Song of the Day 4/21: Lucinda Williams, “Man Without a Soul”
Lucinda Williams has a new album, “Good Souls Better Angels,” coming out this week, and its lead track doesn’t pull any punches. Though it doesn’t mention him by name, there’s no question who the “Man Without a Soul” is.
“We’re living in unprecedented times,” Williams told HuffPo. “We’ve never had a person like this in the White House before. And I mean, just all the fallout from that ― and it pisses you off. People are pissed off and angry, frustrated.”
She also tackles depression in “Big Black Train.” “The big black cloud of depression, that kind of thing. That one’s really been affecting. It makes me almost cry every time I sing it,” she said.
A protest song at last, love the guitar work.
Interestingly, most of the best protest songs over the last three years have been written by women. There was “Srinivas,” by Marc Ribot and Steve Earle, but that came out in 2018. Green Day’s “Troubled Times” was released in 2017. I’m still waiting for someone to write a song which mentions the orange fecal stain by name.
Come back Woody Guthrie
Come back to us now
Tear your eyes from paradise
And rise again somehow
If you run in to Jesus
Maybe he can help us out
Come back Woody Guthrie to us now
To listen to the radio
You’d think that all was well
But you and me and Cisco know
It’s going straight to hell
Steve Earle “Christmas in Washington”
As relevant now as when it was written in 1997
Okay, I was wrong, but the tune has been used before…Weavers, Tokens, etc.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkU1ob_lHCw
and this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eR0ckpJ3bk
“Little Black Train” by Woodie Guthrie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHdDjdTpN3c
Here’s Lucinda Williams singing Woody Guthrie’s song “I Ain’t Got No Home,” to which she’s added lines from another song about “Old Man Trump” (Better known as the man who should have worn a condom):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L04WfWIFxnw
Same song by the Missin’ Cousins, with more background information on the Beach Haven apartments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jANuVKeYezs