Lucinda cannot, not even in her toughest songs, hide her
gentle poet’s soul.
From her literary past of a father who taught the love of language for a living to the lucid highways and gravel roads of her Southern heart—every long slide of guitar, every beat of the drum, every turn of phrase that spirals ever deeper into the very smallest point till it pierces the very core of you, and of course, that love-it-or-hate it weary and unapologetically Southern voice—she is the epitome of kindness. Her songs are soul-stirring prayers sung just for you and to you—unless of course, you’re the fool who had the ignorance to break her heart. In that case, she’s just singing on your behalf. And even in those songs, such as the opening burn of “Buttercup,” you can hear the forgiveness and compassion and pity in her voice. That’s how far her kindness goes.
Lucinda made her start busking on the streets of Austin, Texas, in the early eighties. Her star has risen slowly. She’s been through hell, the deaths of many beloveds, endless heartbreaks bidden to her by sweethearts who didn’t know better. Bitterness isn’t in her lexicon, though, in any song. If you listen deeply enough, at the center of it you find compassion. Such is the heart of a poet’s soul—the entire world stripped down to the most perfect word, words placed just where they must be—a soul too big to see just one single human heartbreak in one single experience. She goes wide and circles deep.
Blessed goes back past Williams’ most recent record, a rollicking, fairly less serious gem called Little Honey, into the deep, poetic, soulful territory of West, World Without Tears, and Essence.
“We were blessed by the neglected child/Who knew how to forgive/We were blessed by the battered woman/Who didn’t seek revenge/We were blessed by the warrior/Who didn’t need to win/We were blessed by the blind man/Who could see for miles and miles/We were blessed by the fighter/Who didn’t fight for the prize. We were blessed.”
One Happy Lucinda!
Every single song on Blessed is a treasure. Williams is happily married, was married right on stage at that—and is, all stories say, incredibly happy and in love with her new husband. So many might have expected an album replete only with the joys of her newly wedded bliss, and Blessed indeed holds gorgeous gems on the subject, especially, “Sweet Love” and “Kiss Like Your Kiss.” But even for the most embittered among us, these songs just make us happy, so happy for her…for Lucinda fans are faithful and want only the best for her, for we have been through her heartbreak as it’s poured from her songs. And she’s had enough of it.
However, even in her happiness, this poet isn’t blind or immune to her past pains. “Copenhagen,” eerily sweet and stark and beautiful, seems to be sung to a beloved friend now dead. “I Don’t Know How Your Livin’,” an incredible standout on an incredible album, is a testament to an old lover, listing all she did to keep the love alive while the other just took it all for granted, and in the end, she comes sweetly to the sentiment, “I’ve always got your back.”
Blessed hits three chords: a reconciliation to her past love; a tender promise to her new love; and a reckoning prayer to the world at large.
The dearest track, which rings brightly in the prayer chord of the album, is a lullaby to all of us—especially those of us who forget what we came here for, what we were born for, which is quite a simple thing, really, when it comes down to it. “You were were born to be loved,” she sings. “Born to Be Loved” is another incantation, another sweet lullaby straight from one lonely heart to another.
“You weren’t born to be abused/You weren’t born to lose/You were born to be loved/You were born to be loved/You weren’t born to suffer/You weren’t born for nothing/You were born to be loved/Hmm hmm/You were born to be loved.”
In spite and because of all the pain and hurt that comes with living , we are blessed and born to be loved. And thanks to a poet like Lucinda, we get a beautiful reminder of it every time we gently let the needle go, drop to the prayer-filled groove of this record, and let it play. Get Blessed now.
