted to see you so bad.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: People assume your songs are very heavily autobiographical and you’ve said that your art changes and develops as you grow up and as you mature as a person. But it isn’t always the case that they’re completely autobiographical, is it?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: They pretty much are. I mean, even when I’m writing about another person I have to be able to empathise with the nature, the subject matter, or the subject of the song, you know. I always admired the way a songwriter like Bob Dylan is able to, you know, take a story out of the newspaper and create a song around the subject.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Yeah, but that’s not his best work. His best work is when he writes from the personal.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Uh-huh, right.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: When he writes hurricane, I’m not interested in that.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Yeah, yeah. The biggest challenge, I think, is writing a song like Drunken Angel or like Trolls about maybe… you know…a beautiful loser. But without sounding too judgmental, or…you know. Still being empathetic.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: There must be a cost, though, involved in making so much of the music personal or in drawing from your self, your experience, your life with this music. And it’s a real emotional journey. Does it take a toll on you?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: For me it’s necessary. You know, sort of… it’s very cathartic and you know, it’s just… I’ve got to get it out. You know? And once it’s on paper, then I feel this sense of relief.

(SONG) Am I too blue for you?

Am I too blue?

When I cry like the sky,

The sky sometimes

Am I too blue?

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: How important is place to you? Physical place, geography and memories and experiences associated with those places?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: It’s real important to me it just makes a song more interesting. Anything I can add to the song whether it’s a town, um… just sort of add colour, you know? It makes it a lot more interesting to say, you know, “He was from Nacogdoches, Texas” rather than just saying “He was from Texas.”

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: It helps that the places in America are so musical sounding themselves.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Yeah, exactly. Yes.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: And it also seems to link your writing in with the tradition of folk writing in America as well. Because it just follows logically that some of those places are going to remind me of, perhaps, a short story I’ve read or a poem and the like.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Exactly. Cos those were the kinds of songs that I grew up… that I started out listening to.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: What kinds of songs are you thinking of?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Like the, you know, traditional folk music. Banks of the Ohio. When I first started out singing I was listening to songs like Joan Baez and Judy Collins. And I used to get real frustrated because I wanted to be able to sing real high like that. At a certain point I realised I just had to learn how to use my own voice and make it work for me.

(LUCINDA WILLIAMS SINGS) Are you all right?

All of a sudden you went away

Are you all right?

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Has it ever been a battle to try and get the sound that you want on a record? Has that been a struggle for you?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Yeah, sometimes that’s difficult. And the whole process of recording has always been a little bit of a struggle for me, just because… you know, I spend a lot of time just not in the studio. So I didn’t really start getting into the whole thing of making records and doing all that until, you know, like the late ’80s. So it was a little, kind of… not a comfortable process for me. You know, it just wasn’t… that’s why, I guess, I’ve ended up with the reputation for being a perfectionist. I work at things too closely in a studio, you know, everything would be exaggerated. I’d hear little weird things in my voice that I wasn’t used to hearing.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Easier out on the stage, I should think.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Yeah, yeah. Cos you’re not as self conscious.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: When you’ve toured here before, I know that you’ve played with Mary Chapin Carpenter and also Kasey Chambers.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Yeah.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: And I understand that you’ve done some more work with Kasey over the years?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: I did, yeah. Sang on a song on her record a few years ago.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Do you stay in touch?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: I just went to see her recently with her husband in Los Angeles.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: It must be terrific to have a young woman like that, who clearly just reveres you and looks up to you so greatly.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Yeah, she’s great.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Now, is it true that the mayor of Santa Cruz recently declared, I think it’s September the 6th Lucinda Williams Day? This is true?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Yeah.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Now, does that mean that on that day you get a day off from being yourself?

(LUCINDA WILLIAMS LAUGHS)

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Or do you have to be Lucinda Williams to the power of 100?

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: I don’t know, it’s funny. It’s a big, kind of crazy hippy town, Santa Cruz. I mean, you know.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Well, on September 6th I’m marking it in my diary. I plan to play a whole lot of Lucinda Williams records end to end. It’s been a pleasure meeting you and having you on the program, thanks so much.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Thank you.