CMT Blog: Archive

To me, Lyle Lovett is one of the great country singers. You can’t mistake his voice, even though I don’t always understand what he’s singing about. For example, I can follow “The Alley Song” (from his new CD) for the first two verses but then I don’t quite get the ending. So now I just listen because I like the way he tells the story.

The new CD I mentioned, It’s Not Big It’s Large, includes some pretty cool songs on it (“Ain’t No Cane,” “South Texas Girl”), but for me, The Road to Ensenada is always going to be the one to match. Man, I love that record. Again, the narratives confuse me a little bit but the melodies are outstanding. It’s also a good choice if you’ve got a relationship that’s unraveling. “Private Conversation” reminds me of a movie with all kinds of love mismatches. And who can argue with a song titled, “It Ought to Be Easier”?

If you want to dig up some earlier tracks, I would recommend “God Will,” “If I Had a Boat” (perhaps his most beloved song) and the rodeo story, “Walk Through the Bottomland.” I don’t know how many times “If I Were the Man You Wanted” has come into my head when a breakup is inevitable. The clever tag is, “… I would not be the man that I am.” In other words, you can’t change a guy. You just can’t.

That philosophy reminds me of “The Ballad of the Snow Leopard and the Tanqueray Cowboy.” I printed out the lyrics for the first time in 1999, and I’ve hung them in every apartment I’ve lived in since then. Lovett recorded the song, written by David Rodriguez, on a magnificent two-CD tribute to Texas songwriters, Step Inside This House. This was when I lived in Texas and it somehow just fit. Here is the lyric that gets me every time: “I’m not the kind of man with all the answers but I surely know the songs that suit me best.” Lyle Lovett must feel that way too, because when he sings those brilliant and understated words, I believe it.