I almost hesitate to write about Lucinda Williams and her 2016 album "Ghosts of Highway 20." I fear my words will somehow diminish and fail to convey the beauty and the power of her work. I purchased the 2 CD (7 songs each CD), set awhile back and have lived with it for quite awhile now. There were a few weeks where I listened to the record every morning. And also, for awhile it was the only record I listened to. Yes, it's embedded in my consciousness, madly, deeply.
Yes. It's that good. A major work, from a major American artist. Puts me in mind of other great American artists like the poet & writer Mary Karr and her trilogy of incandescent memoirs (The Liar's Club, Cherry & Lit), or Flannery O'Conner and her hard as nails, Southern Gothic short stories. Also I think of made in America originals like Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Howlin Wolf, artists who have given us some of their greatest works later in their lives. Their voices all morphed and deepened, and fermented with time, and that time bleeds out into their work.
Lucinda's voice is a uniquely expressive instrument. Won't win any singing contests. You can hear a life in those vocal cords. As she sings, you can see and feel the hard country she comes from, you can conjure your own ghosts listening to her vivid, powerful music. Classic song structures. Crystalline lyrics. Not a wasted word.
Some of these songs never fail to take my breath away. The record is about death, life, loss, deep, never healing wounds, fathers, lovers, broken dreams, broken hearts, carrying on with faith & grace. It's an album made up of the hardest, most essential things in life.
I find it deeply moving. And strangely exhilarating. The musicianship on the record is stunning. Perfect. Nuanced, powerful, inventive.
My favorite track is called "Dust," it has become my own personal anthem, a song adapted from a poem by Miller Williams, Lucinda's father, who had recently passed away, and hovers over the record. The guitar interplay between Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz is stunning, beautiful, powerful and matches Lucinda's indelible vocal...
My personal take on the song: it's a hard won Zen acceptance of death & loss, tears don't do the trick, even our thoughts are dust, accepting that all turns to dust is some kind of transcendence. The lyrics are powerful, but you need to listen to the track to experience the full power and the glory of the thing...
[Verse 1:]
It's a sadness so deep the sun seems black
And you don't have to try to keep the tears back
No you don't have to try to keep the tears back
Cause you couldn't cry if you wanted to
You couldn't cry if you wanted to
Couldn't cry if you wanted to
You couldn't cry if you wanted to
[Chorus:]
Even your thoughts are dust [4x]