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By PAUL ZOLLO
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EDITOR'S NOTE: For more with Rickie Lee Jones, check out the exclusive
Bluerailroad Interview.
 he record's not a complaint. It's an affirmation. It's an offering of joy." So says Rickie Lee Jones about her first new original album in six years, The Evening of My Best Day. Her message has to do with the fact that the album contains some fairly angry, political songs - especially "Ugly Man," about Bush and the Bush dynasty. But there are also beautiful, uplifting, spiritual songs here, as there are on all her albums, which brings us to her epistle of affirmation. It's an album with no lack of anger at current events, but it's ultimately a joyous journey she takes us on. Even "Ugly Man" boasts one of Rickie's most beautiful melodies.
It was Halloween in Hollywood on the day we spoke. It was just days after raging wildfires transformed major portions of Los Angeles to barren waste, and the ashes were still raining down like white rain. Rickie had a lot to say. She was in a happy, spiritual, talkative mood, unlike other times I've interviewed her and the words came slowly and seemingly painfully. She had lived in Hollywood on and off for some time, and for a spell in a house not too far from the massive Hollywood sign up in the hills, with her daughter Charlotte. "But I got tired," she said, "of driving around Hollywood and seeing all those seedy billboards." So she moved to Tacoma for some time, and found she stopped singing. So she moved back to California, to the Pacific Palisades in fact, and her music has returned. "Now I find I sing all the time," she said happily. "I wake up singing."
"I never really thought I'd live some place so completely white," she said, not of the landscape but of the skin color of her neighbors. "But it's nice here. I like it, I'm happy, and Charlotte is happy."
It's a happiness which is reflected in The Evening of My Best Day (V2/BMG, www.v2records.com), The album, produced by David Kalish, received ample attention in the media for its forementioned political expression. Three songs in particular caught people's attention, the one that discusses President Bush ("Ugly Man,") another about the Patriot Act, and a third about the "little mysteries" that abound in the current political landscape, including the last presidential election itself. But the album is about more than current events. It's also about a tree that Jones passes each day ("A Tree on Allenford"). And it's about a girl she saw sitting at a bus stop in a mink coat ("Mink Coat at the Bus Stop").
She went a long time without writing any new songs, and for many years she felt that her essential job was to be a good mother. But she was ever alert to the little sparks that might lead to new songs. "I was listening," she says. "I was waiting. I was praying to be restored. And that's what happened. I feel powerful, now. Intact. Ready to heal the world."
Rickie Lee first emerged on the public stage in 1979 with her powerful self-titled debut, Rickie Lee Jones, which featured her only bonafide hit single, "Chuck E.'s in Love." That was followed by Pirates (1981), a masterpiece of songwriting. Next came The Magazine in 1984, the underrated Flying Cowboys (produced by Steely Dan's Walter Becker) in 1989, Traffic from Paradise in 1993, and the glorious Ghostyhead in 1997, her last album of original material. (She's also manifest her greatness as a gifted vocalist by releasing a series of cover albums, most notably Live At Red Rocks in 2000, and the glorious Pop Pop in 1991.)
When she moved to Tacoma, she existed peacefully for a few years as a mother, away from the mayhem and madness of the music business. "I was preoccupied with life," she says. "I was tending my garden and raising my daughter. I had neither impetus nor inspiration to write. And I found that I stopped singing."
But now that her daughter is a little older, she's come back to L.A., and the urge to sing and write has returned. Many of the songs on the new album developed from musical and lyrical seeds she carried around in her head for many years, emerging as exquisite, full-blown songs of great depth and beauty. "I wake up singing," she says. "I've come back with great enthusiasm for all things Californian. And these songs are the fruit of trees planted and prayed over for a long time." We spoke with Rickie Lee as dark, foreboding clouds collected over an Angeleno afternoon, as she openly worried if her daughter Charlotte's trick-or-treating activities would be curtailed by the rain.
Bluerailroad: Did you write these new songs in California?
Rickie Lee Jones: Yeah, most of them. I finished it all here anyway. Except "Lap Dog."
I understand you studied certain songwriters to bring you back to songwriting.
That's right.
Paul McCartney?
That was one. And I mentioned him mostly because of the Ram album. Which I think it an amazing and still ahead-of-its-time piece of work. When I listen to it, it's kind of the precursor to everything cut & paste. But the difference is that he's still got great songs. He's playing everything by hand and its all homemade. And some of them are just fragments of songs, but they're all beautiful.
Cause normally you'd think you go to John Lennon, right? Powerful entity, great, amazing songs, and I do listen to them, but they were never - maybe like the difference between the way one teacher reaches you and another doesn't. When I listened to John Lennon, I didn't turn around and go, "I think I'll write something," I'd go, "Oh wow, that's a real great song, I'll never write that song." When I listened to Paul McCartney, I'd go, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I can go with that. I could do that." And when I listen to Curtis Mayfield, I go, "Yeah, yeah, I can do that. I know that language."
With McCartney, there's a sweetness of melody that your songs share.
I guess so. Yeah. He's very romantic and he's not afraid to be. Romantic is the perfect word but there's always something very innocent about being that romantic. You know, I've noticed men are mostly the only people who can get away with that. Women, even though a kind of romantic thing is attached to them, that's not true. It's usually men who write the romantic love songs. And women are writing, generally, more aggressive, personal, complaint. I'm thinking of all the women who are contemporary to me. While the men write an unmitigated [laughs] innocent "I love you so much that butterflies are flying around" songs. And I find it just endears them to me so much. Although I know men are more inclined to be warriors and all the things we say about them, they're also this. They're also fragile, and terribly in love, and terribly romantic. And I liked learning that.
And you studied their work?
I did. Studied them just by listening to them. But instead of listening just for the pleasure of it, once your door is open, then everything is knowledge. Everything you're taking in, you're taking in to build your house that you're building. You can get it from movies and songs, and everything you look at gets processed.
You went a long time without writing songs. Did you ever feel the need to write during this interim?
Sure. I wanted to write. But, you know, you sit down to write and it hurts. The whole thing is a process, right? It's kind of like creating the universe. When you first write, you only have the little grain of sand. You have no idea what it will be. So the first thing you write might be a terrible, uninteresting song, but there's one part of it that reminds you, say, of a kind of emotional freedom you'd like to have. I don't know why. Just a couple bars. And then you go, "I don't know what that is, but I sure wish I could do it." And then a year later, maybe that feeling is more sophisticated, and now you've written a line.
And so, if I really thought about it, probably in my way, I've been working the whole time. Waiting to write a greater song. And be totally engrossed and energized and unafraid of writing. Because writing is so hard when you stop. So hard to relearn again. It's really hard.
There are a couple of things: I know how to do it. It's what I do. But to do it to the extent that I'd like to do it, to change my life, or bring a good thing to the world, or shake it up, or bring some new style, or whatever it is I'm trying to do, like any athlete, you have to just keep practicing and practicing and practicing.
And then the question is, "What is your destiny?" So if you know that's not your destiny to do this, then my prayer is "Can you just show me where I might be content?" This is what I'd like to do. I'd like to write a great piece of work. But just guide me where I'm supposed to go. Because I just don't know where I'm supposed to go.
And I think that maybe if that's your prayer and your point of focus, then you can hopefully find contentment with whatever it is you manifest. If you pray for a specific thing - which also is helpful - that may not actually be what you're setting yourself up to do. I think a lot of times people will pray for a new car, say, but they're not doing anything [laughs] to manifest that thing coming through. So you've got to work with your intentions and your muscles and keeping an eye about what your destiny is.
It's all very complicated and it's kind of easy and silly to say from here. Because from here I could look back, and this is what it looks like. I think contrary things are always happening at the same time. While I was breaking, I was also being restored.
There was a year or two, I remember, in Tacoma thinking, "You know, I never sing." And now I sing all the time. I wake up singing. It's almost like being manic-depressive. You know, because it's so consuming that when you open the door, that's all you're going to do and be. And now that it's open, I'm very happy. But it's very difficult to do or be anything else but a musician, once that door opens. And [softly] I think I've been trying to just be a mother.
Is it too much to be a mother and a musician at the same time?
Yeah. It's one thing to be a good player or a good singer, but to be devoted to making music and to be a mother, that's kind of impossible. I think so. So for me, as my daughter gets older, it's easier for me to turn and focus on my music.
"Ugly Man" is such a beautiful song, though it's about an ugliness that affects a whole family.
Yeah, that's why it's so fun, you know. And I think [the music] neutralizes the acid of it a little bit. I thought it would, anyway. [laughter]
Do people understand what you're talking about?
Actually, I guess they do. Some Americans go, "Well, this is obvious," and some people go, "So what's this about? I didn't know that what's it's about." Maybe not expecting that your answer will be bold. I noticed a lot of people were hedging their answers. Like Radiohead. I noticed the press release about that said it was about a kind of "nebulous power." [laughs] They weren't naming names. I thought this has to stop. It's okay to name names, and say what they mean, and mean what they say. And take the blow. And take the other blow. And stop this suppression of free speech. And the only way it will happen is by standing up and talking. I'm prepared, but my daughter isn't.
Is that what triggered these new songs, the urge to express what is happening politically in America?
No, no, no. I think just that song was triggered that way. There's just a song or two. I am wryly commenting on America. Some of it is a tree on the street I drive by. Some of it is the guy who runs the country. Some of it is economics and California catching on fire, and then I turn and talk about the heart. There's nothing to explain, cause you can only process it and it means what it means to you.
I think it's very powerful. I think it's a very powerful piece of music. I really think it came to do good work.
You mentioned the tree you drive by, which became the song "A Tree On Allenford." It's a stunning song. It has the powerful and beautiful line, "Every drop of rain that fell or falls is falling on and on."
I wrote it in my car. There were a couple of songs I started writing as I drove to work. And that was one of those songs.
I would pass this tree every day on my way to work. A child had been killed there, and people left flowers and made it kind of a shrine. And I was thinking how the tree had taken on that burden, or that love of those people. And I thought that somewhere in the ether, the tree and the children are sitting together.
It's too metaphysical now. It's about trying to offer complete relief to the grieving parent. Not through the lyric, but just through my prayer. As I drive by, to say, "All is well, and we're all part of each other. None of us is gone. If we're not in the rain, we're in the tree, or we're in the thoughts. We're all here."
I've had that happen a few times, where I got the melody in my head. And I just keep singing, just keep singing it, till I get to work, don't let anything take me away. Walk right in [to the recording studio] and said, "Not going to do what we planned, I have a new song," sat down right away and played it and recorded it. So what you hear is me writing it. That's it. That was like that day that I wrote it.
And you played it on guitar?
Actually on a keyboard first. I got that little melody [sings repeated motif] and we got a little oboe sound, and put that on. And then later we brought in players and put that keyboard way in the back with a little echo on it. So it almost sounds a little accordionish. What's thrilling about it, technically, is that it's really the day I wrote it, that version.
Did you write other songs in your head like that?
The other one I wrote in my head like that was "The Mink Coat At The Bus Stop." I mean, I remember seeing her very well, so the way that I'm remembering it is that I heard the melody. I'm not sure if I heard the melody then, or if I went in and wrote it.
But I saw this girl at the busstop, a little younger than me, fortyish, early in the morning, when I'm taking my daughter to school. And she was sitting at the bus stop in a mink coat. Every day when I drive her to school, I see a lot of people out in the street with nowhere to go. And I knew that people don't look, they didn't see her.
I wondered, what are you doing there in the morning in your mink coat at the bus stop? She was looking up, her eyes were cast upward, and never changed. The whole time she sat there looking up. And I thought, "Whoa, that's a low down scene, man." [laughs] And all these people driving by in their brand-new cars. And all the people waiting for the bus. What a hard way to go in this town. You've got to sit and wait for the bus. And people drive by them, they don't even see them, they don't look at them.
And you do really start to feel an incredible class division - the people with the cars and not with the cars. Because that's what this town is. And it just made me go, "Hey, I'm that girl at that bus stop. She's not different than me. And in the end, how can you look and not extend compassion? And expect compassion to be extended to you from everyone you meet? I mean, what's going on? [laughs] Why is that so hard to give? You know, give it up, give it up.
You wrote in that song that everybody is the same, and people need dignity, love and understanding.
Yeah. Dignity.
Did you write the music for that one in your car too?
Yeah. That was fun because I had this nice tough blues thing, but I wanted something else. I think what I started remembering is that I have a great capacity in writing an unexpected chorus, or unexpected bridge. And I remembered it, remembered how to do it. I did it a couple of times on this record and that was one of them.
I said, "I want to go somewhere new," and it said, "Okay," [sings] "I look at the people…" And initially they were so pleased and surprised that it was such a wild turn. But by the time we finished producing the record, I can't tell -- does the listener go, "Whoa! What is that?" Or is it just as natural as can be to go there? It is the commentary on the world. So the blues number is we're down at the bus stop, and then the other part is me turning to the camera and speaking to you. Also, it's all kind of urban. Like Curtis Mayfield would have written that melody. So they're all cousins, all these kinds of musics. You just have to find a way to patch them together.
When you write a melody in your head, is it easy for you to go to a guitar and play it?
I think it is, yeah. Now it is. I'm a good enough player now that I can replicate what I hear. I'm better on guitar. I've come pretty close, most of the time if I hear something, knowing right where the note is on an instrument. Sometimes I might be a half-step or a whole-step off. But by now I know the neckboard enough to know where the notes are.
And that's very comfortable, because I can sit with all these men, and I definitely hold my own playing with them. And, in fact, they're really dependent on what I play. That's a great feeling, because I think up to now I felt more like a singer who could play. But now I feel like a good player. The thing I know how to do, I know how to do really well. [laughs] I do it really well. Confident.
And I can tell the players feel great. I know how to talk to them now with an instrument instead of just with my voice. And that's so fun. It's something I always wanted to be able to do, and I can do it now. So I'm in this kind of great celebration of my life. And I think for many years I would not have been able to say I can do that well. I would have been really afraid. I was afraid of this nameless enemy that would hit me. Like a journalist. Or my karma, which would say, "Oh yeah, you think you can do that well? Hey, watch this!" And kick me down the stairs, you know? So I don't have this fear anymore. I know exactly what I do. And I've come to do it. If you like it, come and see. If you don't like it, go away. [laughs] I have my feet on the ground.
What affected this change?
Well, I think that was a process. It's a whole bunch of things, really. And they're probably mostly private. But generally, three years ago I had a manager who was a friend who screwed me really bad. And then I had a series of terrible things happen professionally. And they were so debilitating.
Actually now as I tell you why I didn't write, I think that's why. There was this series of things that happened - with the band, and the bus company - [laughs] - I went, "What is going on? What did I do to deserve this?" Because that's the silly way I process stuff. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought, "I haven't done anything. This must be payment for something really great that's coming. [laughs] Because I don't deserve this. So this hard time must be preparing some ground for me rising."
(continued ...)
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