Even along with his most profitable work, Rodney Crowell is aware of there’s at all times room for revision. In 2018, the celebrated singer-songwriter took one other crack on the lyrics to “Disgrace on the Moon,” a 1982 minimize recorded by Bob Seger, lengthy after he’d excised it from his personal setlists. These ongoing efforts and others are chronicled in Phrase for Phrase, a brand new coffee-table guide that includes Crowell’s tune lyrics, enhanced by pictures of the in-progress compositions from the creator’s private notebooks and a lifetime’s price of photographs.
At 72, Crowell is a godfather of Americana music with 20-plus studio albums to his credit score in addition to quite a few hits for himself and different artists. Subsequent yr, he’ll launch one other album recorded with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy in Chicago. “It was a pleasant expertise and I made a extremely cool document,” he says. “It’s my least self-conscious document I’ve ever made. A part of the expertise of collaborating with Jeff is that his presence allowed me to disengage my producer mind fully.”
On this latest dialog with Crowell, which passed off within the kitchen of his Nashville-area dwelling, the singer-songwriter recollects reciting lyrics face-to-face with Man Clark, opening exhibits for the Pretenders, and an embarrassing encounter with Cyndi Lauper. He additionally particulars the affect that medication and, extra not too long ago, battles with the nervous-system dysfunction dysautonomia and transient world amnesia have had on his work.
One of many extra stunning points of Phrase for Phrase is that, apart from a sprinkling of background tales and pictures, it actually is principally simply your lyrics however probably not a big concentrate on what impressed the lyrics. Why did you determine to do it that method?
Hey, I labored laborious on these lyrics, and in the event that they don’t stand on their very own, my unhealthy. So what I used to be extra centered on is, you can say, again tales; I name them aspect tales. I didn’t wish to simply current lyrics. However I didn’t wish to attempt to attract consideration… actually I did with “Disgrace on the Moon.” I purposely drew consideration to the truth that I nonetheless contemplate that tune unfinished in spite of everything these years, and I left it hanging. What I’m drawing their consideration to is what I believe I’ve but to get throughout, which is ironic about that tune, as a result of it’s in all probability my most profitable tune. I’m nearly there. I actually consider that I’ll unlock the thriller of that tune earlier than I’m executed.
Did you additionally tweak the lyrics of different songs as you have been getting ready the guide?
Sure, I’ve tweaked lyrics over time, whereas performing them dwell. Emmylou [Harris] recorded “Bluebird Wine” method again in ’74, ’75, and once we made the duet document [Old Yellow Moon], she stated, “We’ve got to document ‘Bluebird Wine’ and it’s a must to sing it.” I stated, “OK, I’ve to rewrite the lyric.” And he or she simply sort of rolled her eyes. Afterward, she stated, “OK, I get it.”
You and Man Clark would usually learn lyrics to one another. What do you keep in mind about that collaboration? After I met Man he was rolling with the Mickey Newberry and Townes Van Zandt crowd. He and [his wife] Susanna have been shut pals with Townes. The excellent news for me was that I knew a bunch of previous dead-baby Appalachian songs. And the pure curator in Man’s oeuvre was like, “Wow, some useful shit.” So I bought to hold round, and once we grew to become pleasant he stated, “Come on over.” And he listened. He had these recordings of Dylan Thomas studying his poetry and he stated, “We’ve bought to make our songs the place the language is that this tight.” Which led to, “OK, look me within the eye and inform me the lyric.” Man’s eyes are like eagle’s eyes. So, it was like, “Don’t avert your gaze. Inform me what you’re singing, inform me what you’re writing.” Having that sort of expertise, the place you look any individual like Man within the eye and inform him your lyrics, is a recipe for longevity. I’m actually grateful for that and grateful to him. And generally it scared the shit out of me.
You additionally managed to collaborate with Johnny Money, on “I Stroll the Line (Revisited).” How do you even method one thing like that?
It’s a real story: 1956, I used to be in all probability six, going fishing with my father and my grandfather in a creek in East Texas down a wagon-rut street within the piney woods. I’m sitting within the backseat with my chin rested on the again of the bench seat and, instantly, “I Stroll the Line” got here on the radio. I’ve at all times equated it to an alien abduction. It’s like that tune got here out of the radio and bought me and took me off. I invented the narrative that when the tune introduced me again from the kidnapping, I used to be a songwriter. After I met Rosanne, and I met John and June, that have got here again to me. There it was, every little thing in regards to the first time I heard that tune. I tinkered with it and wrote the verses. I wrote these actually dumb lyrics. I couldn’t provide you with something and I gave up. The minute I did, I believed, “Oh, I’ll put his phrases within the refrain.” Rosanne and I had already break up by then, however I referred to as him and I stated, “Hey, man, we wrote a tune!” He stated, “We did?” I requested him to return to the studio and what he thought was I had invited him to sing his model of “I Stroll the Line.” As I’m singing his phrases to my melody, I observed his eyes had simply gotten narrower, and he stated, “Son, you bought lots of rattling nerve altering my melody.” [Laughs]
How a lot writing did you do below the affect of both medication or alcohol?
