HAYES CARLL REVISITS SOME OLD FRIENDS
Hayes Carll refers to “Times Like These” as “my pandemic anthem,” which is a curious distinction since he first released the song more than a year ago. But time has felt different over the past six months, and if anything, Carll’s song carries greater weight today than a year ago.
“In times like these everyone could use a hand,” it opens. “Instead we stand around losing ground.”
The song first appeared last year as an uptempo tune on Carll’s “What It Is.” This month he included a quieter version on “Alone Together Sessions.”
“I love that version, but I felt like the lyrics — the edge and the heaviness — got lost a little bit in the barn-burner groove we had going on,” he says. “I wanted to strip it down and let the lyrics stand out. Let the sentiment stand out.”
After two decades of making music professionally, Carll decided to look back with “Alone Together Sessions.” He largely drew songs from his six albums, re-recording them in a looser, sparer way inspired by a picking party he threw last December in Nashville that was visited by collaborator, singersongwriter and multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott. They played “Sake of the Song,” a tune they co-wrote several years ago but had never actually played together.
They recorded a few songs in January before Carll went on tour. And then live music shut down entirely, at which point “Alone Together Sessions” became Carll’s attempt to “make lemonade out of all of it.”
A native of The Woodlands,
Carll started to draw notice playing the Old Quarter in Galveston, and he has been making records since “Flowers & Liquor” was released in 2002. That album included “Arkansas Blues,” which opens, “Well I hide behind my guitar like a sparrow in the night.” Much has changed in the time since: Carll has enjoyed great success with his albums and a steadily growing following for his shows.
With no touring and time on his hands, he took the energy of his collaboration with Scott and applied it to his discography. “I didn’t want to re-record stuff that doesn’t need to be re-recorded,” he says. “But the nice thing about songs, some of them have new stuff to say with the passage of time. A changed arrangement can make them feel different. Lyrics can take on new meanings. I felt that was an idea worth diving into.”
Carll took some inspiration from Bob Dylan, who routinely reworks his own songs in recordings and on stage.
“Some fans find it maddening, but I admire the search he’s always on,” Carll says. “I’m more limited in my abilities than he is. But I’ve toured a lot. You still learn a lot from trying to keep an audience entertained. Things evolve and shift. Phrasing changes, tempo emphasis changes. You can have the same lyrics, but a new creation.”
A new creation like “Times Like These,” which comes with lyrics that feel very connected to a zeitgeist-y moment. Testament to their construction, the song resonates differently now. With the tempo slowed and the instrumentation cut back, the song becomes a vessel for anxiety and a spiritual unrest.
Songs do evolve curiously across time. To listeners of a certain age, Carll’s new take on the song “That’s the Way Love Goes” — which features vocals by his wife, singer-songwriter Allison Moorer — is a tip of the hat to Merle Haggard. Haggard had a hit with the song in 1984 when Carll was 8 and Moorer was 12. The song was co-written by country music great Lefty Frizzell more than a decade earlier and was a hit for Johnny Rodriguez in 1974.
The song was the first Carll and Moorer ever sang together on stage. “Now,” he says, “we do a lot of songs together.”
Maybe even more because of the pandemic. Though Carll saw “Alone Together Sessions” to completion, he says he’s done some writing over the past six months but hasn’t been particularly prolific. He says Zoom co-writing sessions have been a nonstarter. And while he feels “anxiety and stress” about the state of the nation, he has found some solace in being at home.
“I’ve been touring 20 years,” Carll says. “So now there are no more planes and hotels and working through the night. I get to have a garden and a dog, things I couldn’t do. There’s the upside that I get way more time with my wife. To be still a minute.”