Since I have been going over Texas Songwriters…I have saved Lovett for a while. I knew of him because his name is huge where I live and I’ve seen him on different shows throughout my life. So I started to listen to some of his music recently with high anticipation and was not disappointed.
The thing about these songwriters I like so much are the lyrics. What surprised me were the lovely melodies that sold those lyrics to listeners. You can write the best set of lyrics in the world but without a good melody they will just stay just lyrics.
He was born in the German farming community of Klein, Texas and was influenced by blues and country greats such as Ray Charles, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, and more. His music has a little bit of everything in it. Western, folk, swing, jazz, bebop, blues, and gospel music. Lovett earned two degrees from Texas A&M University in Journalism and German, and music was his career of choice. One of his roommates in college was no other than fellow Texas songwriter Robert Earl Keen.
Lovett said that If I Had A Boat was based on a true story. He did try to cross a pond on a pony but he wished he had a boat when it happened. This song was about getting away from things and not being tied down. This song was released in 1987 on the album Pontiac. The song peaked at #66 on the Billboard Country Charts. The album peaked at #12 on the Billboard Country Album Charts, #18 in Canada, and #117 on the Billboard Album Charts.
He was asked if him and Robert Earl Keen were trying to carry on with the tradition that Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark started. He answered: There’s a direct line from those guys to Robert and me. We learned how to play those Guy Clark songs from Guy’s first record, and we sought out Guy and Townes as we came up, because we admired them so much, and got to know them. So their version of storytelling, their take on what a song was supposed to be, was something that Robert and I actively pursued.
On what Texas is to him: Texas is just home. I’m tethered here and lack perspective. My whole experience, every day in my life, is wrapped up in being from here. I’m what in the horse business we call barn blind. I really like my horses better than anybody else’s.
Lyle Lovett: Somehow you can tell the difference when a song is written just to get on the radio and when what someone does is their whole life. That comes through in Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson. There is no separating their life from their music. From: https://powerpop.blog/2024/04/27/lyle-lovett-if-i-had-a-boat/
