Yoakam was born in Pikeville, Kentucky, the son of Ruth Ann, a key-punch operator, and David Yoakam, a gas-station owner. He was raised in Columbus, Ohio. He graduated from Columbus's Northland High School in 1974. During his high school years, he excelled in both music and drama, regularly securing the lead role in school plays, such as "Charlie" in a stage version of Flowers for Algernon, honing his skills under the guidance of teacher-mentors Jerry McAfee (music) and Charles Lewis (drama). Outside of school, Yoakam sang and played guitar with local garage bands, and entertained his friends and classmates with his impersonations, such as Richard Nixon, who, at the time, was heavily embroiled in the Watergate controversy.
Yoakam briefly attended Ohio State University, but dropped out and moved to Nashville in 1977 with the intent of becoming a recording artist. Later on, Ohio Valley University in Parkersburg, West Virginia awarded and presented Dwight with an honorary doctorate degree on May 7, 2005.
When he began his career, Nashville was oriented toward pop "urban cowboy" music, and Yoakam's brand of hip honky tonk music was not considered marketable.
Not making much headway in Nashville, Yoakam moved to Los Angeles and worked towards bringing his particular brand of new Honky Tonk or "Hillbilly" music (as he called it) forward into the 1980s. Writing all his own songs, and continuing to perform mostly outside traditional country music channels, Yoakam did many shows in rock and punk rock clubs around Los Angeles, playing with roots rock or punk rock acts like The Blasters (Yoakam scored a small video hit with his version of their song "Long White Cadillac"), Los Lobos, and X. This helped him diversify his audience beyond the typical country music fans, and his authentic, groundbreaking music is often credited with rock audiences accepting country music.
Yoakam's recording debut was the self-financed EP Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. on independent label Oak Records produced by lead-guitarist Pete Anderson; this was later re-released by Reprise records, with several additional tracks, as his major-label debut LP, 1986's Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.. It launched his career. "Honky Tonk Man", a remake of the Johnny Horton song, and "Guitars, Cadillacs" were hit singles. His stylish video "Honky Tonk Man" was the first country music video ever played on MTV. The follow-up LP, Hillbilly Deluxe, was just as successful. His third LP, Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room, included his first No. 1, a duet with his musical idol, Buck Owens, on "Streets of Bakersfield". 1990's If There Was a Way was another best-seller.
Yoakam's song "Readin', Rightin', Route 23" pays tribute to his childhood move from Kentucky, and is named after a local expression describing the route that rural Kentuckians took to find a job outside of the coal mines. (U.S. Route 23 runs north from Kentucky through Columbus and Toledo, Ohio and through the automotive centers of Michigan.) Rather than the standard line that their elementary schools taught "the three Rs" of "Readin', 'Ritin', and 'Rithmetic", Kentuckians used to say that the three Rs they learned were "Readin', 'Ritin, and Route 23 North".
Johnny Cash once cited Yoakam as his favorite country singer. Chris Isaak called him as good a songwriter that ever put a pen to paper. Time Magazine dubbed Yoakam "A Renaissance Man" and Vanity Fair declared that "Yoakam strides the divide between rock's lust and country's lament." Along with his bluegrass and honky-tonk roots, Yoakam has written or covered many Elvis Presley-style rockabilly songs, including his covers of Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" in 1999 and Presley's "Suspicious Minds" in 1992. He recorded a cover of The Clash's "Train in Vain" in 1997, a cover of the Grateful Dead song "Truckin'", as well as Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me". Yoakam has never been associated only with Country music; on many early tours, he played with Hardcore Punk bands like Hüsker Dü, and played many shows around Los Angeles with Roots/Punk/Rock & Roll acts. His middle-period-to-later records saw him branching out to different styles, covering Rock & Roll, Punk, 1960's, Blues-based "Boogie" like ZZ Top, and writing more adventurous songs like "A Thousand Miles From Nowhere". In 2003, he provided background vocals on Warren Zevon's last album The Wind.
In the 21st century, Yoakam released dwightyoakamacoustic.net, an album featuring solo acoustic versions of many of his hits; left his major label and started his own label.
2005 saw the release of Yoakam's well-reviewed album Blame the Vain, on New West Records. Yoakam also released an album dedicated to Buck Owens, Dwight Sings Buck, on October 23, 2007. His duet with Michelle Branch, a song titled "Long Goodbye", was released as a free download on Branch's official website in early 2011.
In July 2011, Yoakam re-signed with Warner Bros. Nashville and announced plans to release a new album. 3 Pears was released on September 18, 2012 with twelve new tracks. The album, produced by Yoakam, includes collaborations with Kid Rock, Beck, and Ashley Monroe. 3 Pears was released to resounding critical acclaim and earned Yoakam the highest-charting debut of his career on the Billboard 200 and Billboard Country Albums charts. 3 Pears reached #1 on the Americana Radio chart on October 29, 2012 and went on to break the 2012 record for most weeks at #1 on Americana Radio.[4] By the end of 2012, the album was named on annual best of lists by NPR, Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, AOL's The Boot, Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice, and Rhapsody, and has been included in more critic's "best of 2012" lists than any other artist in the country genre.
Yoakam won the Grammy Award for "Best Male Country Vocal Performance" in 1993 for the song "Ain't That Lonely Yet". He was also named "Artist of the Year" by CMT Europe in 1993 and given the International Touring Artist Award by CMA in 2007.
In 2011, Yoakam received the Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award for his trailblazing achievements in the country music genre.
Lucky That Way
Dwight Yoakam Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
While What's Left Of It's Life
Slip's Away
Well any tears that get shed
Ain't worth cryin
Cause I've Seen Plenty
I'm Lucky That Way
Start to moanin'
After Despair's choked its
Last words away
Well any worse sound defies your ears even knowin'
And Lord I've Heard plenty
I'm Lucky That Way
So Wrap Your warm arms around me
And let our weak hands deal out love's sad fate
Then Press Your Soft Lips against me
And Let the first bets on new Love Be made
Have You ever watched a couple
Where one stands crying
While begging the other
To please stay
The Awful truth is
It ain't worth the tryin'
Lord I've watchd plenty
I'm Lucky that way
Lord I've watched plenty
I'm Just lucky that way
The lyrics of Dwight Yoakam's "Lucky That Way" explore the theme of resilience and the power of experience. In the first verse, Yoakam describes ambiguous sorrow, one that does not illicit tears or a particular response, because the singer has seen enough loss and heartbreak to be more hardened, more resilient than the average person. The line "Well any tears that get shed/Ain't worth cryin'" suggests that the singer has either experienced so much loss that the sadness has become numb, or that he sees the fleetingness of life and therefore tries to make the most of what he has.
The second verse is more explicit in its description of sorrow. The singer describes the sound of despair, a voice that moans after it has been choked of its last words. The line "any worse sound defies your ears even knowin'" creates the sense of utter hopelessness, a sound so terrible that it can not be comprehended, let alone imagined. However, the singer believes that he is lucky in the face of this sorrow, simply because he has experienced so much of it.
The final verse paints a picture of a situation where one person is begging another to stay. Instead of encouraging the couple to stay together, the singer suggests that it is not worth trying because one can not force someone to stay. Once again, the singer suggests that he is lucky because he has seen enough of these situations to know that one can not control love.
Overall, "Lucky That Way" suggests that the singer is lucky to have experienced so much loss and sorrow because it has made him stronger, more resilient, and more grateful for what he does have.
Line by Line Meaning
Have You Ever Heart As It LAys Dyin
Have you ever heard the sound of something dying and slipping away into nothingness?
While What's Left Of It's Life
As the last remnants of life dwindle away
Slip's Away
Dissolving into the void
Well any tears that get shed
There's no point in shedding tears for something that's already gone
Ain't worth cryin
It's not worth the emotional investment
Cause I've Seen Plenty
Because I've witnessed this happen so many times
I'm Lucky That Way
I'm fortunate to have enough perspective to not get too caught up in the pain of loss
Have You Ever Heard a voice
Have you ever heard the sound of someone's despair?
Start to moanin'
As it spirals out of control
After Despair's choked its
Once it's been suffocated by hopelessness
Last words away
And there's nothing left to say
Well any worse sound defies your ears even knowin'
There's no sound more haunting than the final gasps of a lost soul
And Lord I've Heard plenty
I've been witness to too many of these tragedies
So Wrap Your warm arms around me
Hold me close for comfort
And let our weak hands deal out love's sad fate
And together let us determine the course of our romantic journey
Then Press Your Soft Lips against me
Let's seal our love with a kiss
And Let the first bets on new Love Be made
And let's put our faith in this new relationship
Have You ever watched a couple
Have you ever seen a relationship crumble
Where one stands crying
While one partner sobs uncontrollably
While begging the other
Pleading for their partner to stay
To please stay
To salvage what's left of the relationship
The Awful truth is
But the sad reality is
It ain't worth the tryin'
It's not worth trying to hold on to something that's already over
Lord I've watched plenty
I've seen too many heartbreaks
I'm Lucky that way
I'm grateful to have the wisdom to not make the same mistakes
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: DWIGHT DAVID YOAKAM
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
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