\n\n
\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\tRolling Stone<\/em> recently spoke with Williams about singing political music, collaborating with Big Thief, and a recent chat she had with Dylan.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\tI know this is a political record, but I first want to ask you about one of the only non<\/em>-topical tunes: \u201cLow Life,\u201d a song you wrote with the band Big Thief. How did that collaboration come to be?<\/strong>
I\u2019m really proud of that song. It\u2019s probably my favorite on the album. Those guys, we did some shows together and we just hit it off, so we decided we should sit around the kitchen table and see what happens. We connected on something. It\u2019s hard to describe, sometimes, but we all knew we were coming from similar places, artistically. When we played a show together in California, Adrienne [Lenker] learned my song \u201cMinneapolis.\u201d Oh my god, it blew my mind. I couldn\u2019t believe it, the way she approached that song. They\u2019d been in and out of Nashville, where I live, so we spent a lot of time sitting around and talking about music. I had this idea brewing for that song, \u201cLow Life,\u201d and somebody turned on the phone recorder. We wanted to record it together, and we tried recording it with them, me singing with them, but then I decided I wanted to cut a version with my band. So, we actually have a few different versions of it, the Big Thief version and my band version. We wanted to keep it lo-fi, that\u2019s what I love about them.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\tDid you write other songs with Big Thief, or just that one?<\/strong>
\u201cLow Life\u201d was the best one that came out. There was another one, though, that I started working on that I brought to them. We have a recorded version of it somewhere on somebody\u2019s phone.<\/p>\n\n\tI love how that song recalls earlier records and songs of yours. It feels almost like a counterpart to \u201cCrescent City,\u201d many decades later.<\/strong>
You\u2019re right. I hadn\u2019t thought of that. I was thinking about\u2026New Orleans when I was writing it. I love doing songs that feel like an earlier, older song, but it\u2019s still fresh enough to sound new.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\tAt the risk of asking an obvious question, what motivated you to write such explicitly topical material for the first time?<\/strong>
Because our world has gone wrong: Insane, crazy, and chaotic. The period these songs were written was when Mr. Trump was first making his big entrance, and there was crazy stuff going on, on a daily basis. I had been wanting to write a good topical song for a while. I was quite the little activist back in the day. As a teenager, I got kicked out of high school for not saying the pledge of allegiance, stuff like that.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\tOne line that sticks out is on your last song: \u201cWe are here to bear witness\/To this monstrous sickness.\u201d I love how this album places what\u2019s happening right now within the continuum of this country\u2019s awful history.\u00a0<\/strong>
Many people I\u2019ve been talking to about this album, I don\u2019t know if they\u2019re surprised or if they just sound like it: \u201cWhere do these songs come from? Why are you writing all this stuff now?\u201d To me, it seems pretty obvious.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\tOther people have asked me if I\u2019m afraid to sing these songs: \u201cWhy am I not afraid to go onstage?\u201d Or, \u201cAm I afraid?\u201d Or, \u201cI should be afraid.\u201d That surprised me a little, and made me think, of course, should<\/em> I be afraid? I guess I\u2019m not, because otherwise I wouldn\u2019t get onstage and sing them. But does that make me a fool or an idiot? Now it\u2019s planted in my brain somewhere that some horrible thing could happen.<\/p>\n\n\tI\u2019m sorry you\u2019ve been made to feel fearful.<\/strong>
People think the slightest thing is going to cause someone from the FBI to walk onstage and drag me off the stage or something. That would be credible, great coverage and press for the movement! That\u2019s how I would look at it. See! This is who you voted for. Look what\u2019s happening.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\tI can imagine the headline: \u201c\u2018Passionate Kisses\u2019 Singer Dragged Offstage.\u201d<\/strong>
That reminds me, one journalist said, \u201cThese songs are certainly a far cry from your early songs like \u2018Passionate Kisses.\u2019\u201d And I was like, \u201cYeah, they are\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tThis record quotes quite a bit of literature. What are you reading these days?<\/strong>
Right now I\u2019m reading The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas<\/em> as seen through the eyes of Gertude Stein. Toklas is talking about hanging out in Paris and the painters that are coming over. Pablo Picasso is just starting out. None of them know how famous or legendary they\u2019re gonna be yet. I remember in the Sixties, [Toklas and Stein] became kind of cultural icons. I kept hearing about them. There was some connection between Toklas and pot brownies, and all the feminists and lesbians were into them. I was like, \u201cOkay, I need to check this out and see what\u2019s going on here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tYou opened for Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan this summer on the Outlaw tour. What was that like?<\/strong>
I mean, great. I got to talk to Bob a little bit.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\tThat\u2019s a rarity.<\/strong>
Right? I know. He wanted to say hi to me. He sent the message. His people talked to my people and said, \u201cBob would like to say a few words to Lucinda.\u201d It\u2019s funny: At a certain point somebody in the press over the last few years started referring to me as the \u201cfemale Bob Dylan\u201d and Bob Dylan heard about that. I got the story through Mavis Staples. She and I were on this show together and sitting around just chatting and she had just done something with Bob and said Bob had been going around telling his bandmates and crew guys, \u201cHey, there\u2019s a female Bob Dylan out there, apparently.\u201d Like he got a big kick out of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\tSo, when he came up to say hi, I said, \u201cI know you know about this female Bob Dylan thing.\u201d And he smiles real big and he goes, \u201cIs that you?\u201d<\/em> I said yes. I was kind of embarrassed, because it\u2019s kind of silly. And then \u2014 this is what blew my mind \u2014 he goes, \u201cWell, who else<\/em> would it be?\u201d I thought, \u201cOh my god, that has to mean he\u2019s heard my stuff before.\u201d I don\u2019t know, I\u2019m still so in awe of him. I\u2019ve been singing his praises since I first discovered his music when I was 12 years old.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\tSo many younger singers these days cite you as a primary inspiration. Do you feel the level of adoration and how much of an influence you\u2019ve become?<\/strong>
I do feel it. It feels very empowering and wonderful. It\u2019s humbling. But I love it. I love searching out and listening to newer artists. I\u2019ve got to know a few of them, like Margo Price, I\u2019m glad to see her out there and getting more recognition.<\/p>\n\n\tWaxahatchee\u2019s Katie Crutchfield loves your music so much.\u00a0<\/strong>
Bless her heart. I love her, she\u2019s a doll. I sat in with them at the Ryman not too long ago. We sang my song \u201cAbandoned.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\tWhat do you hope people take from the messages in these new songs?<\/strong>
I hope they don\u2019t think I\u2019m just sitting here griping and moaning and complaining just to hear myself talk. I\u2019m trying to make a statement about the state of the country. We\u2019re all hearing and seeing the same stuff. I hope I don\u2019t turn people off by it. The majority of feedback I\u2019ve gotten has been very positive, especially from people overseas. They\u2019re seeing all the craziness over here and they want to know what it\u2019s like. I get asked that question constantly: They want to know how we deal with it or why<\/em> are we dealing with it. Why haven\u2019t we done anything about it?<\/p>\n\n\tAre you excited to play these new songs in front of an audience?<\/strong>
I had a discussion with my manager about it, and he goes, \u201cWell you might lose some fans if you keep this up.\u201d And guess what I said: so<\/em>? I don\u2019t care. I\u2019m going to write this stuff, I\u2019m going to deliver it. People got all up in arms about some of the songs Bob Dylan wrote back in the day, too. That didn\u2019t stop him. That\u2019s the whole point of it. I feel like I have a responsibility to deliver the news, as it were. Somebody said yesterday something about how the songs are like messages, and I\u2019m the messenger. It reminds me of slaves in the cottonfields, they would sing these songs that nobody understood except the other slaves. That\u2019s how they communicated. They couldn\u2019t just say whatever they wanted, because if they were heard saying that they\u2019d get killed. So, they would have these songs as a way of literally communicating with each other. I love that idea, that music could do that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.rollingstone.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lucinda Williams has a high bar for topical songs. \u201cI\u2019ve always found it somewhat challenging trying to write a song like that, as opposed to, you know, a love song,\u201d she says. \u201cThey have to not sound dated. You don\u2019t want them to sound too precious, or that flowery thing like, \u2018let\u2019s all hold hands […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2245741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[363032],"class_list":["post-2245740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-lucinda-williams"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Lucinda-Williams-on-Bashing-Trump-on-New-Album-Meeting-Bob.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2245740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2245742,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245740\/revisions\/2245742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2245741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2245740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2245740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2245740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}