Lucinda Williams: Who was it that—Katharine Hepburn or Bette Davis or Lauren Bacall—one 'em said, you know, "At my age I can say and do whatever the hell I want to say or do" or -

AS: Is that how you feel now?

LW: Pretty much, yeah.

This is…

LW: Death, Sex and Money.

The show from WNYC about the things we think about a lot…

….and need to talk about more.

I’m Anna Sale. 

LW: Am I too blue for you

Am I too blue?

When I cry like the sky

Like the sky, sometimes, 

Am I too blue?

This Lucinda Williams song, "Am I Too Blue," is from her self-titled album, which came out in 1988. It’s one of my favorites of all time. It's tough, sexy, and refuses to gloss over the pain of loss. Lucinda’s in her 60s now...but all her life, she’s been writing songs about...death, sex and money.

LW: Or at least death and sex. Do I have any songs about money? Let’s see.

AS: I feel like -

LW: Yeah there are a couple of lines here and there. There’s a line in "Buttercup" that says "and now you borrow—you rough me up and now you want to borrow money" or something like that.

LW: You already sucked me dry

Can't do it anymore, honey

You roughed me up and made me cry

Now you wanna borrow money

AS: Who’s that about?

LW: This ex-boyfriend.

AS: Uh-huh.

LW: You know he was—he was in a sober living house when I met him, and I thought, this’ll be cool. This guy’ll be cool. No. So he moved out and moved in with me, and started drinking again. Then unbeknownst to me he started messing around with heroin. So to make a long story short, I became—I know what it's like to be a battered woman, let's put it that way. It was like, looking at him, like his eyes—I was thinkin' to myself, I'm gonna die. You know, this must be how it feels. So now I understand. You always think, "Oh why don't they just leave?"

AS: Why didn't you just leave?

LW: Because, you kind of go into this numb state. It's kind of like a kid does when a kid is growing up in a dysfunctional family. Like when the parents are fighting or whatever. You know, and the kid kind of goes into that sort of like protective mode of, you know, getting real quiet and going and hiding in the closet, you know. And I know—I know what that's like too. Umm... you know, get in these relationships and you get stuck.

AS: Yeah. Well we just dove right into it there.

LW: We got right into it. And my—yeah. My publicist is sitting out here with this bewildered look on his face like, "Oh my gosh. I didn't know this, Lu!" 

This was how my conversation with Lucinda Williams started. She was in Nashville, I was in New York. So we couldn’t see each other. But she didn’t flinch from the broken and messy moments of life.

LW: I've always enjoyed pushing people's buttons, you know. I don’t think I have any filters left anymore. 

Lucinda's newest album is called The Ghosts of Highway 20. It’s named for the interstate that runs from Texas to South Carolina, cutting through Louisiana, where Lucinda’s from.

LW: I know this road like the back of my hand

Same with the stations, on the FM band

Farms and truck stops, firework stands

I know this road like the back of my hand

Lucinda was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Her father, Miller Williams, was a noted Southern poet. Her mother, Lucille, studied piano at Louisiana State.

The family traveled around a lot for Lucinda’s dad's work, as he took different fellowships and teaching positions —to places like Chile and Mexico—but they always circled back to the American South.

Lucinda’s the oldest of three kids... but she remembers feeling pretty solitary growing up.

LW: I always felt different, you know. And um, just kind of more—I think I had a—well a lot of it had to do with all the traveling we did.

AS: Were you lonely when you were growing up?

LW: Was I lonely? No, I don't remember feeling—no because I just—I loved—I could escape into my, you know, artistic world.

AS: Hmmm.

LW: I was extremely shy when I was a kid and very sensitive, you know. As soon as I learned to read and write, I was—I had—I put this—this notebook together of seven poems and short story by Cindy Williams. Lucinda's my full name, but I was called Cindy when I was growing up. My dad remembered... when I was in first grade—I think it was first grade or second grade—this was in Macon, Georgia and you know the kids in my class were asked to bring in a sample of whatever their hobby was, and I brought in my—my folder—you know my notebook folder thing—seven poems and a short story.

AS: Oh.

LW: And there it sat next to all the other you know rock collections and whatever else the kids brought in.

When Lucinda was about nine or ten, her parents split up. Her mom moved out of the house.

LW: We lived with my dad, that's the thing in 1960-something. I mean when your parents split up, you didn't move in with your dad.

AS: Yeah.

