Welch and Rawlings have collaborated on seven critically acclaimed albums, five released under her name, and two released under the name Dave Rawlings Machine. Her 1996 debut, Revival, and the 2001 release Time (The Revelator), received nominations for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Her 2003 album, Soul Journey, introduced electric guitar, drums, and a more upbeat sound to their body of work. After a gap of eight years, she released a fifth studio album, The Harrow & The Harvest, in 2011, which was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album.
Welch was an associate producer and performed on two songs of the soundtrack of the Coen brothers 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a platinum album that won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. She also appeared in the film attempting to buy a Soggy Bottom Boys record. Welch, while not one of the principal actors, did sing and provide additional lyrics to the Sirens song "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby." In 2018 she and Rawlings wrote the song "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" for the Coens' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, for which they received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Welch has collaborated and recorded with Alison Krauss, Ryan Adams, Jay Farrar, Emmylou Harris, the Decemberists, Sam Phillips, Conor Oberst, Ani DiFranco, and Robyn Hitchcock.
Gillian Howard Welch was born on October 2, 1967 in New York City, and was adopted by Mitzie Welch (née Marilyn Cottle) and Ken Welch, comedy and music entertainers. Her biological mother was a freshman in college, and her father was a musician visiting New York City. Welch has speculated that her biological father could have been one of her favorite musicians, and she later discovered from her adoptive parents that he was a drummer. Alec Wilkinson of The New Yorker stated that "from an address they had been given, it appeared that her mother ... may have grown up in the mountains of North Carolina". When Welch was three, her adoptive parents moved to Los Angeles to write music for The Carol Burnett Show. They also appeared on The Tonight Show.
As a child, Welch was introduced to the music of American folk singers Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Carter Family. She performed folk songs with her peers at the Westland Elementary School in Los Angeles. Welch later attended Crossroads School, a high school in Santa Monica, California. While in high school, a local television program featured her as a student who "excelled at everything she did."
Welch and Rawlings incorporate elements of early twentieth century music such as old time, classic country, gospel and traditional bluegrass with modern elements of rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll, jazz, and punk rock. The New Yorker's Alec Wilkinson maintained their musical style is "not easily classified—it is at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms".
The instrumentation on their songs is usually a simple arrangement, with Welch and Rawlings accompanying their own vocals with acoustic guitars, banjos, or a mandolin. Welch plays rhythm guitar with a 1956 Gibson J-50 (or banjo), while Rawlings plays lead on a 1935 Epiphone Olympic Guitar.The New Yorker's Wilkinson described Rawlings as a "strikingly inventive guitarist" who plays solos that are "daring melodic leaps". A review in No Depression by Andy Moore observed that Rawlings "squeezes, strokes, chokes and does just about everything but blow into" his guitar.
Many songs performed by Welch and Rawlings contain dark themes about social outcasts struggling against such elements as poverty, drug addiction, death, a disconnection from their family, and an unresponsive God. Despite Welch being the lead singer, several of these characters are male. Welch has commented, "To be commercial, everybody wants happy love songs. People would flat-out ask me, 'Don't you have any happy love songs?' Well, as a matter of fact, I don't. I've got songs about orphans and morphine addicts." To reflect these themes, Welch and Rawlings often employ a slow pace to their songs. Their tempo is compared to a "slow heartbeat", and Cowperthwait of Rolling Stone observed that their songs "can lull you into near-hypnosis and then make your jaw drop with one final revelation".
Lowlands
Gillian Welch Lyrics
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Like a fire on the hillside she shown
And I knew right then that my best days were gone
And I'd been, been in the lowlands too long
[Chorus]
Oh I've been in the lowlands too long
Oh, I know, I know that I should go
This is not how it was at the start
There's a doubt and a blame in my heart
And it's no one else, no fault but my own
And I've been in the low lands too long
[Chorus]
What is this weight in my mind
And what is this new sense of time
It's the open fields and the friends that are gone
And I've been in the lowlands too long
I can sing out at all sing a song
I can do nothing all the day long
But I can't so right and I know I'm wrong
And I've been in the lowlands too long
[Chorus]
The song Lowlands by Gillian Welch is a reflection on the passage of time and the sense of being stuck in one place for too long. Welch introduces us to a girl on the street, who she compares to a fire on the hillside. This girl possibly represents youth, vitality, and potential, something that Welch once had but feels she has lost. Welch reminisces about her past, her best days that are now gone, and realizes that she has been in the lowlands, perhaps a metaphor for a stagnant or unfulfilling place, for far too long. The chorus echoes this sentiment, expressing a desire to leave the lowlands and move on.
As the song progresses, Welch admits that the current state is not how it was at the start. There's a sense of doubt and blame in her heart, and she recognizes that it's her own fault that she's been in the lowlands for too long. In other words, Welch blames herself for not taking action and making changes in her life that would have allowed her to move beyond her current situation.
Welch concludes the song by questioning the weight in her mind, the new sense of time, and the loss of open fields and friends. She acknowledges that she can sing and do nothing all day long, but she knows that something is not right, and she's been in the lowlands for too long.
Overall, Lowlands is a poignant and introspective song that speaks to the universal experience of feeling stuck in one place or time and not knowing how to move on.
Line by Line Meaning
Saw a girl on the street from my home
I saw a girl on the street close to my home
Like a fire on the hillside she shown
She was shining like a fire on the hillside
And I knew right then that my best days were gone
I felt that my best days were over in that moment
And I'd been, been in the lowlands too long
I realized that I had been in a low place for too long
Oh I've been in the lowlands too long
I have been feeling down and low for a while now
Oh, I know, I know that I should go
I am aware that I should leave this place
And I've been in the lowlands too long
I have been stuck here for too long
This is not how it was at the start
Things were not like this in the beginning
There's a doubt and a blame in my heart
I doubt myself and blame myself for this situation
And it's no one else, no fault but my own
It is not anyone else's fault but my own
And I've been in the low lands too long
I have been stuck in this low place for too long
What is this weight in my mind
I wonder about the heaviness in my mind
And what is this new sense of time
I feel like time has suddenly changed
It's the open fields and the friends that are gone
I miss the open fields and friends who are not around anymore
And I've been in the lowlands too long
I have been feeling down for too long
I can sing out at all sing a song
I can sing and express myself
I can do nothing all the day long
I can spend the entire day doing nothing
But I can't so right and I know I'm wrong
However, I am struggling to do the right thing and I know it
And I've been in the lowlands too long
I am still feeling down and stuck in this low place
Oh, I've been in the lowlands too long
I have been feeling low and down for an extended period
Oh, I know, I know that I should go
I am fully aware that I need to leave this place
And I've been in the lowlands too long
I have been in this low place for too long and it's time to leave
Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: DAVID TODD RAWLINGS, GILLIAN HOWARD WELCH
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind