Car Wheels on a Gravel POLL

probably "metal firecracker" or "joy." or "lake charles." possibly "2 kool."

This is really tough ... I think it's gotta be "Metal Firecracker", although "2 Kool 2 B Forgotten", "Jackson", and "Right In Time" are close (maybe "Drunken Angel" too).

Need to think about this one

"Right in Time" for sure, for me.

"right in time" is for sure the sexiest track.

"2 Kool 2 Be 4-gotten". I hear this song as a companion to "Lake Charles", about what I take to be a bridge-jumping suicide. "Lake Charles" is a lament for the dead but it's so direct, and I feel it more as described on "2 Kool 2 Be 4-gotten". She sings:

Leaning against the railing of a Lake Charles bridge
Overlooking the river leaning over the edge
He asked me baby would you jump into the water with me
I told him no way baby that's your own death you see

The way that she sings: there are too many words here to fit the rhythm but she gets it anyway, there is too much to say, she's losing it but she holds on. She, the woman narrator (yes, I am making a leap) is singing about a man and she thinks that this guy's melodrama is out of control. She's practical and he carried out an extraordinarily selfish act, maybe out of some romantic self-absorption, and after all the drama she's left to pick up the pieces. I lose it when she sings in this verse "you see", because a guy like that will never see the wreckage that his choices leave on those left behind.

Unbelievable record. So many good ones. I guess it has to be Drunken Angel.

My first thought was Drunken Angel, but it is so direct, so I thought about the title song because it affects me in a more subtle impressionistic way. She made me cry several times when I saw her open for Neil Young. Embarrassing in a daylight amphitheater full of classic rockers.

Love this album and every song on it, but had to go with "Right In Time" even though it makes me cry.

i saw her just after joey ramone died and she dedicated "2 kool 2 be 4-gotten" to him. so now the song always makes me think of him.

Voted "Metal Firecracker." The way she sings the chorus (which reads kinda blah) kills me everytime: "All I ask / Don't tell anybody the secrets / Don't tell anybody the secrets / I told you."

Metal Firecracker is the pop single of the album, but read that somewhat dismissively - I think it's just a good song hung on a great chord progression. I think it might also have obscured for me how good I Lost It is.

I've always been about the opening trinity, and the title track may be my real fave.

on a side note, "can't let go" was written by randy weeks, who i like a lot. his version of it is on his first album, which was good and totally slept on.

Never loved this album, always felt it was extremely mannered. I still have it on the shelf, though, whereas I sold Sweet Old World. I still like the self-titled one and actually dig Essence more than this one.

it certainly shows its craft in a way the earlier ones don't, but that's not the same thing as mannered. Sweet Old World can hit me more than this one does, but it's a weaker album on the whole.

"Mannered" = she's "doing" Lucinda. "Joy" is super mannered.

essence has some of my very favorite lucinda songs ("essence," "blue," "lonely girls"), but i think the weaker songs are weaker than most of car wheels.

i don't think car wheels is mannered, but it is fussed over in a way that tamps it down a little.

(disagree about "joy," though. i think it's one of the loosest things on the album.)

I usually don't get this granular, as they say, but I really hate the way she says "JOY."

joa

gonna go to west memphis
and look for my joy
gonna go to slidell
and look for my joy
gonna go to tallahatchie
and look for my joy
gonna go to koshkonong
and look for my joy
gonna go to vicksburg
and look for my joy
gonna go to talladega
and look for my joy
gonna go to birmingham
and look for my joy
gonna go to taluluh
and look for my joy
gonna go to

It's not the pronunciation, it's the fervency.

"Joy" is the only track I skip on this album.

Gotta say "Lake Charles" for its all-round classicity, but any track might do as well. Great record.

i once said a drunken "hello" to lucinda in a bar. she looked kinda freaked out : \

did an angel whisper in your ear
or hold you close, and take away your fear
in those long,
last moments

^ kills me

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

'right in time'. evokes so much with just a few well-chosen words. this is a really great album though, thanks for making me dig it out again!

"Jackson" - saddest song ever.
"Right in Time" is right behind it.

"Mannered" = she's "doing" Lucinda.
Are you Greil Marcus?

Either "I Lost It" or "Metal Firecracker." I agree that this album has lost some of its punch; if I listen to her at all it's the eponymous album I pull off the shelf.