LW: My mother moved out, you know. My dad helped her get a place. You know, that's all just kind of a big blur. Um, there was—I don't remember exactly when, you know, they separated. There's a picture of us with my stepmother that same year, you know. But then there's also a picture of my stepmother and my mother, you know, in the same room so it was all very kind of unusual. You know, my mother, she was diagnosed with—technically—paranoid schizophrenic tendencies. And manic depression. I think that’s what it was. So she was always in therapy, I mean from the time—probably since pretty close to after the time I was born, she was in and out of mental hospitals.

AS: Did you understand when you were a girl that your mother was sick?

LW: Yes, because my dad was actually quite protective of her, and he would say, "It's not her fault, she's not well." Which is a good thing…

AS: Mmhmm.

LW: On the other hand, you know, because all kids have litt—when you don't get that nurturing, maternal nurturing that—that's sort of what defines, you know, how you're going to relate and deal with the world for the rest of your life. So I don't blame my dad for—that's how he dealt with it. There's a part of that that's healthy, the only problem is that I was never, you know, sort of given permission or never gave myself permission to, you know, be angry at my mother. So that's all in there somewhere. See how much I know about therapy?

AS: Yeah. 

LW: This is because my mother—cause my mother was in therapy all my life and you know she would talk about Carl Jung, I mean she read all the books. She had 'em all. The paperbacks of "I’m Okay, You’re Okay." I've got 'em all now.

Lucinda's commercial breakthrough was this song, "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road." It came out when she was 45. It was her first gold album. And the title track describes a little girl, trying to make sense of the world around her.

LW: Child in the backseat 'bout four or five years

Lookin' out the window

Little bit of dirt mixed with tears

Car wheels on a gravel road

Car wheels on a gravel road

A lot of the time, Lucinda was in that car with her dad.

LW: These were the years, you know, when my mother wasn't well, when she wasn't having a good day or something you know he would take us with him somewhere you know on a drive or something. He took me with him when he went to visit Flannery O'Connor when I was about four or five or something. Flannery O'Connor was, he described her as his greatest teacher, and so she was kind of a mentor. So she invited him to her house in Milledgeville, Georgia. When we got there -

AS: Was it just you and him?

LW: I think it was just—yeah I think it was just me. And when we got there, we had to wait on the front porch because Flannery was writing. She had a very strict writing schedule and, you know, she would not receive guests, as they used to say. So then finally she came out and greeted us and everything. And she raised peacocks.

AS: Really?

LW: And they were running around all over the place. Yeah, well, my dad—I don't—I very—I vaguely recall this because I was probably about four, but he says, you know, that I was chasing her peacocks and apparently I got a big thrill out of that.

AS: I'd say that's pretty exciting to get to chase Flannery O'Connor's peacocks around the yard. 

LW: I grabbed on to her work when I was probably about fifteen or sixteen, you know, because she deals with a lot of madness and people who don't fit into society and, you know, just read everything I could get my hands on.

AS: Who do you remember being your allies when you were a young teenager, when you're twelve, thirteen, fourteen?

LW: Um, my dad. I mean I was really close—I mean he saved me really. Because we formed this really, really close bond.

That lasted throughout her life. After Lucinda started playing guitar, she and her dad became an act of sorts.

LW: At parties we would have other writers and around and sitting and drinking and talking and you know. I would go get my guitar and, you know, play some songs and I'd say, "Dad tell us—tell everybody about the time you met Hank Williams." And I would sit and play softly in the background that hymn "Farther Along," you know? "Tempted and tried, we're oft made to wander." This was at a certain point in the evening you know when everybody had a few drinks and my dad would sort of start testifying you know like a Methodist minister. "Well, let me tell you about the time I met Hank Williams." You know.

The story goes, Lucinda’s dad met Hank Williams at one of his concerts, not long before Lucinda was born.

LW: They went to a bar afterwards. And Hank asked my dad what he wanted to drink and my dad said something like, you know, "Bourbon and water," or something and Hank said, "Williams, you oughta be drinkin' beer cause you got a beer drinkin' soul." 

AS: That's a cool thing to be told by Hank Williams. 

LW: Yeah. So they—you know he could see—cause my dad the poet and all that, you know. Wearing the jacket with the leather elbow patches you know, and—but he was—you know, underneath all that he was an Arkansas country boy you know, and Hank, you know, saw that in my dad. And my dad used to love to tell that story.

Coming up, Lucinda tells the story of saying goodbye to her dad on New Year’s Day last year.

LW: He died on the same day Hank Williams died.

