First Encore:
Second Encore:
*** CD 2 ***
First Encore:
Second Encore:
David Byrne: I'd read that you had done some songwriter-in-the-round things, where a group of singers and songwriters get together and -- I've done it before, too -- on a stage and talk about a song, play it, and then the next person does one. And sometimes you react to the other people you're with. You played a Guy Clark song for Guy Clark that he hadn't been doing for a long time. Lyle Lovett: We did a half a dozen or so of those shows across the country. It was Guy Clark, Joe Ely, John Hiatt and me, and it was great fun. And that's really true, you don1t know what you're going to play next until the person before you plays. It's like one giant set list that you don't have control over. The first song Guy ever wrote was called "Step Inside This House," and I learned it from Eric Taylor, who in his early 20's moved to Houston and would open shows at the clubs around Houston for Guy and for Townes and Eric had learned it from Guy then. Guy played it for a time and then stopped and never recorded it. So, I surprised him with it one night. David Byrne: It's amazing that this is the first song he wrote. Lyle Lovett: I think so, too. David Byrne: It sounds like he must have been saving it, saving it, and then boom. All this writing comes out and it's all perfectly put together, the story. Lyle Lovett: Guy is such an incredible writer and I would never let anybody hear the first song I made up. David Byrne: I want to go back to Texas and songwriters. There's a tradition of songwriters in Texas who seem to be outside of trends, whether it's willfully or not, they're living in their own world writing songs that in this case resurface again from time to time. What does it? Something in the water? Lyle Lovett: I think people work in their own world in a way because of the audience, because there are lots of places to play live. Texas is not a music business center in the way Nashville, Los Angeles and New York are, even though people from Texas get record deals and work in the business. Certainly when I first started out I wrote for the 20 or 30 people that I thought might be at my show, not with the idea of having a song on the radio. And it's because of the songs by some of these songwriters, Guy Clark and Towns Van Zant and Willis Allen Ramsey, who were so strong in saying things their own way. And working outside the conventional music business and because other people got to hear them. I think it helps to perpetuate that kind of thinking. David Byrne: So, do you have an idea when you're writing a song, or a picture in your mind, of an audience. I mean, the writer is thinking, "I know these people that I've sung to before and I have something new to say to them." Lyle Lovett: Well, that's really it. It's a matter of playing the same four or five or six clubs every month or six weeks and knowing your loyal folks were going to be there and you want to have a new song for them. That's the way it was for me. I play mostly my same old stuff, but I like to throw something new at them. David Byrne: There's songs like "Church Song" that are funny, tell a story in an amusing way, and then there's other ones that are -- "I Can't Love You Anymore," for instance--that seem straight from the heart. Does the audience want a balance between the two, or are there people asking more for one kind of song than the other? Lyle Lovett: That's always a struggle for me to try to figure out because it's just a feeling. It's hard to just think through a show and know what to do, but I always enjoy trying to be funny. It doesn't always work, but songs like "The Church Song"-- I went to parochial school, Lutheran school, and grew up with the church, and we never got to sing that kind of music, gospel kind of music. We sang Martin Luther's stuff which is great, but to get to do a gospel song is fun for me. It feels sort of rebellious. David Byrne: (laughter) Lyle Lovett: And to tease the preacher about preaching too long. That's one of the things that you can actually tease a preacher about. There's not a whole lot you can pick on a preacher about. David Byrne: You sang a duet with Al Green. Lyle Lovett: What an experience. Wow. David Byrne: So, you sang together, it wasn't pass the tapes -- Lyle Lovett: We sang together, it was MCA's record of duets. (We sang) A Willie Nelson song. Al Green had recorded it and I was very familiar with his version. So to step into that and to actually sing with Al Green was kind of intimidating. But he was really cool and they filmed the whole thing. We did maybe three takes and that was it. The Reverend Al Green was incredible.
