Nanci Griffith: A Love Song in 16 Songs

Charles Hughes on some of the artist's best

(Photo credit: Bryan Ledgard/Creative Commons)

When Nanci Griffith died in 2021, I was struck by the realization of how much I’d miss her. Although she’s been a consistent part of my listening for quite a long time, her death (as such things often sadly do) put in focus just how much pleasure and sustenance I’ve gotten from her music. I’ve listened to her a lot since then, both revisiting favorites and discovering new parts of her catalog with which I wasn’t as familiar. It’s been a deeply rewarding period of (re)discovery. Now, on the occasion of a new box set of her first four albums and a tribute album featuring some of her peers and fans, it seems like an opportune moment to celebrate her work and why it means so much to me.

So, here’s my love song to Nanci Griffith in the form of sixteen songs I particularly love. (Why sixteen? Well, why not?) Some of them are among her most famous, some of them are more obscure, and all of them represent part of why she has a permanent place in my hall of fame. I hope you like them as much as I do, and feel free to mention others in the comments that you love but aren’t included here. (Trust me: there are many I already regret leaving out.) For now, let me count a few of the ways…

1.     “Workin’ in Corners” (from Poet in My Window, 1982)

“Workin’ In Corners,” from Griffith’s second album, Poet in My Window, finds an artist just taking flight and yet fully in command. Emerging from the fertile Texas singer-songwriter scene, Griffith developed her craft alongside fellow country-folk travelers who shared her interest in linking the delicate heft of their finely crafted songs with a musical approach that drew in a wide range of Lone Star sounds. As longtime collaborator Jim Rooney details in the new box (which takes its name from this song), Griffith learned how to appeal both to the coffeehouses and the honky-tonks, compelling audiences whether or not they came to listen closely. This song’s protagonist is out there too, on lonely roads that lead her far from home and leave her thinking, singing, and trying to work through what Neil Young called the “love art blues.” “Workin’ in Corners” shows her signature lyrical and vocal nuance emerged early, and as did the intricate brilliance of her guitar playing, a fingerpicked style that influenced friends like Lyle Lovett. It’s one of many songs that she would revisit throughout her career, but – unlike those that gained poignancy as she (and her listeners) aged – this first version is my favorite. The youthful clarity of Griffith’s voice and the plainspoken beauty of the arrangement adds extra heart-aching beauty to her character’s journey. She doesn’t want the night to end - not because the party’s so much fun but because “if I go to sleep, [then] I just might dream.” The way that Griffith holds “dream” softly over cradling guitars underneath gets me every time.

2.     “Spin on a Red Brick Floor” (from Once in a Very Blue Moon, 1984)

Griffith’s early records are lovely, but she rarely kicks up the dust as highly as she does on her third album’s closer. “Spin on a Red Brick Floor” is a twist-and-turn ode to Anderson Fair, a Houston club that she and other scene mainstays played regularly in the early years. In a way, it’s a corollary and counterpoint to “Workin’ in Corners,” with Griffith celebrating how the friendly embrace of loud music, good liquor, and “old lovers” help alleviate the weary blues from waiting, working, living, loving, or whatever. It’s a hoot and a holler, with Griffith shouting above the sawing of her band as they propel the dancers. A pure joy.

3.     “From a Distance” (from Lone Star State of Mind, 1987)

In true folk spirit, Griffith consistently shared her vision for the world. A student of Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, and Odetta, and a believer in the power of songs to reorient the world both through their meaning and their singing, Griffith sang and spoke about everything from the death penalty to the environment. One of her most common themes was the need for peace and the cost of war, and she had the unfortunate opportunity to comment on two conflicts started by two generations of the Bush family. Four years before the first Gulf War, and three years before Bette Midler hit the Pop Top 10 with it, she recorded Julie Gold’s “From a Distance,” a plea to recognize our commonalities and shared fate. I’ve always liked this version a lot more than Midler’s, maybe because Griffith delivers it with a vulnerability that undercuts the lyric’s grandiosity. More a prayer than a sermon, Griffith sings “From a Distance” like it’s a whispered realization that she’s desperate to share with us. There’s a prophetic insistence in Griffith’s repeated cry of “God is watching us!,” as though she hopes but doesn’t expect us to listen to her. I wish we would.

4.     “There’s a Light Beyond These Woods” (from Lone Star State of Mind, 1987)

Griffith wrote her greatest love song about her best friend. Based on real life, “There’s a Light Beyond These Woods” is sung from the perspective of a child, then teenager, then adult who shares dreams and makes plans with friend Mary Margaret to explore the great big world and “drink the poets’ wine” before life ends up getting in the way. The song’s ache – a yearning for adventures not taken that goes beyond nostalgia into something like grief – is buttressed by Griffith’s vocal and guitar. At the end, even though they didn’t get to chase their dreams together, Griffith knows for sure that “there’ll never be friends like you and me, Maggie.” Anyone lucky enough to find such enduring friendship, especially in childhood, will recognize just how many kinds of tears are mixed together in Griffith’s delivery. She cut it on her debut, but I find this later version to be even more affecting, perhaps because these sweet regrets only grow with time. And, if YouTube comments are to be believed, she sang it one night after the real Mary Margaret had just died, and I don’t doubt that was the most powerful version she ever did. Go call your best friend – trust me, you miss each other more than you realize.

5.     “Gulf Coast Highway” (from Little Love Affairs, 1988)

It’s a simple story. The first verse, sung by Griffith, tells the story of her partner and the work that took him away. The second, sung by Mac McAnally, tells her story as she waited for him and built their home. And the third verse, sung in harmony, tells the story of their shared present. The work’s dried up, they “tend our garden” and “set the sun,” and they enjoy each other as time passes and flowers bloom around them. At the verses’ end, they promise that they will each – and then they will both – fly away to heaven, together, “some sweet bluebonnet spring.” Over comforting washes of keyboard and guitar, Griffith and McAnally share this one-act window into a very precious love (co-written by Griffith, James Hooker, and Danny Flowers) with the tenderness it deserves. She recorded it again – a fine version in 1997 with Griffith fan Darius Rucker taking the co-lead role, presaging his transition from the Hootie moment to country stardom – but it’s the original that knocks me sideways. I never make it through without tearing up, and that’s okay by me.  

6.     “Outbound Plane” (from Little Love Affairs, 1988)

Griffith’s characters are constantly in motion. They’re either heading out or heading up, and they’re often heading towards independence. Sometimes they leave their old life behind with ambivalence, but other times they can’t wait to get going. On “Outbound Plane,” which Suzy Bogguss took into the country Top 10 in 1992, Griffith’s restless desire is matched by acoustic-guitar thrum and soaring excitability in her vocal. The arrangement races alongside the protagonist’s heart. She’s ready to “stand my ground” and move on, and she won’t let anybody turn her around.

7.     “Listen to the Radio” (from Storms, 1989)

Griffith’s on the move again here, heading out after breaking free from an unhappy partnership. While elsewhere she’s counted on friends and colleagues, here her inspiration comes from a different kind of beloved: “When you can’t find a friend, you still got the radio,” she testifies, calling out specific heroes whose music not only inspire her but who helped build the song’s rollicking country sound. “Where would I be in times like these, without the songs Loretta wrote?,” Griffith asks, invoking one of her main artistic foremothers. Other voices join, and then the drums kick in and the race is on. I’ve rarely heard a better evocation of what it feels to hear the right song at the right time, especially when you’re on your own and need backup from someone you can trust. For Griffith, who built real and imagined musical communities throughout her career, “Listen to the Radio” is as much a mission statement as anything else she did. And it’s more fun than a lot of them, too. (On that note, she did a wonderful version on Austin City Limits with Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Gold, and the Indigo Girls, who make for a great and roof-raising chorus.) Turn it on, turn it up, and down the road we go.

8.     “It’s Just Another Morning Here” (from Late Night Grande Hotel, 1991)

Griffith’s early-‘90s albums found her incorporating new textures, some of which drew on the pop-inclusive sound of ‘90s country and some that struck out beyond Nashville into different (but friendly) sonic territory. “Just Another Morning Here,” which awakens with Bruce Hornsby-style humming keyboards, finds Griffith sounding frayed and fried but still standing. As she expanded her sound, she added new shades to her singing, one of which found her eschewing crystalline sweetness in favor of rough-hewn twang that wouldn’t sound out of place on the rowdier end of the country-rock spectrum. It rarely works better than on this simmering track, which just sounds like the feeling of waking up into a world that is far from perfect after sleep that was far from restful.

9.     “This Old Town” (from Other Voices, Other Rooms, 1993)

In 1993, Griffith released Other Voices, Other Rooms, a loving and lovely collection of folk and country covers. The choices ranged from friends and peers like Townes Van Zandt and Kate Wolf to legends like Woody Guthrie and Malvina Reynolds to lesser-known gems from writers like Frank Christian. Accompanied by a game and renowned set of collaborators, from Iris DeMent to Bob Dylan, Griffith draws together a community of singers and songs that makes it seem less like a tribute album and more like a link added to an unbroken chain. Some of the album feels and sounds more hermetic than necessary, perhaps weighed down by those legacies. But tracks like “This Old Town” skip and jump across them. Fueled by Bela Fleck’s banjo, this ode to a small town’s survival written by Janis Ian and Richard Vezner works as both message and singalong, an embodiment of folk practice that doubles as a shoulda-been-a-hit country record.

10.  “These Days in an Open Book” (from Flyer, 1994)

Griffith loved literature. Writer Holly Gleason notes in her smart and lovely liner notes to the new box that, although Griffith reminded her of fellow traveler Emmylou Harris, Griffith seemed more redolent of Prairie Home Companion or a “Steinbeck heroine.” She was “equal parts Willa Cather, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O’Connor in the best ways.” Indeed, Griffith nurtured those comparisons. She incorporated her favorite authors as influences on her characters and imagery. She referred to specific writers and texts in songs and even album titles, like the Capote sample of Other Voices, Other Rooms. And she used books and reading as both subject matter and metaphor. 1984’s sweeping “I’m Not Drivin’ These Wheels (Bring the Prose to the Wheel),” about the particular pleasure of reading while on the road, is one good example. Another is “These Days in an Open Book,” from 1994’s sonically expansive Flyer. Here, a book laid bare and incomplete becomes Griffith’s metaphor for love lost and memories remaining. Mandolin, steel, and accordion converse atop subtly funky drums, and the Indigo Girls – themselves familiar with the way that books and music speak to each other both thematically and sonically – add supple and supportive harmonies.

11.  “I Fought the Law” (from Blue Roses from the Moon, 1997)

Nanci Griffith rocked out more than many people think, and she never did it better than when working with The Crickets. Griffith collaborated several times with Buddy Holly’s legendary band, including a fireball take on “Well…All Right” from a Holly tribute, as well as other pairings on record and in concert. Beyond this, the influence of the West Texas rock ‘n’ roll tradition is audible on Griffith’s recordings at least as far back as 1986’s “Fly by Night,” but it became more pronounced in the following decade. This connection makes sense, both in terms of shared geography and because Griffith always possessed more snarl and smirk than her folk reputation sometimes implied. Nowhere does this come through more clearly – or better – than on her 1997 version of Cricket member Sonny Curtis’ oft-recorded classic. Her “I Fought the Law” comes barreling out of the gate with a playful harmony from Curtis himself and alternating stomp-and-shuffle grooves from the Cricket rhythm section of Joe B. Maudlin and J.J. Allison. Griffith and company go full speed ahead, capturing an energy and fun in the song that even the classic Bobby Fuller Four original and enduring Clash cover don’t approach. Is this my third-favorite version of “I Fought The Law?” At least – it usually ranks higher than that. Rave on.

12.  “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” (from Other Voices, Too, 1998)

Griffith returned to the deep well of folk and country favorites with 1998’s Other Voices, Too. Subtitled “A Trip Back To Bountiful,” an appropriate additional literary reference on top of the title’s Capote sample, it feels less like a sequel than a further expansion of musical communities. From the jangling “You Were on My Mind” to the hootenanny spirit of “Wasn’t That a Mighty Storm?,” it’s more fun, more various, and more poignant. And there are more voices alongside Griffith, with many songs shared among multiple singers as a further argument about the song and its meaning. “Deportees,” written by Woody Guthrie and Martin Hoffman, is a particularly powerful example. Griffith sings with Lucinda Williams, Odetta, Steve Earle, John Stewart, and Tish Hinojosa (who adds a welcome verse in Spanish along with her expert accordion), all of whom represented intersecting resonances and expansions of Guthrie’s legacy. They join together on perhaps Guthrie’s most powerful condemnation of the U.S.’s cruelty, to which Martin Hoffman later added the beautiful melody.

13.  “Trouble in the Fields” (from The Dust Bowl Symphony, 1999)

Not every song lends itself to the string-heavy re-imaginations Griffith offered on 1999’s Dust Bowl Symphony, but this one sure does. “Trouble in the Fields,” originally recorded in 1987, is one of Griffith’s most effective narratives of struggle and survival, an epic story of land, home, and memory that fills the expanded arrangement it gets here. (And that includes the minute-long instrumental prelude and lilting whistle that links the song to the Irish traditions that Griffith explored elsewhere through collaborations with The Chieftains, Sharon Shannon, and others.) It’s the first track on the album, and you can almost see the spotlight hitting Griffith as she welcomes the audience into a set of hard but necessary stories. It’s a good thing for all of us that she’ll guide us through them.

14.  “Pearl’s Eye View (The Life of Dickey Chapelle)” (from Clock without Hands, 2001)

Griffith’s 2000s albums are filled with songs about war, both the one then being waged by the second Bush Administration and the legacies of Vietnam. This stomper from Clock without Hands, written with Maura Kennedy, combined her interest in the costs and consequences of wartime with her focus on the stories of women – both real and fictional – who defy expectations and chart their own path. Here, she chronicles the life of Dickey Chapelle, a photographer from Wisconsin who worked (and died) in Vietnam. Rather than treat her story as a somber think piece, though, Griffith turns up the volume and stomps through a power-pop tribute that flies just as high and captures just as much as her subject did.

15.  “Bluer than Blue” (from Ruby’s Torch, 2006)

Griffith’s singing only got better as her career went along. Her voice always had a magical sparkle, but she added new dimensions to it on each successive album. In 2006, she placed that singing front and center with Ruby’s Torch. As indicated by the title and cover photo, the album is rooted in torchy pop even as it makes the usual room for Griffith’s wide range of repertory. “Bluer Than Blue,” written by Charles Goodrum and originally recorded by Michael Johnson, is my favorite. Griffith sings in robust alto about the mixed emotions of a newly ended love affair. Even as she acknowledges that “after you go, I can catch up on my reading” among other seeming positives, she recognizes that the blues will come around regardless. As strings swirl and drums punctuate, Griffith’s singing possesses little of her usual high lonesome sound but carries all of its communicative richness.

16.  “High on a Mountaintop” (from Intersection, 2012)

Griffith released her final album, Intersection, in 2012. Recorded mostly in her home studio with a small ensemble, it’s a warm and lovely collection that includes new songs, new versions of old favorites, and a few choice covers. She ends with one of those, a take on Loretta Lynn’s tribute to the old home place and the people who lived there. In close harmony with longtime collaborators Maura Kennedy and Pat McInerny, Griffith luxuriates in country’s strum-and-twang and offers what serves as both benediction and curtain call. You can imagine it working perfectly in either those coffeehouses or honky-tonks in Texas, back when the young artist first honed her craft. As sad as it is that we’ll never get more music from Nanci Griffith, it’s poetic that she closed her recording career this way. After all, as she asked way back on “Listen to the Radio,” where would she be without the songs Loretta wrote?

And where would I be without the songs that Nanci wrote, sang, and played? I know I wouldn’t be as happy, whether that happiness comes through cranking up “I Fought The Law” or crying through “Gulf Coast Highway.” I’m grateful she shared her music with us and I wish she was still here to make more of it. But at least I’ve got thirty years of great records. Because when I can’t find a friend, I’ve still got Nanci Griffith. And so do you. Down the road we go. - CH

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