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Terms of my surrender
| Date: |
July 14, 2014 |
| Label: |
New West Records |
| CD: |
NW 6284 |
| CD-DVD: |
NW 6315 |
| LP: |
NW 5083 |
CD
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DVD
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Musicians
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| John Hiatt: |
Vocals and guitar |
| Doug Lancio: |
Guitars, banjo, mandolin |
| Kenneth Blevins: |
drums and Percussions |
| Nathan Gehri: |
Bass |
| Brandon Young: |
Backing vocals |
| Jon Coleman: |
Additional keyboards |
Note
- All songs written by John Hiatt.
- Recorded at studio G, Nashville, TN
- Produced, engineered and mixed by: Doug Lancio
- Assisted by: Alex Munoz
- Matered by: John Baldwin, Nashville, TN
- Vinyl cut by John Golden at Golden Matering - Ventura, CA
- A&R Direction: Gary Briggs
- Design: Paul Moore
- Photography: Michael Wilson
- Vector Management: Ken Levitan
- Tour Manager - Day to day: Scott Knabe
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Special thanks to Jim McGuire, Dan Hayes, Joseph Logsdon and the amazing staff @ The Franklin Theatre, Ken Levitan, Scott Knabe and all at Vector Management, the Hiatt family and crew, everyone @ New West Records, Robot Fondue, Gibson Guitar, Rob Steele - Air transportation,Peter Nappl - Nashville, The Hutton hotel, The Aloft hotel - Franklin, Tomkat Catering, Waylon's Limo provided by Matchless transportation service and all the fine folks of Franklin, Tennessee.
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| Live from The Franklin Theatre - October 2013 |
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| 1. |
Drive south |
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| 2. |
Tennessee Plates |
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| 3. |
Crossing Muddy Waters |
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| 4. |
Nothin' I Love |
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| 5. |
Terms Of My Surrender |
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| 6. |
Perfectly Good Guitar |
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| 7. |
Feel's Like Rain |
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| 8. |
Thing Called Love |
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| 9. |
Slow Turning |
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| 10. |
Have A Little Faith In Me |
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Musicians
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| John Hiatt: |
Vocals and guitar |
| Doug Lancio: |
Guitars, banjo, mandolin |
| Kenneth Blevins: |
drums and backing vocals |
| Nathan Gehri: |
Bass |
| Brandon Young: |
Backing vocals, percussion |
Note
- Tour Manager: Scott Knabe
- Jay Wright - FOH: Recording engineer
- Jim Hall, Ryan Bullington: Guitar techs
- Vector Management: Ken Levitan
- Director: Garry Briggs
- Producer/Co-director: Matt Bizer, Robot Fondue
- Associate producer: Lorna Nash
- Executive producers: George Fontaine, Mike Ruthig
- Director of photography: Ted Newsome
- Production coordinator: Jordan Flanigen
- Live switch operator: Will Rimmer
- Live audio engineer: Steve Christensen
- Live audio recording remixed: John Nowland and Steve Yelick at Coastside Recording, Pescadero, CA
- Steadican operator: Marco Naylor
- Lighting director: Jeff Gordon
- Camera operators: Matt blizer, Marshall Burnette, Conrad Heinz, Dustin Lane, Ted Newsome, Travor Terrel
- 1st Assistant camera: Bryan Wilson
- Digital loader: Craig Olsen
- Production coordinator for Robot Fondue, Texas: Jamie Terrel
- Editor: Michael Greene
- Post production supervision: michael Hernandez
- Assistant editor: Conrad Heinz
- Set design: Brandon Eller, Katie Milwee
- Hair and Make-up: Deborah Gordon
- Wardrobe stylist: Lorna Nash
- Set production assistant: Houston Matthews
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Press photo's
Promovideo
Press sheet
Forty years into his recording career, John Hiatt has chosen to title his 22nd studio album, Terms of My Surrender. Surrender? Is that as in Cheap Trick? Or Appomattox? Hiatt laughs, tentatively, at the choice.
“It’s my Appomattox,” he says, wryly. “Really I don’t know where it came from, that idea of trying to arrange the terms of my surrender. I don’t get to do that. It’s a labor in vain in that respect, if you think you can negotiate that with anyone, or anything. In reference to the title song, it’s in terms of love. You’ve got to give it up. The song says, ‘I can’t negotiate the terms.
’” That’s an essence, perhaps the essence, of the 11 songs here, the 11 stories they tell and, together perhaps, one story. Always a keen observer of life’s flings and foibles alike, usually mixed well together, Hiatt’s insights and skills at sharing them have only sharpened over the year.
With his longtime guitarist Doug Lancio taking the producer reins, Hiatt set out to bring the songs’ character (and characters) into intimate focus. There’s a close-up, patina-festooned bluesy quality tying the tales together. But it’s blues in the knotty backwoods sense, as if sprung from the Delta loam. It’s completely a band effort, his current group, which he calls simply the Combo, a tight-yet-loose unit from years together on the road — Lancio on guitars, banjo and mandolin, Nathan Gehri on bass, Kenneth Blevins on drums, with keyboards from John Coleman on some of the tracks. But it all flows from the leader.
“I had this group of songs and wanted to feature my guitar and voice — oddly enough,” he says. “However peculiar it might be, I thought, ‘Let’s put it out front and see.’”
Lancio agreed. They settled into his cozy studio, a “funky little place in East Nashville” as Hiatt describes it, for a set of unfussy, highly of-the-moment sessions, many of them essentially done in one basic take. Hiatt had in mind playing some rough-edged electric guitar for the core sound, but the producer thought acoustic would be a better fit for the songs. “I agreed,” Hiatt says. “And we ran it through the amp and it became the sound of the record — my voice and my guitar and that was the thing. You know, my singing, I’ve dropped down to a lower register. I’ve for a long time sung from the middle to the top, and this is kind of down from there. It seemed to work, fit the songs, fit the feel. And it’s easier to sing them, oddly enough.”
He pauses a second. “Plus I’m 61 and I don’t have that top range any more.” Another pause, before the zinger. “I don’t have the top of anything.”
He’s not complaining, mind you. “Doesn’t bother me,” he says of his age. “Shit falls apart and I can’t remember anything, all that stuff. But the plusses outweigh the minuses for sure.”
That right there is a strong thread running through the album. The tales aren’t autobiographical, he stresses. But they are still, in many regards, his. “It’s more stories, storytelling, from different perspectives,” he says. But he allows, “I guess from a point of view. I guess it’s mine, if you want to put it that way, at a given time. It changes.”
He cites the song “Face of God,” in which the narrator asks how long he must suffer before seeing said face. It’s of course straight out of Christian theology, spiked with a line drawing on a Kenneth Patchen poem: “They say God is the Devil until you look him in the eye.”
“At the end he’s saying to his woman, ‘I’ve done enough, show me what you’ve got,’” Hiatt says. “That’s not the way I feel about things. This guy’s genuinely in some kind of struggle to lift himself out of whatever he’s struggling with. He’s got issues — issues with people who have big cars and show their wealth, while he’s coming in through the kitchen door. That’s definitely not me. I come in the kitchen door.”
Ditto for the guy on the prowl in “Baby’s Gonna Kick” — with the kicker line being that she’s “gonna kick me out” and the killer couplet of “listening to John Lee Hooker/Got my mind on a slow meat cooker.”
“Don’t know where that came from,” he says. “Kinda sexual. Kind of a frisky song — playful. I love the groove on that. That and a couple of other songs showcase Kenneth. What a great, fat bag he has, the way he leans back. Pretty bad-ass. Such a special feel. Been playing with him since 1987 and he just gets better and better.”
Hiatt too. The run of albums starting with 2000’s Crossing Muddy Waters through this new one is arguably the most consistently, fully realized expression of his considerable gifts as a writer and performer. Not to diminish his early accomplishments, of course. There are threads through his entire catalog tying the youthful energy of the early-‘80s statements Slug Line and Two Bit Monsters to the moving renewals of Bring the Family (with Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner collaborating) and Slow Turning later that decade to, well, all the work since.
Along the way his songs have attracted many other singers, through whom some have gained a wider world of fans via other artists’ versions — Rosanne Cash’s “Pink Bedroom” and most famously Bonnie Raitt’s hit version of “Thing Called Love.” And in recent years he’s done series of shows with Lyle Lovett, “our little Smothers Brothers comedy show,” that’s brought out other spins on his art, though elements already familiar to those who’ve been there all along. Alternately bemused and profound, he’s a self-aware chronicler of both his own and others’ stumbles and epiphanies, the tales richer with each step forward.
And it’s all steps forward, even if on Terms of My Surrender there are some looks back in the process.
“This record kind of hooked back up with the John the Troubadour Folk Singer Blues Guy,” he says. “I hadn’t really been doing that for a while. That feels good. Feels like a kid. And anything you can do to feel like a kid when you’re my age, you want to do it. It’s a good thing.”
allmusic.com
John Hiatt has always had one foot in the blues, and he's decided to wade waist deep into the music on 2014's Terms of my Surrender. There isn't a lot of 12-bar on this album if you're a purist about such things, but the tone of this music is smoky and rich like a Deep South BBQ joint, which suits the gruff texture of Hiatt's voice just fine, and the rootsy mood of the songs is reinforced by the production and arrangements. Hiatt primarily plays acoustic guitar on Terms of my Surrender, which cuts back the volume of these performances but adds a lot to the slinky middle-of-the-night groove of the music; Doug Lancio, lead guitarist with Hiatt's road band the Combo, produced this album, and the results sound organic and spontaneous, more so than his previous albums with producer Kevin Shirley, without obscuring the easy precision of Hiatt and his bandmates. The interplay of the band is solid, with Nathan Gehri's bass and Kenneth Blevins' drums resting comfortably in the pocket as Hiatt and Lancio conjure ghostly melodies with their guitars. "Here to Stay" and "Nothing I Love" are simple but effective blues-based numbers that deal with the tough side of love, while "Marlene" and "Come Back Home" are more cheerful variations on similar themes, and the quality of the songwriting here once again serves as a reminder of just how good Hiatt is -- this is a guy who can crank out an album of new material every couple years, and he always delivers a handful of real gems without sounding rote, whether he's sounding ominous on "The Wind Don't Have to Hurry" or offering snarky humor on "Old People." On Terms of my Surrender, Hiatt has the blues, and he's got the goods, and this is another solid chapter in a recording career that's drifted into an unexpected but pleasing renaissance.
Long Time Comin'
Friend of mine said a long time comin', been a long time gone
Stood right here, whispered in my ear, all the love gone wrong
I've been living my life like a howlin' wind and I can't put out this flame
Friend of mine said a long time comin', comin' back again
All this time the wheels been turnin', turnin' like a screw
Down some roads of silver and gold but I could never find you
Been livin' my life like a lonesome whistle blowin', now I can't turn back
Friend of mine said a long time comin', comin' down the track
And if I told it true, all these memories of you, well that's why I play the game
Friend of mine said a long time comin', like it never came
I've sang these songs a thousand times, ever since I was young
It's a long time comin' and the drummer keeps drummin', your work is never done
I still see you there in that silver blue air and I never have moved on
Friend of mine said a long time comin', I'm just a long time gone
Friend of mine said a long time comin', I'm a long time gone
Face Of God
Tell me how much more suffering
Before you see the face of God?
Tell me how much more suffering
Before you see the face of God?
Now my eyes are blind from crying
Don't know how many more tears I've got!
They say God is a devil,
Until you look him in the eye.
They say God is a devil,
Until you look him in the eye.
I can barely lift my head up,
And sometimes I don't even wanna try.
I'm not looking for love, baby
Looking how I'm looking,
Anybody tell me where all love go!?
I know I want something
Before you see the eyes of God
Cause I'm busting down to nothing
And its a long down road I'm on.
How does them show up yesterday?
Like a rain come down from the cloud.
I just didn't showed up yesterday
Like a rain come down from a cloud.
I was own blood from the enemy
Long before my neighbors got proud.
They ride a big fancy cars,
Then like to cut the grass they sow
They ride a big fancy cars,
Then like to cut the grass they sow
I'm doing cartwheel on the front lawn
I'm still coming to the kitchen door.
Tell me how much more suffering
Before you see the face of God?
Tell me how much more suffering
Before you see the face of God?
Now take my shit, baby
Why don't you tell me what you got?
Marlene
Marlene, Marlene
When you call my name
Marlene, Marlene
Like the summer rain
Like the honey too
Deep all in my brain
Marlene, Marlene
I'm in love with you
You know I wont be never satisfied
You make the blues running high
I don't know how many times I tried
To have a good girl by my side
Well I can mumble and I can squat
You got me that baby talk
I try to run but I can't even walk
Marlene, Marlene
Marlene, Marlene
If it was up to me
You know you are in my dreams
Back to Tennessee
I can't change
I don't think I'm doomed
Marlene, Marlene
I give it all to you
You know I wont be never satisfied
You make the blues running high
I don't know how many times I tried
To have a good girl by my side
Well I can mumble and I can squat
You got me that baby talk
I tried to run but I can't even walk
Marlene, Marlene
Marlene, Marlene
When you call my name
Marlene,Marlene
You're like the summer rain
Like the honey too
Deep all in my brain
Marlene, Marlene
I'm in love with you
Wind Don't Have To Hurry
Now the wind don't have to hurry
Blowing cross my bones
Rolling out the pastures
Smoothin' and out the stones
Theres fire on the mountain
Dark angels in the trees
The wind don't have to hurry
They're taking what they please
Na-na-na-na-na-na
Na-na-na-na-na-na
Na-na-na-na-na-na
Na-na-na-na-na-na
Now the fraud police are coming
Right out to your door
They say you have no liberty
if you're who there looking for
No writ of habeas corpus
No platform of the sands
The wind don't have to hurry
Only the wind knows where you went
Na-na-na-na-na-na
Na-na-na-na-na-na
Na-na-na-na-na-na
Na-na-na-na-na-na
Now the wind don't have to hurry
Blowing to my soul,
I stole for gold and diamonds
And buried in this hole
They brought my love a pistol
They put it to her head
Now the wind don't have to hurry
She was already dead
Na-na-na-na-na-na
Na-na-na-na-na-na
Na-na-na-na-na-na
Na-na-na-na-na-na
Na-na-na-na-na-na
Na-na-na-na-na-na
Nobody Knew His Name
Well a man in a Cadillac used to come around here
Looking for a long black train
Said his baby left town with an Engineer
Cut across the midnight rain, boys
Straight across the midnight rain
Now everybody said he'd been in Vietnam
When he was pretty young
That's when buddy got killed when his rifle jammed
Now the fighting ain't never done, boys
Now the fighting ain't never done.
Red tip while the cigarette glowin'
Windows up against the rain
Night so dark, there was nothing else showin'
Nobody knew his name, boys
Nobody knew his name
Sheriff run him off once in a while
But he would be right back
With a cup of coffee, an old newspaper
Sitting by the side of the tracks, boys
Crying by the side of the tracks
He'd try to keep from turning the tables
Hired walking horses out at Suffolk Downs
But there was always some whiskey back at the stables
If you knew where to look around, boys
If you knew where to look around.
Red tip of a cigarette glowin'
Windows up against the rain
Night so dark, there was nothing else showin'
But nobody knew his name, boys
Nobody knew his name
Slinging Pizza and Beer
Down at Waterfront Park
Handicapping dogs for the clientèle
A different pick for each one
Yeah, it didn't matter who won
Somebody gonna tip him well, boys
Somebody gonna tip him well
Well they found him in his Cadillac car
Out behind the old farm store
He was sitting there like we was going somewhere
And he wasn't coming back no more, boys
He wasn't coming back no more
Baby's Gonna Kick
I'm riding downtown 'bout a John Lee er
Got my mind set on a slow meat cooker
My baby, is gonna kick me out someday
Somebody said wolves howlin' at my door
I ain't seen no wolf since I was 24
My baby, is gonna kick me out someday
Baby's gonna kick
Baby's gonna kick,
Baby's gonna kick me out someday
Baby's gonna kick
Baby's gonna kick,
Baby's gonna kick me out someday
Jiggle to the left, jiggle to the right
One more jiggle and I'm puting out the light
My baby, is gonna kick me out someday
Now some girls won't do the fire walk
They try to tell you that the coals ain't hot
And my baby, is gonna kick me out someday
Baby's gonna kick
Baby's gonna kick,
Baby's gonna kick me out someday
Baby's gonna kick
Baby's gonna kick,
Baby's gonna kick me out someday,
Baby's gonna kick
Baby's gonna kick,
Baby's gonna kick me out someday
Baby's gonna kick
Baby's gonna kick,
Baby's gonna kick me out someday
Baby's gonna kick
Well Baby's gonna kick,
Baby's gonna kick me out someday
Nothin' I Love
I play some poker on Friday night
But I'm always holding my cards too tight
I got a tell, it's my twitchy eye
They take my money and it makes me cry.
Oh, nothing I love,
Oh, nothing I love
Nothing I love
Is good for me, but you!
Well I'm smoking cigars, baby, one, two three
'Till they don't even taste good to me.
I drink too much, I take too many pills
Ain't too long before my mind gets ill.
