HAYES CARLL TELLS US ‘WHAT IT IS’
SINGER HAYES CARLL IS ENJOYING THE MOMENT.
Hayes Carll’s musical heroes are the sort of songwriters who wouldn’t waste a word, never mind an entire song. So the recordings he has made are notable in that the last song on an album makes as strong a case to be heard as the first one. They’re not necessarily concept albums in the 1970s sense, but they’re often song cycles that trace a theme or a mood or a vibe. A rickety closing page would ruin the effect.
Take the three songs that conclude the past three albums Carll released and they create a pretty complex portrait of one man’s introspection across time. His narrator on “Hide Me” from “KMAG YOYO” in 2011 sought some shelter at home from a life cluttered by late nights. Then three years ago he closed “Lovers and Leavers” with “Jealous Moon,” where he contemplated departures and loneliness — the last word on an album full of songs informed by a divorce.
Carll, who plays four shows in the Houston area starting Friday, just released “What It Is,” his sixth album. The set of songs is decidedly different from those on “Lovers and Leavers.” And tellingly, it closes with “I Will Stay,” a song for his girlfriend, the singer and songwriter Allison Moorer.
“For me, it was just taking this ground, this point of view, and making these commitments,” he says. “Some are to Allison, some are to myself. It’s about changes that I felt like I needed to make.”
Lightening the heaviness
The writing on “Lovers and Leavers” was strong, but the mood offered little space for oxygen. “What It Is,” by contrast, deals with some heavy subject matter, but a lightness of touch persists throughout.
Kinky Friedman often proclaims, “It’s not the pot of gold, it’s the rainbow.”
On the title track of the new album, Carll, 43, finds his compass in pieces and revels in the thought of a journey.
“‘Journey’ is the right word,” says the singer-songwriter who hails from The Woodlands and now calls Nashville home. “That’s so much a major thematic point of this record. I started realizing I’m halfway through this journey, and I’ve spent so much of my time looking to the future or hanging onto the past that I missed a lot of
the journey.
“I wasn’t there for it: Whether ‘it’ was my family or my career or my art. And that was leading to a general state of unhappiness. I looked around and wondered how I could be so blessed and dissatisfied. What made me want more? Did I want more money? That wouldn’t solve it. I see all kinds of rich, miserable people. Career accomplishments? Same thing.
“So what I came to was being present. Present and connected and there for the journey. Being there when I’m writing a song. Being engaged in a relationship, or taking a walk. That’s what ‘What It Is’ is about. Appreciating those moments. Being connected to them. And not just floating by.”
Carll offers various points of view for those appreciations. The opening track, “None-ya,” is a vibrant introduction to the album. The writing is interesting in the song, as Carll at times sounds like he’s addressing Moorer and other times himself.
“I used to tell myself I had it covered,” he sings.
Much of the album spins from the realization that maybe he didn’t have it covered. A refrain in the song evolves from “I try because I want to” to “I try because I need to,” suggesting some seismic shift in one’s personal accounting.
The title Carll simply cribbed from something Moorer says. “She’d used it in some conversation,” he says. “She has her own south Alabama language, and it drops in sometimes. I knew I had to put it in a song somewhere. But I was stuck on it a long time. She saw me sitting at a table struggling. ‘What are you doing?’ I told her I was trying to write a song about us.”
Moorer made a reference to having painted the ceiling of their front porch turquoise to ward off evil spirits and referenced their habit of pretending to be strangers when they fly together.
“That was her contribution to that one,” he says. “I’d never have gotten there otherwise.”
The title “Jesus and Elvis” hints at some irreverent take on faith, but an entirely different song emerges. He and Moorer worked on that song with the veteran writer Matraca Berg, who had the title. Carll thought about a beloved dive bar in Austin, whose owner decades ago put up Christmas lights around the bar, planning to leave them hanging until her son came back from Vietnam.
The song becomes a subtle and affecting meditation on grief.
‘Joyful and meaningful’
Carll makes a few points about our fractured culture on “Fragile Men” and “Wild Pointy Finger.”
And then, as he’s wont to do, he brings it home with that formidable final song, which feels like a counterpart to “None-ya,” granting the album a circular balance.
“It’s a commitment song, and I wrote it specifically for Allison,” he says. “There’s also this sense of staking out this ground, this area of my life and making a choice about how I’m going to live it. You can hear it the most in the first song and the last song.
“The idea of making myself available and committing to things. Life can be joyful and meaningful, but you have to have the courage to live it that way, whether it’s sitting on a couch meditating or taking part in a march. If you see a great quote, write it down and stick it on the wall. Make it something you see daily.”