Raitt began playing guitar at an early age, something not a lot of her high school girlfriends did. "I had played a little at school and at camp," she later recalled in a July 2002 interview. "My parents would drag me out to perform for my family, like all parents do, but it was a hobby—nothing more...I think people must wonder how a white girl like me became a blues guitarist. The truth is, I never intended to do this for a living. I grew up...in a Quaker family, and for me being Quaker was a political calling rather than a religious one."
In 1967 Raitt continued her pursuit in that path when she entered Harvard's Radcliffe College as a freshman, majoring in African Studies. "My plan was to travel to Tanzania, where President Julius Nyerere was creating a government based on democracy and socialism," Raitt recalled. "I wanted to help undo the damage that Western colonialism had done to native cultures around the world. Cambridge was a hotbed of this kind of thinking, and I was thrilled."
One day, Raitt was notified by a friend that blues promoter Dick Waterman was giving an interview at WHRB, Harvard's college radio station. An important figure in the blues revival of the 1960s, Waterman was also a resident of Cambridge. Raitt went to see Waterman, and the two soon became friends, "much to the chagrin of my parents, who didn't expect their freshman daughter to be running around with 65-year-old bluesmen," recalled Raitt. "I was amazed by his passion for the music and the integrity with which he managed the musicians."
During Raitt's sophomore year, Waterman relocated to Philadelphia, and a number of local musicians he counted among his friends went with him. Raitt had become a strong part of that community, recalling that "these people had become my friends, my mentors, and though I had every intention of graduating, I decided to take the semester off and move to Philadelphia...It was an opportunity that young white girls just don't get, and as it turns out, an opportunity that changed everything."
Raitt eventually went back to school, but her time performing in Philadelphia had encouraged her to pursue music as a career. When Waterman contacted her and invited her to tour with The Rolling Stones, she made a second trip to the admissions office at Radcliffe and told them, "I'm going to take a leave of absence, but this is only going to last a year." As Raitt would later recall, "Imagine being 20 in 1970—wouldn't you have gone on tour with the Rolling Stones?"
By now, Raitt was also playing both folk as well as rhythm and blues clubs in the Boston area, performing alongside established blues legends like Howlin' Wolf, Sippie Wallace, and Mississippi Fred McDowell, all of whom she met through Waterman. In the fall of 1970, while opening for Fred McDowell at the Gaslight Cafe in New York, a reporter from Newsweek Magazine saw her and began to spread word of her performance. Scouts from major record companies were soon attending her shows to watch her play. She eventually accepted an offer with Warner Bros. who soon released her eponymously titled debut in 1971. The album was warmly received by the music press, many of which praised her skills as an interpreter and as a bottleneck guitarist; at the time, very few women in popular music had strong reputations as guitarists.
While admired by those who saw her perform, and respected by her peers, Raitt gained little public acclaim for her work. Her critical stature continued to grow but record sales remained modest. Her second album, Give It Up, was released in 1972 to universal acclaim, and though many critics still regard it as her best work, it did not change her commercial fortunes. 1973's Takin' My Time was also met with critical acclaim, but these notices were not matched by the sales.
Raitt was beginning to receive greater press coverage, including a 1975 cover story for Rolling Stone Magazine, but with 1974's Streetlights, reviews for her work were becoming increasingly mixed. By now, Raitt was already experimenting with different producers and different styles, and she began to adopt a more mainstream sound that continued through 1975's Home Plate.
In 1976, Raitt made a notable appearance on Warren Zevon's self-titled album with Warren Zevon's friend Jackson Browne and Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.
1977's Sweet Forgiveness gave Raitt her first commercial breakthrough when it yielded a hit single in her cover of Del Shannon's "Runaway." Recast as a heavy r&b recording based on a rhythmic groove inspired by Al Green, Raitt's version of "Runaway" was disparaged by many critics, but its commercial success prompted a bidding war between Warner Bros. and Columbia Records. "There was this big Columbia – Warner war going on at the time," recalled Raitt in a 1990 interview. "James Taylor had just left Warner Bros. and made a big album for Columbia...And then, Warners signed Paul Simon away from Columbia, and they didn't want me to have a hit record for Columbia — no matter what! So, I renegotiated my contract, and they basically matched Columbia's offer. Frankly the deal was a really big deal."