You have been sending in the songs that have been your anthems of change. More than 450 so far. And I have to tell you—they are awesome.

The top anthem so far is "Landslide." So first, thank you, Stevie, for being there for so many of us.

We also got a lot of mentions of the song, "This Year" by the The Mountain Goats. A listener named Beejay said, "There's no other way to put it—it was a clusterfuck of a year. My husband was in Afghanistan, I'd moved to a lonely new city and a disappointingly tedious new job, I had recurring health issues that no one could explain, a trainee dentist shattered a tooth into my jaw, my house flooded, my pets got cancer, and I was—perhaps unsurprisingly—diagnosed with depression. And so I listened to this song..."

The Mountain Goats: I am gonna make it through this year

If it kills me

I am gonna make it through this year

If it kills me

For Celeste, the song is Q.U.E.E.N. by Janelle Monae with Erykah Badu.

Janelle Monae: Yeah, I'mma keep singing, I'mma keep writing songs

I'm tired of Marvin asking me, 'What's going on?'

March to the streets 'cause I'm willing and able

Categorize me, I defy every label

And while you're selling dope, we're gonna keep selling hope

We rising up now, you gotta deal, you gotta cope

Will you be electric sheep, Electric ladies, will you sleep?

Or will you preach?

And Jessie Merritt remembers… the band Queen, getting her through a breakup in her 20s. ”I will always be grateful for what I learned in the relationship and that feeling in my gut that closed the door, didn't look back, and turned up the radio as I drove away.”

Queen: I want to break free

I want to break free

I want to break free from your lies

You're so self-satisfied

I don't need you

I got to break free

God knows

God knows I want to break free

So many good songs, that we all need every once in a while. So keep submitting your anthems of change. Instead of one playlist, we’re going to make a few and we'll start sharing them soon. Imagine what we’ll do with these tunes backing us up.  

Q: I've got to break free

On the next episode…

Comedian Michael Ian Black talks about life at 44—living in a house he can’t afford, worrying about his mother’s failing health... and paying attention to his waistline. 

Michael Ian Black: Around 40 you go, oh, something has changed. And what has changed physiologically I couldn’t tell you. But I know what the results are. And the results are, I know have what we delicately call a paunch. 

AS: A small one.

MIB: Yeah. And I saw you look down at it. 

--

This is Death, Sex & Money from WNYC. I’m Anna Sale.

Lucinda Williams' mother died more than than ten years ago. Her father, Miller Williams, died at the beginning of last year. But Lucinda knew he was losing him before that, from Alzheimer's.

LW: I tell you what, the moment that I really—that shook me, you know, we were sitting and having wine and relaxing in the late afternoon in the sun room. And I was sitting next to my dad and I forget how the subject came up but he said in a real calm, straightforward voice, "I can't write poetry anymore." And I said, "What?" And he said, "I can't write poetry anymore." Wooooo... and I just... I just lost it. Just like I'm doing right now. So that—oh, I just sat there and just cried. And that was you know that was really—that was when I lost him. That was just so intense because that was part of who he was you know? I mean that was his whole identity.

AS: And it's kind of—it's stunning that he was able to recognize that and say that.

LW: Yeah that's -

AS: It's not something that you noticed, it was something he was letting go of.

LW: Exactly. Yeah. Because I wouldn't have known otherwise.

AS: Did you feel like that was him trying to say goodbye to you?

LW: Prob—maybe I don't know. Yeah. I guess. And then the last time I saw him was in August. My album had just come out not too long before that, and I'd taken one of—his poem called "Compassion," and turned it into a song. My stepmother, Jordan, arranged to have a—for me to play just by myself at the house. Have a little house concert.

LW: I wrote this song from dad's poem called "Compassion." And it wasn't easy.

LW: My dad read. He was still able to read a poem, you know. So we have him on film, you know, reading his poem "Compassion," and then me singing the song. 

Miller Williams: Have compassion for everyone you meet

Even if they don't want it

What seems conceit 

Bad manners

Or cynicism 

Is always a sign

Of things no ears have heard 

No eyes have seen

You do not know what wars are going on

Down there where the spirit meets the bone

LW: Have compassion for everyone you meet

Even if they don't want it

What seems conceit 

Is always a sign

Always a sign

Always a sign

For those you encounter

Have compassion

Even if they don't want it

What seems bad manners

Is always a sign

Always a sign

Always a sign

AS: Has there been anything about mourning your parents that's surprised you?

