Thursday, July 08, 2010

Songwriters: Rodney Crowell

Yeah, he's a good one. He's written more extraordinary songs than most. This one is my favorite. Crowell is a minimalist at heart--carefully selecting a few images and phrases to provoke a world, and a life, in the minds of his listeners. He's the finest Texas poet I know. This is a beautiful (but not pretty) and deeply moving portrait of a family.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

saw his face light up a little when he talked about the preacher that he liked.

Anonymous said...

oh, was thinking a little more about the church and our life here.

still writing about it.

seems i keep going around the circle to much the same place, but, the circle gets a little smaller each time and i get to that place faster and the message is a little bit clearer.

you would think that i could just get the message all at once ... oh this reminds me of that song from joni m. the circle game.

looks like all is done within relationship and time.

thank you for relating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTVjCWekS1Q&feature=related

Nate said...

God bless the Texas poets. I haven't listened to much of Crowell yet, but I plan to get familiar. I was thinking, after reading the Townes Van Zandt post, his songs evoke something in me that I feel worship music should try to approach. Some kind of longing...

Gettin into Lucinda Williams lately, check out her version of "the Ballad of Lucy Jordan" by Shel Silverstein. Of course, there's plenty of her own stuff that's well worthy of note.