Scone Mason

Ohhhhhhh.

Those are wonderful. I was there the final night, and seeing those made me all emotional again. Spectacular. Thanks so much for sharing.

I try to make it a point to rail against christians, their imginary all-seeing sky man, Bush II, and the war every goddamn chance I get. I can only respect Lucinda more for doing the same on stage.

I saw her do Honey Bee in L.A. on the final night of the 5-night stint, and I thought it was a great song. She’s pissed because everyone keeps asking her if she’s going to be able to still write songs now that she has found lasting love, and that was the point Honey Bee makes, as well as being fun. You don’t forget what loneliness is like just because you’re not alone.

The first song John Doe did was “The New World” from the X album “More Fun in the New World,” which was also track 6 from the Knitters first album, which they segued into Revolution. Revolution #9 was the song on the White Album that had all the goofy nonsequiturs and sound effects on it, and the guy saying “Number Nine” over and over again. It was culled from pieces of tape of a mic check that Lennon found in the garbage at Abbey Road.

Jim Lauderdale played his song The King of Broken Hearts, a terrific song he based on a story about Gram Parsons (Pamela DeBarre said she was at Parsons house one night and he was listening to George Jones records and crying. Suddenly Parsons pointed at the record player and proclaimed “he is the KING of broken hearts.”

Everyone sounded great, and Lucinda was transcendent. Definitely on my top five shows of all time list. Her band is fantastic, her voice is amazing, and songwriting . . . second only to Dylan for me. I loved Honey Bee toward the end, Lucinda’s range is amazing, but I loved what she said when John Doe came back out to play “The Call of the Wrecking Ball” also off the Knitters first record. “I wanted John to play another song so y’all can see the link between country blues and punk, it’s all linked in this great musical world” or words to that effect. She also pointed out that the best country music is from California (let the flaming begin!).

My wife summed it up pretty well. She’s not a country fan at all, but she understands my love of it, she said “Lucinda’s music doesn’t speak to me the way it speaks to you, but it’s very obvious that she’s a genius.”

’nuff said.

I’m a married guy. Why do I think Lucinda Williams is probably the best songwriter in America? I’m not sure I can answer, but her music speaks to me. I had the extremely fortunate opportunity to meet and speak with Lucinda recently at a Mothertruckers show (also a great band) and I didn’t know how long I’d get to talk to her, so I said what I thought was important first, which was this: “I think ‘If we live in a world without tears, how would broken find the bone’ is the greatest line written in a song since ‘we just saw it from a different point of view, tangled up in blue.'” She was extremely gracious and grounded, thanked me, and we chatted about songwriting for a while. I was on cloud nine of course, and she definitely has a personal magnetism, and she and my wife hit it off as well. I was like a starstruck teenager and the Mrs. was nonplussed, which helped. Lucinda also is not interested in bullshit or pretense, and, god love you ladies, that can’t be said for all of womanhood, so maybe that’s part of the attraction to her music, she’s willing to say things in a way that most women aren’t. That is certainly one of the things that attracted me to my wife as well.

Why are there are so many lesbians at Indigo Girls shows? Is that a joke?