LW: Um. I don't know. I feel like I haven't really—like—it seems like I—I mean the grieving process is so strange, with my dad it's so different, because he and I had such a different relationship than I did with my mother. But her death was a complete surprise and shock. She had gone in the hospital and, you know, we—with what seemed like just a routine thing. It seems like I cried more when my mother died. I just didn't—you know, we didn't—there were a lot of things I didn’t get to say. All I can say is it's just—I don't like the aging process. I don't like getting older because of all the loss. It just gets harder and harder. 

LW: We gotta stand right by each other

Gotta try harder baby

I gotta stand right by you

And you gotta stand right by me 

We gotta stand right by each other

Gotta try harder baby

I gotta stand right by you

And you gotta stand right by me

I gotta push myself

But your gotta push yourself

I can't do it, baby, all by myself

We can make it better, baby

Make a happier home

But you gotta help me

I can't do it alone

One new thing that’s come into Lucinda’s life in last few years... is her marriage. She got married at age 56 to her manager Tom Overby. On stage during an encore in Minneapolis. 

LW: Tom, I give you this ring as a symbol of my vows.

With all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you.

AS: Has losing your parents—do you feel like that's affected your marriage? Are you feeling it in your marriage?

LW: I thank god everyday that I have Tom. He lost his dad right before mine. His dad had a form of dementia also. And when his dad died, you know, his parents are Catholic, his mother is very, you know—I envied her faith. All of the rituals and everything, you know, the casket’s there at the cemetery and the priest has the vial of holy water and hands it to each one of the family members, you know, and you sprinkle it over the casket and—I used to think, oh, you know, that's—none of that's necessary, you know. Just dig a hole in the ground, or whatever. But I really felt—there was just something really precious about it.

AS: Yeah.

LW: You know. And because his mother was so... you could tell she just believed and she was so genuine. I mean, I remember sitting there and Tom's mother—everyone else was sitting and she walked up by herself and walked up to the—to Tom's dad laying there and, you know, and spoke to him. And I just lost—I cried then. That's when I—I just cried like a baby. That was the most—one of the  most moving things I've ever seen. And basically she was saying, "I'll be there. Save a place for me." And, you know, she meant it.

LW: Someone told me there’s a better place than this

Where I can go and see my mother’s kiss

A place so full of love, somewhere up above

So open up the doors of heaven, let me in 

LW: We've talked about death, but we didn't talk about sex or money.

AS: I know, I have some questions…

LW: Oh no.

AS: How do you think about sex at this point in your life?

LW: God. I tell you what. It's a drag getting older. I said that before and I'll say it again. I don't care what everybody says, "Oh it gets better." Crap. No. It fuckin' sucks. You know what? Everything dries up. It all dries up. So I’m just like, fuck it. I don't know. I don't know what to do. 

AS: Well I appreciate your honesty. Often, when I ask pe -

LW: I can't believe I just said this over the—on the fucking radio. Is nothing sacred anymore? I'm like, who do I think I am, you know? Tina Fey. Oh god.

AS: Um.

LW: How unromantic.

AS: Do you expect to make more money this year than last year?

LW: Hell yes.

AS: How are you feeling? Hell yes?

LW: Oh god yes. Yeah.

AS: Why do you say it that way?

LW: It's taking over the sex. No I'm just kidding. Because I'm getting—I'm just more successful. It's amazing. I'm definitely an anomaly. I'm 62 years old, out on the road. Selling out shows. So, you know, that's some consolation I guess to—having to deal with this fucking age thing.

That’s Lucinda Williams. She turned 63 last month. Her latest album Ghosts of Highway 20 is available February 5. And you can see a list of all of her songs in this episode on our website at deathsexmoney.org

Death Sex & Money is a listener-supported production of WNYC Studios. The team includes Katie Bishop, Chester Jesus Soria, Emily Botein, Hannah McCarthy, and Andrew Dunn.

The Reverend John Delore and Steve Lewis wrote our theme music.

I’m on twitter @annasale, the show is @deathsexmoney.

Keep sending in the songs that have gotten you through big changes in life—or helped you realize you need to make a change. If you want to try one from Lucinda, I recommend the song, "Side of the Road." Send your picks to us a deathsexmoney@wnyc.org or follow the link on our website at deathsexmoney.org.

LW: This is the most open—it sort of reminds me of the Marc Maron. And this has just now gone one step further.

AS: He didn't get to menopause.

LW: Exactly. Yeah, we didn't talk about menopause. 

I’m Anna Sale, and this is Death, Sex & Money from WNYC.   

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