Just about every little thing I wrote from 1973 ‘til 1986. As a matter of truth, it was an expertise for me. I wrote lots of good things with a hangover. Stand up within the morning with a hangover and smoke an enormous, fats joint. I wrote lots of good things. However at 36, in 1986, I used to be in New York Metropolis and Cyndi Lauper got here into the studio. I used to be working and I used to be stoned on one thing that any individual gave me. I actually favored her. She was humorous and good and I needed to have a dialog along with her and I couldn’t. It embarrassed me to the bone. I’m too excessive to speak to this fascinating particular person. I got here again to Nashville and I stated that’s it. I truly stated, “I don’t care if I don’t write one other phrase. I’m executed.” Fairly quickly I began writing some good things. I bumped into Willie Nelson as soon as and needed to imbibe and needed to excuse myself as a result of I bought too paranoid. After which I by chance bought dosed by what I believed was CBD oil when it was the true stuff. That was a nightmare. In any other case, I’ve been on the straight and slim. I’ll have a glass of wine from time to time, however let me simply put it this fashion: I did a fairly good job below the affect. I’ll give myself that. However away from the affect I grew to become a working artist, the place earlier than that I used to be only a fortunate artist.
Across the time your self-titled album was launched in 1981, you performed a present in Nashville, opening for the Pretenders. How did that come about?
Once they came to visit [from England] for his or her first tour, I used to be in California. [Pretenders guitarist] James Honeyman-Scott by some means discovered me and referred to as me. He stated, “Hey, we’re enjoying the Palomino, mate, come down and sit in with us.” So, I picked up my little Martin D-35 and went down, probably not realizing what I used to be in for. Good grief, they have been so extremely highly effective in that membership! They have been simply followers of my What Will the Neighbors Assume? album. It was my first foray into new wave — nicely, actually my solely foray into new wave. However we have been pleasant after that. So once they performed Nashville, they requested if I’d open on the Tennessee Theater. I don’t keep in mind a lot in regards to the present nevertheless it was once I had the unique Cherry Bombs collectively, with Richard Bennett, Tony Brown, Larrie London, Emory Gordy and Hank DeVito. I’m positive we made present of ourselves.
How’s your well being as of late?
I’m feeling OK, that dysautonomia factor that I went by means of 2016 by means of 2018 was a fancy passage by means of “What am I gonna do?” However I began training a psychological affirmation. For many of that two-year interval, if I bumped into you, our dialog would begin with me telling you what was occurring. What I lastly I noticed was that’s my narrative. I needed to change my narrative. So, if I’d have run into you, I’d say, “I’m doing good.” I went again and had the dysautonomia take a look at once more and it was damaging. It’s laborious to interrupt that narrative… In my case, it wasn’t as degenerative because it may have been. Every thing that they tried to do medically to assist me, particularly blood strain medication, the unwanted side effects of blood strain medication nearly killed me. As a result of I didn’t have hypertension, I had this factor referred to as labile hypertension. In 2017, 2018, I used to be within the emergency room on the street six completely different instances.
One other latest medical occasion you skilled impressed the tune “Transient World Amnesia Blues.” As a result of the situation impacts the reminiscence, how a lot of that do you keep in mind?
Right here’s what occurred. There’s a two-and-a-half mile loop [on the property] right here. I stroll it lots. I got here in to make tea and prepare to rearrange a few songs and instantly I used to be gone. Claudia says I walked [points] over there as she was coming this fashion and I stated, “I’m not me anymore.” She threw me within the automobile and I awakened within the emergency room. The analysis was transient world amnesia. So, they saved me in a single day within the hospital and I noticed my mind was sort of psychedelic. Type of like taking acid.
I had requested Claudia to convey my pocket book to the hospital and the following morning I awakened and turned on my cellphone, my daughter despatched me {a photograph} of a sunflower rising on a bit of driftwood on the Thames River. I noticed that {photograph} and simply began writing web page after web page of stuff, about eight pages on this pocket book. I put it within the pc to edit it and condense it down and that’s the way it occurred. I believe the explanation my daughter despatched the {photograph} to me, this was on October 9, 2020, which might have been John Lennon’s eightieth birthday, and I used to be rising sunflowers out within the again. There are some fairly tall sunflowers on the market.