victoria williams

[a house that burns down every night for you <woiccare@clutx.clarkson.edu>]

got my copy of swing the statue today. as expected, enjoyable! i
think this is a little bit more tame than her earlier release,
_happy comes home_, which i have listened to, but not bought. she's
more melodic here, although her voice is definitely very distinctive.
*very* distinctive. to help place her for those of you still unsure,
i felt that on _swing the statue!_, she sounds kinda like a quirky
joni mitchell - sometimes.
 
so for you reading enjoyment, here's the press release that came with
the lp i got:
 
			victoria williams
			swing the statue!
 
most music celebrates the similarites in people. victoria williams'
music celebrates the difference in people. she is one of those rare
and charming southerners that sometimes wanders away from a town cut
off from the rest of the world. she's a country singer/cabaret singer/
opera singer/gospel singer, and she writes wonderful unique songs.
the following is from a recent conversation with vic, where she 
talked about the songs on her new album, _swing the statue!_:
 
boogie man: this is about judging people - like you can't judge a 
book by its cover type of thing. the first verse of it i wrote with
a little girl who was raised byu her burly father. then later on i 
finished it on a radio show that was about lenny bruce. physiologically
i think it's this: when i was six months old, we had a convertible 
volkswagon and i was just learning how to crawl. my mother was at a
red light and i crawled over the back of the car. the light turned
green and i fell out. mr. dotz picked me up in the street and kept 
me till my mother doscovered i was gone. since then i have always
loved the smell of gasoline. it's an early memory being in his old
black-oiled crusty gas station hands. later on when the kids would
go to pak-a-sak after grammer school, they'd be scared of mr. dotz
who worked over at the esso because he had a lumpy head, but i 
always liked him.
 
holy spirit: times of complete trust. specifically, i was on this 
train in new york city and it stopped underground for about fifteen
minutes. crowded train - strange feeling. so we started singing and
the train started going clackety clack clack. i remember coming out 
of the ground and the wind was blowing spring and it was beautiful.
 
summer of drugs: there were the sixties, but i wwas too young to
experience the summer of love, so by the time i was a teen all that
was left from the sixties was the drugs.
 
clothes line: it's about one time in the middle of the night i had
one of those fierce dreams and it felt like the house was shaking.
i sat up in bed and i had this distinct feeling that the wind was
blowing through my house: that i could feel it drying out my ancestors'
clothes and it was something far from somewhere else but close, and
i wrote it down: "now when the wind blows i can feel it drying out
my ancestor's clothes" and i went back to sleep, then sometime during 
the next day i had written this poem. this song is about trying to
control things that maybe we you can't control. that part about the 
rain catching the clothes on the line before they are dry so they
have to keep hanging out there. or when you have a beautiful thought
and your thoughts keep flowing and you think "i have to write this
thought down" and you can't find a pencil and then your thoughts
aren't flowing anymore. there is a charlie chaplin melody used in a
song that had haunted me from the first time i had heard it. finally
i went and rented the chaplin movie. he dubbed the song into the 
movie 40 years after it was made.
 
old friends: there's a song i wrote in french called "old friends". it
was inspired by a letter from an old friend of mine in louisiana who
was a keyboard player but had gotten work in a sewer. he said it was 
a good job, but he didn't ahve anyplace to put down his sandwich.
after i read the letter i went out on the porch and looked at the 
moon - the same moon my friend was looking at.
 
lift him up: then there's this gospel song, "lift him up" by the stanley
brothers. this was cut live with one mic. <audiophiles beware! it 
*sounds* like it too!>
 
wobbling: this song is about learning to do something but then as soon
as you think you know everything, you don't know anything.
 
tarbelly and featherfoot: i think both characters are myself. like one
reflective a long time - that is tarbelly. one gets stuff done -
featherfoot. so featherfoot does have to go out into the world to 
function - but that tarbelly is standing in his way. i used to say
at the the end: "you can't 'get' love without giving it away", but
that bothered me so i changed it to "you can't 'live' love without
giving it away".
 
why look at the moon: simple idea: trouble's going on then why look
at the moon? basic, everything changes. but also, everythig is as
secure and steady as the moon.
 
on time: this was made up on the way to a gig. i sang it into a tape
player in a car stuck in a traffic jam. when i got to the gig, i thought
i was going to be late, but they had changed the time i was going to
play.
 
in the weeds: it was inspired by the parable of the weeds in the bible.
it's in matthew. that's why you have angels in the beginning and the 
end. it sayd the harvest is the end of the age and the harvesters
are the angels.
 
can't cry hard enough: two friends had written this about a friend of
theirs who had died. but i felt the same way cause i was losing 
someone i loved too.
 
victoria williams is from forbing, louisiana.
 
-------------
 
interesting person, no?
 
woj