Warner Bros. held higher expectations for Raitt's next album, 1979's The Glow, but it was released to poor reviews as well as modest sales. Raitt would have one commercial success in 1979 when she helped organize the five MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy) concerts at Madison Square Garden. The shows spawned a three-record gold album as well as a Warner Bros. feature film, No Nukes. The shows featured co-founders Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, John Hall, and Raitt as well as Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Doobie Brothers, James Taylor, Gil Scott-Heron, and numerous others.
For her next record, 1982's Green Light, Raitt made a conscious attempt to revisit the sound of her earlier records, but to her surprise, many of her peers and members of the press would compare her new sound to the burgeoning New Wave movement. The album received her strongest reviews in years, but her sales did not improve and this would have a severe impact on her relationship with Warner Bros.
In 1983, as Raitt was finishing work on her follow-up album, titled Tongue & Groove, Warner Bros. cleaned house, dropping a number of major artists from their roster. Van Morrison and Arlo Guthrie were two of the most high-profile cases, and the day after mastering was completed on Tongue & Groove, Raitt was notified that she was to be dropped too. The album was shelved indefinitely, and Raitt was left without a label. By now, Raitt was also struggling with alcohol and drug abuse.
Despite her personal and professional problems, Raitt continued to tour and participate in political activism. In 1985, she sang and appeared in the video of "Sun City," the anti-apartheid record written a produced by Steven Van Zandt. Along with her participation in Farm Aid and Amnesty International concerts, Raitt would later travel to Moscow in 1987 as part of the first joint Soviet/American Peace Concert later shown on Showtime television. Also in 1987, Raitt would organize a benefit in Los Angeles, for Countdown '87 to Stop Contra Aid, featuring herself, Don Henley, Herbie Hancock, Holly Near and others.
Two years after dropping her from their label, Warner Bros. notified Raitt of their plans to release Tongue & Groove. "I said it wasn't really fair," recalled Raitt. "I think at this point they felt kind of bad. I mean, I was out there touring on my savings to keep my name up, and my ablility to draw was less and less. So they agreed to let me go in and recut half of it, and that's when it came out as Nine Lives." A critical and commercial disappointment, 1986's Nine Lives would be Raitt's last new recording for Warner Bros.
In late 1987 she joined k.d. lang and Jennifer Warnes as female background vocals for Roy Orbison's television special, Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night. By now, Raitt was clean and sober, having broken her substance abuse — for which she would credit Stevie Ray Vaughan in a Minnesota State Fair concert[1] the night after Vaughan's 1990 death. Following this highly acclaimed broadcast, she began working on new material. During this time, Raitt considered signing with Prince's own label, Paisley Park, but negotiations would ultimately fall through. Instead she began recording a bluesy mix of pop and rock under the production guidance of Don Was at Capitol Records.
Raitt had met Was through Hal Wilner, who was putting together Stay Awake, a tribute album to Disney music for A&M. Was and Wilner both wanted Raitt to sing lead on an adult-contemporary arrangement created by Was for "Baby Mine," the lullaby from Dumbo. Raitt was very pleased with the sessions, and she asked Don to produce her next album.
After more than twenty years of singing and recording popular music, Bonnie Raitt achieved immense success with her 10th album. Released in 1989, Nick of Time went to the top of the U.S. charts and won three Grammy Awards. At the same time, she walked away with a fourth Grammy Award for her duet "In the Mood" with John Lee Hooker on his album "The Healer".
She followed up this success with three more Grammy Awards for her 1991 album, Luck of the Draw, then, in 1994 she added two more Grammy's with her album Longing in Their Hearts. Both of these albums were multiplatinum successes. Raitt's collaboration with Was would amicably come to an end with 1995's live release, Road Tested. Released to solid reviews, it sold well enough to be certified gold.
For her next studio album, Raitt hired Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake as her producers. "I loved working with Don Was but I wanted to give myself and my fans a stretch and do something different," Raitt said. Her work with Froom and Blake was released on Fundamental in 1998.
In March of 2000, Raitt was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Silver Lining was released in 2002 while Souls Alike was released in September of 2005.
