Willjlevith's Blog

Lucinda Williams

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

Mercury Records

Produced by the twangtrust, Roy Bittan and Lucinda Williams

Street Date: June 30, 1998

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I have a confession to make: I have a major listen-crush on Lucinda Williams. Shortly after my friend turned me on to Pandora, I made up station lists of all my favorite artists: Son Volt, Gomez, The Byrds, et cetera. And I believe it was on the Son Volt playlist that Lucinda Williams’ “Right In Time” came up. That sultry voice. Those sex-drenched lyrics: “I take off my watch and my earrings/My bracelets and everything/Lie on my back and moan at the ceiling/Oh my baby.” And the simple the fact that this was the first woman to grab me by the lapels and slap me across the face with her music. (Does Sheryl Crow do that to you? Absolutely not.)

So for months and months I put off buying the album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road because of money. Well, that’s not entirely true, because I always had enough cash to buy the album; it was just the edition of the album in stock at the Virgin Megastore that annoyed me. The powers that be recently decided to re-release Car Wheels—to make more money?—and out came one of those three-disc, deluxe-edition packages with, like, 15 extra songs on it and “extended” liner notes by (Rolling Stone’s) David Fricke or some comparable music journalist. Now, I’ve never been one to shake a stick at bonus tracks and copious liner notes. In fact, I asked for the Police boxset for Christmas when I was 15 or 16; and later on, I flat-out threw my money down on the counter for The Misfits boxset the day it came out. I’m still enjoying the hell out of both to this day. But the Car Wheels question was a conundrum. I generally refuse to purchase special editions or boxsets of artists of which I’ve only heard one track. Sure, I’ve impulse-bought certain albums based on one track (the Drive-By Truckers’ A Blessing and a Curse, after being blown away by album-opener “Feb. 14″)—but it’s rarely, rarely worked out in my favor. (Funny that I should’ve knocked Hoobastank on its ass in a previous RRR review, because I bought their eponymous first album for its album-opener “Crawling in the Dark.” What a godawful album and waste of money. But I’ll take the blame for it.)

So I waited. And then Sunday, May 3, 2009, the Virgin Megastore in Union Square NYC was having a going-out-of-business sale, and I made my way over to the Ws. There it was: the regular edition of Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. Lucky number 13 tracks. I added it to the stack, with no reservations whatsoever.

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First impression: After all that waiting, what can I say? This is an exceptional album, top to bottom. It deserves every damned last bit of praise it has ever gotten over the years. And to the naysayers—’cause I guarantee there have been some—I suggest you pop it back in the disc-changer or earbuds and take another listen. It will sink in, at some point, that this is not your average country-rock album; it’s an absolute revelation. Sure, the production, which allmusic’s Steve Huey seems to be caught up on in his review, is pretty damned crisp—the harmonies are in all the right places, the drums holding perfect count, the instrumentation just so. Some might say that clean production hurts the authenticity of music; music, some say, should be how we hear it live or how it was recorded, say, by Robert Johnson—with nothing but air accompanying guitar and vocals. Sure, you can hear the “mistakes” on Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, and that’s one of the reasons it’s treasured as it is. Because you hear the rough edges, and you think, “Well, if Bobby Zimmerman didn’t care about fucking something up here, it must not have been about the recording process; it must’ve been about the music.”

Well, let me go out on a limb here and say that, in this case, Lucinda Williams gets a pass. The production might be spit-cleaned and shiny, but the songs, the melodies, the music are undeniably amazing. One after another.

Song(s) of note: First of all, let me say that I could take the easy way out and say every song on this album is amazing, but I’m not going to do that. RRR is about getting to the root of why you should go out and buy this album right now (or why you shouldn’t). I’m going to start off by talking “Greenville.” Mind you, this is the only second time I’ve heard this song, but it’s an awfully sad love song. The narrator is basically telling a guy to fuck off, something I want to say it’s much easier for a guy to do than a gal. I’m not being sexist here, I’m actually complimenting the fairer sex: Guys can be real assholes, sending girls off on their way in the worst types of ways: discontinuing phone calls, nasty emails—texts, even. Women, at least the ones I know, just aren’t wired to do things like that. And this is why this song is just so great: This is a strong woman, with the cajones of a man, putting a man in his place. And by golly, he deserves every last minute of it. (Read or listen to the lyrics when [and if] you buy the album.)

Now, my only problem with this song is the harmony vocals by one Emmylou Harris. If you’re not familiar with Ms. Harris’ body of work, it spans from the late ’60s to present day and has reached legendary status. She worked closely with one-time Byrd Gram Parsons, who went on to found, with The Byrds’ Chris Hillman, one of the seminal country-rock outfits The Flying Burrito Brothers (I would suggest picking up The Gilded Palace of Sin today). He also had a solo career, which Emmylou took part in, dueting famously on a cover of “Love Hurts.” Quite a résumé, if I do say so myself. With all that said, Emmylou Harris sounds out of place—like maybe someone suggested she join in on the greatness of the making of this album, and she did, because it was the smart move. Well, hell, if I were a gifted harmony singer and was given the chance to sing on this album, I would’ve, too. But I’m not; I review music, and I’m simply reacting to what I hear. In this song, I hear an ever-so-slight lack of glue between the vocalists. Sorry, Emmylou, but you shouldn’t have sung on this album.

The second song I’ll touch upon is the title track, “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road,” which is enjoyable for its repetitive grounding in that simple phrase: “car wheels on a gravel road.” Each verse ends with it, and the chorus is the phrase repeated twice. Now, I know what some will say: Repetition is ennui-inducing. In fact, I remember my mother saying something to that effect when she heard me playing the Ramones’ “I Want to Be Sedated” for the first time. That would be an example of ennui-inducing repetition in a song; the Ramones really had nowhere else to go but up a few octaves for that song. And in it wears on you after awhile. But not in this case. The repetition is both for poetic effect and because Ms. Williams knows the line is fantastic and wants to just keep driving (no pun intended) it home. Even more, the way she says it differs each time it comes out of her mouth—at one point sounding closer to “car wee-yuls on a gravel road.” It is not at all surprising, then, that Williams’ father is a poet. She’s got it in her blood. (Read this interview from Garden & Gun magazine to learn more.) This is truly a poetic, as well as musical, masterpiece of a song. I’m glad that the power that be made the executive decision to name this album after the song, because if it had been called Greenville or Right In Time, it just wouldn’t have carried the same weight.

Roundup: A spectacular album—had me on first listen. I’m giving this the coveted 6S trophy: six stars (i.e. it’s five stars and the sixth is me cracking you on the head, because you should’ve already bought the album).