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".
Lua
Gillian Welch Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴
I keep waving at the taxis; they keep turning their
Lights off
But Julie knows a party at some actor's west side loft
Supplies are endless in the evening; by the morning
They'll be gone.
When everything gets lonely I can be my own best friend
Conversations
With the sidewalk and the pigeons and my window
Reflection
The mask I polish in the evening, by the morning looks
Like shit.
I know you have a heavy heart; I can feel it when we
Kiss
So many men much stronger than me have thrown their
Backs out trying to lift it
But me I'm not gamble you can count on me to split
The love I sell you in the evening, by the morning
Won't exist.
You're looking skinny like a model with your eyes all
Painted black
You just keep going to the bathroom always say you'll
Be right back
Well it takes one to know one, kid, I think you've got
It bad
But what's so easy in the evening, by the morning is
Such a drag.
I've got a flask inside my pocket we can share it on
The train
If you promise to stay conscious I will try and do the
Same
We might die from medication, but we sure killed all
The pain
But what was normally in the evening, by the morning
Seems insane.
And I'm not sure what the trouble was that started all
Of this
The reasons have run away but the feeling never did
It's not something I would recommend, but it is one way
To live
Cause what is simple in the moonlight, by the morning
Never is
What's so simple in the moonlight, by the morning is so
Complicated.
What's so simple in the moonlight, so simple in the
Moonlight
"Lua" by Gillian Welch is a melancholic and introspective song that delves into themes of loneliness, self-medication, and the complexities of relationships. The lyrics portray a sense of longing, desperation, and the struggle to find solace in one's own company.
The opening lines suggest a cold and desolate atmosphere, hinting at a difficult or challenging situation. The singer is in search of a party, possibly as a means to escape their own solitude. However, the temporary pleasure found in the nighttime will fade away by morning, leaving them empty once again.
The second verse introduces the idea of self-reliance and the singer's ability to find comfort in their own solitude. They create their own world through conversations with the sidewalk, pigeons, and their own reflection. However, this self-created facade eventually crumbles, and the mask they wear at night reveals its flaws in the light of day.
The sense of empathy towards a partner comes through in the third verse. The singer acknowledges the burden their loved one carries, feeling their heaviness when they kiss. While others may have tried and failed to ease their partner's pain, the singer doesn't make any promises that they can fix it either. The love they offer is temporary and will vanish by morning.
The fourth verse highlights the self-destructive tendencies of the singer's partner. They appear physically ill, constantly retreating to the bathroom, and their dark-painted eyes reflect their inner turmoil. The singer can see through their partner's struggles because they have experienced it themselves, yet they recognize the addictive and destructive nature of those behaviors.
Continuing in the fifth verse, the singer suggests using alcohol as a means to cope. They offer their flask to share on the train, conditional on their partner's ability to remain conscious. The hope is that the intoxication will numb their pain and troubles, though they are aware it may come with its own risks and consequences.
The final verse reflects on the origins of the troubles and the inability to fully comprehend or explain them. While the reasons may have faded away, the lingering emotions remain. The singer acknowledges that their way of living may not be ideal or recommended, but it is one way to navigate through life. They conclude that what seems simple and attainable in the moonlight becomes much more complex and elusive in the harsh light of day.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: Conor Oberst
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind