Lucinda Williams – Can’t Let Go

I was an instant fan when I heard this song. Great voice and great guitar in this song. The track is so down to earth and real with the music was as tight as you can get. The song came off her breakthrough album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. Steve Earle played guitar on the album and helped produce it. Can’t Let Go won Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. The song didn’t chart (Life is not fair) but the album peaked at #65 in the Billboard 200 and #14 in Canadian RPM Country Albums.

From Songfacts.

While Car Wheels on a Gravel Road is considered Lucinda Williams’ breakthrough album, recording it wasn’t a picnic for everybody involved. Williams, known to be a perfectionist, was unhappy with the record in the hands of longtime producer and guitar player Gurf Morlix, who apparently didn’t take her criticisms seriously enough. With this song, she recalls: “I was playing Steve Earle’s dobro, which had a really wide neck, and my fingers kinda slipped on it. But the track was so brilliant that everyone went, No, no, it’s great! I agonized over it for weeks and weeks, and they all kept saying, It’s great. But see, there’ve been other things where I’ve gone in and said, ‘I think we should redo this track because it’s not in the pocket or it’s too fast,’ and I’ve been right. I usually am right, that’s the thing. I’m right a lot of the time.” 

According to Salon, Steve Earle, who also co-produced and played guitar on the album, said it was “the least amount of fun I’ve had working on a record.”

This was the only song on the album not written by Lucinda, but by Randy Weeks. With the exception of “Still I Long For Your Kiss,” which was co-written by Duane Jarvis and featured on The Horse Whisperer soundtrack, she was the sole writer on the rest of the tracks.

Can’t Let Go

Told my baby one more time
Don’t make me sit all alone and cry
Well it’s over I know it but I can’t let go
I’m like a fish out of water
A cat in a tree

You don’t even want to talk to me
Well it’s over I know it but I can’t let go
He won’t take me back when I come around

Says he’s sorry then he pulls me out
I got a big chain around my neck
And I’m broken down like a train wreck
Well it’s over I know it but I can’t let go

See I got a candle and it burns so bright

In my window every night
Well it’s over I know but I can’t let go
You don’t like to see me standing around

Feel like I been shot and didn’t fall down
Well it’s over I know it but I can’t let go
He won’t take me back when I come around

Says he’s sorry then he pulls me out
I got a big chain around my neck
And I’m broken down like a train wreck
Well it’s over I know it but I can’t let go

Turn off trouble like you turn off a light

Went off and left me it just ain’t right
Well it’s over I know it but I can’t let go
Round every corner something I see

Bring me right back how it used to be
Well it’s over I know it but I can’t let go
He won’t take me back when I come around

Says he’s sorry then he pulls me out
I got a big chain around my neck
And I’m broken down like a train wreck
Well it’s over I know it but I can’t let go

He won’t take me back when I come around

Says he’s sorry then he pulls me out
I got a big chain around my neck
And I’m broken down like a train wreck
Well it’s over I know it but I can’t let go

It’s over I know it but I can’t let go
It’s over I know it but I can’t let go
It’s over I know it but I can’t let go