I Thought I Was A Child
Bonnie Raitt Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
With which you do your sorcery
As if somehow your years
Would bow and let that young boy go free
Well, I thought I was a child until you turned and smiled
I thought I knew where I was going
Until I heard your laughter flowing
Well, I've spent my whole life running 'round
Chasing songs from town to town
Thinking I'd be free by just never
Let love slow me down
So lonely and so wild until you turned and smiled
By now I should have long been gone
But here I am holding on
As if I didn't know which way to run
Well, it's such a clever innocence
With which you show myself to me
As if you know how it feels
To never be who you wanted to be
And I thought I was a child until you turned and smiled
I thought that I'd free but I'm just one more prisoner of time
Alone within the boundaries of my mind
I thought I was a child
"I Thought I Was A Child" is a ballad by Bonnie Raitt that explores themes of innocence, young love, and the elusive search for freedom. The song begins with Raitt admiring the way her lover possesses a clever kind of innocence that allows him to do his sorcery, almost as if he were still a child. She suggests that perhaps his youthfulness is the reason why he's able to move so freely and unencumbered, whereas she, having spent her whole life chasing songs from town to town, has always felt confined and restrained in some way.
However, the second stanza reveals that Raitt has been mistaken in her belief that she herself was free. She realizes that she was still a child until she met her lover and saw him smile. His laughter and wisdom have opened her eyes, surprising her with a newfound understanding of the world. She observes how she's spent her life running around, thinking that freedom would come if she just avoided anything that might slow her down but admits that she's been lonely and lost without that deeper connection that love provides.
The final verse sees Raitt coming to terms with her own limitations and acknowledging that her lover's innocence is in fact a clever one. As she realizes that he has shown her a part of herself that she didn't even know existed, she finally accepts that she's not the free spirit she'd always thought herself to be. Instead, she's become another prisoner of time, trapped within the boundaries of her own mind.
Line by Line Meaning
It's such a clever innocence
The way you use your youth and naivety to your advantage is really impressive.
With which you do your sorcery
It's like you're performing magic with your innocent facade.
As if somehow your years
Even though you're young, you still seem to have a lot of wisdom beyond your years.
Would bow and let that young boy go free
Your innocence has the power to make others forget their age and responsibilities and feel free like a child again.
Well, I thought I was a child until you turned and smiled
Before I met you, I still felt like a child but you changed my perspective on life.
I thought I knew where I was going
I was confident in my path in life before meeting you.
Until I heard your laughter flowing
Your laughter made me realize that there's more to life than what I had planned.
And came upon the wisdom in your eyes, surprise
I was surprised to see the amount of wisdom you have gained at such a young age.
Well, I've spent my whole life running 'round
I've spent my entire life chasing after things nonstop without stopping to appreciate what's in front of me.
Chasing songs from town to town
I've been pursuing my music career all over the place with no direction.
Thinking I'd be free by just never
I thought that by not allowing love to affect me, I'd be able to stay free and unbound.
Let love slow me down
I thought love was something that would slow me down and hold me back.
So lonely and so wild until you turned and smiled
Before meeting you, I was anxious and felt like I was constantly chasing something without a sense of direction.
By now I should have long been gone
By my age, I thought I'd have moved on from my restless ways.
But here I am holding on
Despite that, I find myself holding on to you and your influence on me.
As if I didn't know which way to run
I'm uncertain of my future now that you've shown me a wider range of possibilities.
Well, it's such a clever innocence
Your innocence is both cunning and brilliant.
With which you show myself to me
You're able to reveal different parts of myself to me in a unique way.
As if you know how it feels
It's as if you understand the sense of not being able to be your true self.
To never be who you wanted to be
To not live the life you've always wanted to live.
And I thought I was a child until you turned and smiled
Before meeting you, I was naive and unaware of what life had to offer.
I thought that I'd free but I'm just one more prisoner of time
I thought that I was free, but now I see that I'm limited by time and the things that come from it.
Alone within the boundaries of my mind
I'm stuck in my own thoughts and haven't been able to expand my mind until meeting you.
I thought I was a child
I thought that I had the world at my fingertips and was untouchable.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: Jackson Browne
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind