If hearing this song doesn't move you, you might not be alive.
Lost Highway Records has a pretty cool website. They used to have this awesome virtual jukebox that played endlessly as you navigated their site. You could listen to great alt-country by Ryan Adams, The Jayhawks, or Golden Smog, or older tunes by legends like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and even the original Hank Williams. Lyle Lovett, Elvis Costello, and that grouchy Irishman Van Morrison have even made their way over there recently. The selections were wonderful and there was plenty of other talent on their roster that you could discover when surfing.
There have been a few times in my life where a song has literally stopped me in my tracks. Bob Dylan did it once while I was in the Giant Foods parking lot and heard "It Ain't Me, Babe" for the first time. Another was when I heard "Blue" by Lucinda Williams.
I was sitting at my desk trying to get some work done. I had turned on the Lost Highway jukebox for some background music. Some of the songs I knew, others that I didn't just kind of filled in the quiet space of my empty classroom. I might've noted the cool guitar, all drenched in delay, that opened the track but it was unquestionably the voice that really made me pause.
Lucinda Williams has one of those voices that wouldn't be classified as "good quality" by most standards. It cracks. It sounds like she's smoked a LOT of cigarettes, drank a lot of booze, and had her heart broken about a thousand times. But whereas I might listen to Ella Fitzgerald and think that she has undoubtedly the most perfect voice I've ever heard, Ella doesn't sing for me. She doesn't sound like me. She certainly doesn't hurt like I do. Lucinda does and in that ability to put her heart into her vocal performances, she manages to capture the raw emotions that we've all felt at one time or another.
"Blue" is one of those sad songs about drowning in despair. The speaker tells someone that she just wants to "go back to blue." She doesn't want to talk. She doesn't want to go to confession. Those things might help some people, but this lady wants to be sad. It "feeds me when I'm hungry and quenches my thirst," she says in the beginning. Sometimes, as much as being happy feels better, you just need to be sad once in a while. Turn on this song, and I don't see how you can be anything else.
This version of "Blue" is from the album "Live at the Filmore." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.
Lost Highway Records has a pretty cool website. They used to have this awesome virtual jukebox that played endlessly as you navigated their site. You could listen to great alt-country by Ryan Adams, The Jayhawks, or Golden Smog, or older tunes by legends like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and even the original Hank Williams. Lyle Lovett, Elvis Costello, and that grouchy Irishman Van Morrison have even made their way over there recently. The selections were wonderful and there was plenty of other talent on their roster that you could discover when surfing.
There have been a few times in my life where a song has literally stopped me in my tracks. Bob Dylan did it once while I was in the Giant Foods parking lot and heard "It Ain't Me, Babe" for the first time. Another was when I heard "Blue" by Lucinda Williams.
I was sitting at my desk trying to get some work done. I had turned on the Lost Highway jukebox for some background music. Some of the songs I knew, others that I didn't just kind of filled in the quiet space of my empty classroom. I might've noted the cool guitar, all drenched in delay, that opened the track but it was unquestionably the voice that really made me pause.
Lucinda Williams has one of those voices that wouldn't be classified as "good quality" by most standards. It cracks. It sounds like she's smoked a LOT of cigarettes, drank a lot of booze, and had her heart broken about a thousand times. But whereas I might listen to Ella Fitzgerald and think that she has undoubtedly the most perfect voice I've ever heard, Ella doesn't sing for me. She doesn't sound like me. She certainly doesn't hurt like I do. Lucinda does and in that ability to put her heart into her vocal performances, she manages to capture the raw emotions that we've all felt at one time or another.
"Blue" is one of those sad songs about drowning in despair. The speaker tells someone that she just wants to "go back to blue." She doesn't want to talk. She doesn't want to go to confession. Those things might help some people, but this lady wants to be sad. It "feeds me when I'm hungry and quenches my thirst," she says in the beginning. Sometimes, as much as being happy feels better, you just need to be sad once in a while. Turn on this song, and I don't see how you can be anything else.
This version of "Blue" is from the album "Live at the Filmore." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.
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