Rodney Crowell – It Ain’t Over Yet

You can’t take for granted none of this shitThe higher up you fly boys, the harder you get hit

This song is haunting and gorgeous. On this album, Crowell has a conversation with his late friends Guy and Susanna Clark and his history. His ex-wife Rosanne Cash and John Paul White also appear with Crowell on this song.

What I like about this song is its simplicity but underneath…there are a lot of things going on. His writing makes it easy to follow but there is more underneath the surface.

This song is on his 15th solo studio album, Close Ties released in 2017. He calls it a bit of a “concept album,” with a clear stroll through his personal history. You almost feel like you are prying into his personal diaries while listening to it.

Crowell was born in Houston, Texas in 1950. He had a rough childhood with an alcoholic father and a very strict Pentecostal mother. At age 15 (1965) he left and joined a rock and roll band 30 miles from home. He said his parents didn’t really acknowledge him when he left.

In 1972 he left for Nashville and found a group of songwriters headed by fellow Texan Guy Clark. He gave Crowell a Dylan Thomas poetry book to look over and study. Clark told him they were not making products but making art. Clark has said: “I’ll bet that when you’re dying, you’re not going to think about the money you made. You’re going to think about your art.”

Crowell charted albums to make enough money to pay the bills through the 80s and 90s but his album Diamonds and Dirt was a huge success. 5 of the singles off that album peaked at #1 on the Billboard Country Charts in 1998-1999.

Close Ties peaked at #28 on the Billboard Country Charts and #138 on the Billboard Album Charts in 2017.

It Ain’t Over Yet

It’s like I’m sitting at a bus stop waiting for a trainExactly how I got here is hard to explainMy heart’s in the right place, what’s left of it I guessMy heart ain’t the problem, it’s my mind that’s a total messWith these rickety old legs and watery eyesIt’s hard to believe that I could pass for anybody’s prizeHere’s what I know about the gifts that God gaveYou can’t take ’em with you when you go to the grave

It ain’t over yet, ask someone who ought to knowNot so very long ago we were both hung out to dryIt ain’t over yet, you can mark my wordI don’t care what you think you heard, we’re still learning how to flyIt ain’t over yet

For fools like me who were built for the chaseTakes the right kind of woman to help you put it all in placeIt only happened once in my life, but man you should have seenHer hair two shades of foxtail red, her eyes some far out sea blue greenI got caught up making a name for myself, you know what that’s aboutOne day your ship comes rolling in and the next day it rolls right back outYou can’t take for granted none of this shitThe higher up you fly boys, the harder you get hit

It ain’t over yet, I’ll say this about thatYou can get up off the mat or you can lay there till you dieIt ain’t over yet, here’s the truth my friendYou can’t pack it in and we both know whyIt ain’t over yet

Silly boys blind to get there firstThink of second chances as some kind of curseI’ve known you forever and ever it’s trueIf you came by it easy, you wouldn’t be youMake me laugh, you make me cry, you make me forget myself

Back when down on my luck kept me up for daysYou were there with the right word to help me crawl out of the mazeAnd when I almost convinced myself I was hipper than thouYou stepped up with a warning shot fired sweet and low across the bowNo you don’t walk on water and your sarcasm stingsBut the way you move through this old world sure makes a case for angel wingsI was halfway to the bottom when you threw me that lineI quote you now verbatim, “Get your head out of your own behind”

It ain’t over yet, what you wanna betOne more cigarette ain’t gonna send you to the graveIt ain’t over yet, I’ve seen your new girlfriendThinks you’re the living end, great big old sparkle in her eyeIt ain’t over yet

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

31 thoughts on “Rodney Crowell – It Ain’t Over Yet”

  1. I had not listened to this yet so I’ll have to set aside some time. I’m not sure if it’s just me or did Country music forget about Rodney Crowell? Thanks for posting this and giving me a kick in the butt to get listening!

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  4. Max, you’re on a Texas roll as big as the Lone Star State! I had never heard that song before, and it took all of the first line to grab me – love it, man!

    Stylistically, “It Ain’t Over Yet” reminds me a bit of the great Steve Forbert. Rodney Crowell’s and Rosanne Cash’s vocals are a perfect fit – so good!

    Looks like I got me another artist I need to earmark – that’s what you do to me, Max! 🙂

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    1. The five number one hits off of that early album…I knew nothing about. He is a new artist for me also.
      He is another excellent writer from Texas…there are so many!
      I can see the Forbert thing also.

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      2. Oh…listen to a song called In A Turkish Town…Christian it sounds so vibrant and new. His guitar is going through a vibrato I believe…it’s pretty cool.
        He does remind me of Buddy Holly as well in some ways.

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  6. “No you don’t walk on water and your sarcasm stings
    But the way you move through this old world sure makes a case for angel wings”
    Great lines in a good song. I didn’t recognize John Paul White’s name but immediately recognized him in the video as one half of the duo, The Civil Wars. All of their voices together at the end sounded fantastic. Crowell is one hell of a songwriter and he’s sung with the best.

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    1. I agree…his lyrics are greatness…they are are.
      Thanks Lisa! You like Crowell right? Wasn’t he on that film that you posted that showed Steve Earle and others around a table?

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      2. Wow…I didn’t know he wrote that! That is so cool.
        I’m not either Lisa…I just listened to that album I blogged about today. Thats it so far. Thank you!

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    1. I like that one as well…cool way to look at his childhood…. funny you pick that one out…a lyric from that song stuck with me…”40 dollar boots, big bangora hat”….that is a genius description to me.
      I listened to this album this past week. It was a cool way to look at his history…through an album.

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      1. you’ve hit another music iceberg. I see best songwriting lists and when I do I cant help thinking about folk like Crowell and so many others that never get a wider audience I think you know that alot of people are paying attention. Sports songs? King Richard for a southern boy. I just went for stationary bike ride with Rodney playing in the sidecar. Keep diggin’ Max.

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      2. That is what I like about discovering these artists. You only can discover an artist once. Ron and I were talking and he said his biggest wish was to rediscover the Beatles with new ears… and this is the same to me with these Texas guys…I love it.
        I never heard that one about Petty…how cool. Petty was THE MAN when I grew up. That red, white, and blue car…to me it was Evel Knivel and Petty…totally different but heros.

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  10. Quite good. Reminds me a wee bit of Willie Nelson I think. Fairly minimalistic. Would I guess it may have surprised most in the country world of the 90s as much as Tracey Chapman did the pop world in the 80s?

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      2. Yea…it’s pretty bad now….Steve Earle and Yoakam changed it or turned it back. Crowell and artists like him took it back to the singer songwriter era.

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