Oh, nothing I love
Ain't nothing I love
There ain't nothing I love
Good for me, but you!
Well I keep a slink slack slidin' down a slippery slope
I get my kicks till I just came cold
My friends start thinking that I'm just too soft
But this ain't the kind of the thing, you can just sleep on!
Well I eat too much until I'm fat and skinny
I wish I knew what was eating me.
I want another piece of pie, come on, and cut the cake
Don't know how much more of this I can take
Oh, nothing I love
Oh there ain't nothing I love
There ain't nothing I love
Is good for me but you!
There ain't nothing I love, baby
Good for me, but you!
There ain't nothing I love, baby
Ain't nothing I loved before but you!
Terms Of My Surrender
When the moon is rising and the night is still
Some of my delusions have the power to kill
Scared I'll get what I deserve
Or maybe scared I won't
I'm sitting in my garage staring at my motorcycle
My heart is so heavy, like a stack of Bibles
Swear I need you too much
Baby, I swear I don't
'Cause sometimes love can be so wrong
Like a fat man in a thong
It was shamelessly awake
I hold a seashell to my ear
And winds of echoed dreams I hear
Reverberations of yesterday
I can be rough
Sometimes I can be tender
But I can't negotiate
The terms of my surrender
I love you too much, babe
Go on and have your way with me
Well, emperors and reigning kings
Have showered you with golden rings
Now I stand with my hat in my hand
I know that I can't compete
With ruthless men and satin sheets
But I'm ready to meet your demands
Words of glory, and ashes and dust
At the end of the story there's just us
I love you too much, baby
To ever say goodbye
Here To Stay
Leaves are fallin',
Winters on my mind
Leaves are fallin' babe,
Winters on my mind
My heaters a busted,
I need you to treat me kind
Come back baby, come back to my bed
Come back baby, oh come back to my bed
I treat you good,
Don't say our love is dead
I know girl, I love you,
But you walk on front door
Back on the halaa way,
run off on front door
My stove is cold baby
why you wanna leave so
Spring has dried up,
since the summer is blow away
Spring has dried up,
summer has blown away
Even if you ride please don't leave me
Our love is here to stay
You can put it on me baby,
but you don't the pain
You can put it on me baby,
you don't know the pain
But I know you don't know how to leave
But my love is here to stay
Old People
Old people are pushy
They don't have much time
They'll shove you at the coffee shop
Cut ahead in the buffet line
They'll buy two for a dollar and 50
Then they'll argue with the checkout girl
They've lived so much behind them
They're tryin' to slow down this god damn world
Old people are pushy
Well, they're not mushy
Old people are pushy cause life ain't cushy
Old people are pushy
They'll drive how they want to drive
And go as slow as they want to
They don't care who stays alive
And they'll kiss that little grand baby
Up and down the back and all around the front
They don't care what you think of them
That baby has got something that they want
Old people are pushy, well they're not mushy
Old people are pushy, cause life ain't cushy
(Old people are pushy, they aren't mushy)
(Old people are pushy, cause life ain't cushy)
Old people are pushy, cause you don't know how they feel
And when you pretend you do
Well they know it's not real
Pretty soon it's gonna be all over
Good enough reason not to let you pass
They done seem like sweet, little old people
But they are not about to kiss your ass
Old people are pushy, well they're not mushy
Old people are pushy, cause life ain't cushy
Old people are pushy, (old people are pushy)
Old people are pushy, (old people are pushy)
Old people are pushy, (old people are pushy)
'Cause life ain't cushy
Old people are pushy,
Old people are pushy
Old people are pushy
Cause life ain't cushy.
Come Back Home
You said you had to go and get your life together
I didn't know you had to go it alone
I guess we all have dreams floating on feathers
I wish you'd come back home
Rugs pulled out and all the curtains have fallen
Been transported to the twilight zone
I don't even have a number I could be calling
I wish you'd come back home
I wish you'd come back home, back where you belong
I know that you're out there, cold and hold up somewhere
I take back every song, all that I've done wrong
I wish that you'd come home to me
Wish you'd come back home, back where you belong
I know that you're out there, cold and hold up somewhere
I take back every song, all that I've done wrong
I wish you'd come home to me
Winter in my mind, my feelings all frozen
Still down Rebel's road and over the stones
Won't be long 'fore the highway start closing
I wish you'd come back home
I wish you'd come back home
Wish you'd come back home
I wish you'd come back home
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