Voted for 2 Kool but instantly wished I'd chosen Drunken Angel instead.

But: Is there an album in existence that name-checks more southeastern cities? No, there is not. It is not possible.

are they really Southeastern?

i mean, Lake Charles, Nacogdoches - kinda central

Sigh. Okay, Lucinda's geographical world is the Deep South with an emphasis on the Delta plus East Texas. If you quarter the map of the contiguous United States, the east-west midpoint is approximately the longitude of Dallas; one or two of her locations are west of that point, but most would be in the southeastern quadrant, i.e. the old Confederacy.

I almost got into this on the SEFAP thread, making an argument that by living in Arkansas, I was unqualified to attend something for Southeast Americans.

But then again, the Razorbacks are in the SEC, despite us being closer to Kansas City than Atlanta.

I was living in Austin a,d working at a record store when this hit -- so I know it about as well as any record I own. But to be honest, Drunken Angel is the only song on this that really rings true.

It's interesting to hear the love for "Drunken Angel"; I'd love to hear what to listen for in the song, as it's never really clicked with me.

One thing to listen for is how much it sounds like "Maggie May". Then there is the fantasy fulfillment that as we drink our lives and talents away and die sad and alone, someone is noticing and crying for us.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

After lots of thinking, i've come to the conclusion that this is my fave record of the 1990's.
that is all

Same here.

Man, "Right on Time" should be on a iPod or CD-R mix with a Christine McVie song before or after it: these women understood how to sing sensual abandon.

was listening to "Lake Charles" last week & thought something similar; "in those long last moments...", the way she sings those lines, "sensual" is just the right way to express her loss; & to me very female, so that to me as a man her expression is almost alien, like, oh that is how that loss feels to you, I can sorta feel it your way & I couldn't before.

i love the title track so much, just the way it's this sort of vague diffuse story song, like how a child perceives things

Deluxe edition comes with a killer live disc!

I loved this record in 98 like everyone, but I was a 17 yr old idiot, so these songs were a little foreign to me. Listening to it now and it's like wow, Lucinda was on some "I know about loss" shit. "All I ask/Don't tell anybody the secrets I told you" meant nothing to me back then; it destroys me now.

Heard a record by Blaze Foley last year and loved it, then found "Drunken Angel" is about him, which made me love it more.

Deluxe edition comes with a killer live disc!

So it does. For some reason I thought it also came with the original Gurf Morlix-produced version of the album as well but I see it doesn't. That version (which I got from some torrent site) is worth hearing but not a patch on the final one.

Heard a record by Blaze Foley last year and loved it, then found "Drunken Angel" is about him, which made me love it more.

!!! This is a cool tidbit. I shall go hence and check out Mr. Foley immediately.

are there really so many songs better than "greenville" on this?

xp this song is a good taste of how lovely he is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB_2CUj3y6Y

He asked me baby would you jump into the water with me
I told him no way baby that's your own death you see

this is a good album

i take off my watch & my earings

*r

when i get back this room better be picked up <3

for someone who used to live in texas when he was 9 years old & now lives in the uk, i love hearing this

This is one of the best albums of the 90s, easy. But Metal Firecracker? That's as close as the album gets to filler.

^^^crazy talk

we’d put on ZZ Top
and turn em up real loud
I used to think you were strong
I used to think you were proud

I Lost It deserved better though, wonderful song.

"I Lost It" 0

what the hell ilx

ILX lost it imo

June buuuhhhg versus hurricane

hey hey

Been bumping this in the car a lot lately. What a great record.

Really, every song shoulda got at least one vote in the poll. It's one of those albums.

Otis Gibbs has some good interviews with Kenny Vaughn and Gurf Morlix on Lucinda Williams and making of this record and touring with Tom Petty etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_x-fBaD2cw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfR68ZbJcXQ

It's a great album and I think the ones on either side are great too — Sweet Old World and Essence. That's a good three-album run, so many good songs.

Essence still my fave but this also rules

The weirdest thing happened today, this thread inspired me to go find a cheap CD copy of this at a nearby store and the guy behind the counter held it up and said, "I used to work with her at Moby Disc", and described going to see her perform at a local venue when she was still a relative unknown and still working at that store.

“Joy” live in 98 with Kenny Vaughn working it out on slide guitar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAvgbsbfgxE