Tag: Rodney Crowell

Rodney Crowell – She Loves The Jerk

John Hiatt released this song in 1983 on the album Riding With The King which was his sixth album. Like all his other efforts at this time, the album was a critical success but little heard or bought by the public. They both are great versions of the song.

In 1986 Rodney Crowell released his album Street Language which was on Columbia Records for his first release on that label. He left Warner Brothers at the time and brought in Booker T. Jones to produce this album. He had some heavy hitters on this album. Vince Gill, David Lindley, Dave Loggins, and Anton Fig just to name a few.

The album peaked at #38 on the Billboard Country Charts and #177 on the Billboard Album Charts. The song peaked at #71 on the Billboard Country Charts in 1986. This was the album before Diamonds and Dust that soared to number 1 in the Country Charts with 5 number 1 Country hits.

John Hiatt said it was written in 1982 while he was living in Los Angeles at the time. The inspiration came from earlier in his life… the first girl he ever thought he was in love with. He was 15 and she was 18 and it was unrequited love. Another artist who covered this song was Elvis Costello. He released the demo version of it.

She Loves The Jerk

We’ve talked it to death, cryin’ on the telephone
Nights when he drinks at home
She has to whisper throught her tears
“Johnny,” she says, “You’d never do these things to me”
But I can never make her see he’s wasted such precious years
Well, “You married the wrong guy” is all I ever say

He’s a no good so and so, but she’ll never let him go
Though she knows it will never work, she loves the jerk
She loves the jerk

He was the guy always out on the make
I guess he had what it takes to turn the heads of pretty girls
She thought he would change; the worst of us will settle down
But he couldn’t stay out of town, not even with this precious pearl
Now she lives with the lies and the bumps and the bruises

He’s a no good so and so, but she’ll never let him go
Though she knows it will never work, she loves the jerk
She loves the jerk

Well, I hang up the phone and I pretend she’s in my arms
What I wouldn’t give for just one-tenth of what she gives Mister Charming

He’s a no good so and so, but she’ll never let him go
Though she knows it will never work, she loves the jerk
She loves the jerk

He’s a no good so and so, but she’ll never let him go
Though she knows it will never work, she loves the jerk
She loves the jerk

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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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