A few years ago, I attended a songwriting retreat with Andrea Stolpe in which Andrea emphasized the need for sensory details in songs (smells, sounds, textures…). By giving the listener some concrete details, we help the listener engage with the song.
No one does this better than Lucinda Williams. Her breakout album, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, is full of vivid songwriting. Even the title puts us in the scene. The sound of car wheels on a gravel road instantly evokes the countryside and rural America.
Childhood provides songwriters with such a rich set of images, associations and memories for storytelling. In the lead single from that album, also titled “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road,” she puts us right in her childhood home out in the countryside:
Sitting in the kitchen, a house in Macon,
Loretta's singing on the radio,
Smell of coffee, eggs and bacon
Car wheels on a gravel road.
She then gives us details to let us know the narrator of the song is a child. The child shares what she hears and sees:
Can't find a damn thing in this place
Nothing's where I left it before
Set of keys and a dusty suitcase
Car wheels on a gravel road
There goes the screen door slamming shut
You better do what you're told
When I get home this room better be picked up
Car wheels on a gravel road.
If you're a parent, have you ever said, “This room better be picked up.” I certainly have.
Next she puts us in the car with the child.
Cotton fields stretching miles and miles
Hank's voice on the radio
The telephone poles, trees and wires fly on by
Car wheels on a gravel road.
Finally, we get to see the child:
Child in the backseat about four or five years
Looking out the window
Little bit of dirt mixed with tears
Car wheels on a gravel road
The lyrics give us a feel for a child who is uncared for, who is being driven around by adults and has no control over anything.
In her memoir Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, Lucinda shares that, after she played this song at the Bluebird Cafe, her father came up to her and apologized to her for not having been a better father. In that moment, Lucinda realized that she was the kid in the backseat, whose face was streaked with dirt and tears.
Lucinda's father was the well-regarded poet, Miller Williams, who was mentored by Flannery O'Connor. As a child, Lucinda chased Flannery's peacocks around the yard. She credited her dad with teaching her to be empathetic. She set his poem, “Compassion,” to music.
Another great Lucinda song about childhood is “Bus to Baton Rouge,” also on the Car Wheels album. In this song, Lucinda tells a story about taking a bus to see her childhood home. She remembers:
The company couch covered in plastic
Books about being saved
The dining room table nobody ate at
The piano that nobody played
Then she ends the song with these powerful lines:
Ghosts in the wind that blow through my life
Follow me wherever I go
I'll never be free from these chains inside
Hidden deep down in my soul
Wow!
Lucinda grew up with a mentally ill mother and had to navigate a lot of chaos in her home. In her memoir, she writes about how, as an adult, she's had ghosts from her childhood blowing through her life.
In my new song, “Psalm for a Broken Soul,” I try to take a few lessons from Lucinda. The song opens with a child describing his father:
Scratch of his whiskers
Old Spice cologne
Called me his cricket boy
I was his own
In “Tonight We're Somebodies,” I write about childhood friendship:
We were apartment kids, who played in parking lots
In hand-me down clothes and home-cut hair.
For a long time, I just assumed Lucinda had been raised Catholic. I likely jumped to this conclusion due to the fact that she was born in Louisiana and her writing is so visceral and often biblical. But, in fact, both her grandfathers were Methodist ministers, one of whom she has described as the “fire and brimstone” variety, while the other was a civil rights activist. From her songwriting we can see how, growing up, she was essentially infused with bible stories and biblical imagery. In the song “Blessed,” she gives us her own version of the Beatitudes.
We were blessed by the wounded child
who knew how to forgive
We were blessed by the battered woman
who didn't seek revenge…
We were blessed by the homeless man
who showed us the way home
Lucinda suffered a stroke in 2020 that caused her to lose the ability to play the guitar. We're fortunate she's still with us, writing songs and performing live.
P.S. Another great tune about revisiting a childhood home? “The House that Built Me,” sung by Miranda Lambert and written by Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin.