Carll has toured relentlessly in North America and abroad (performing over two hundred shows a year), founded a successful singer-songwriter music festival on the Gulf Coast of Texas, secured a record deal with Lost Highway Records, and has even seen his album Little Rock become the first self-released album to reach #1 on the Americana Music Chart.
"When I started, I moved down to this place called Crystal Beach, Texas where you need to take a ferry from Galveston across the bay to get to this little peninsula on the Gulf of Mexico," recalls Carll, who grew up just outside Houston. "It's this isolated coastal community with a wild assortment of people either hiding out, hanging on or getting lost-- a lot of drugs and drinking, a fair amount of violence, but at the same time a lot of really interesting people with great stories to tell. Folks in the bars there weren't necessarily interested in what I had to say as a songwriter-- they wanted to hear David Allan Coe and Merle Haggard, and other stuff they knew. So that's what I did six nights a week for four years. I haven't run into tougher crowds since. It was an initiation into becoming a performer."
Those experiences not only gave Carll a thick skin, they gave him plenty of material to spin into songs like the low-slung, finger-picked blues "I Got a Gig" -- populated by characters like the "barefoot shrimper with a pistol up his sleeve" -- and the tear-in-your-beer waltz "Beaumont," in which a suitor bearing a single white rose makes a fruitless trip to try to win over a lady love. Carll says of the latter tune. "I like to try to tackle a heavy topic but do it with a light touch. The more personal, weightier stuff doesn't come as easy, even though that's what I like to think about the most."
Carll has developed that touch over a long stretch that began when he was still in his teens, a stretch he spent writing poems, short stories and songs by the notebook-full. He eventually discovered that the last of those three flowed from him most easily, and while he dutifully headed off to college, he spent more time strumming and singing. To hear him tell it, "I sort of sabotaged my career options to the point where, by the time I was out of school, I was pretty much unemployable and had no choice but to be a musician."
After moving to the Gulf Coast, Carll honed his craft in the area bars and beer-joints as well as more serious folk clubs like the venerable Old Quarter in Galveston, where he opened for a wide array of respected songwriters such as Ray Wylie Hubbard, Willis Alan Ramsay and many others. By 2002, he was ready to unleash his recorded indie debut, Flowers and Liquor, which, while not widely distributed, garnered plenty of critical praise, including American Songwriter's claim that the disc "suggests the young Texan might be the next great songwriter from a state full of maestros."
He lived up to that praise on his next outing, Little Rock, an offering on which Carll showed off his stylistic breadth by steering his band from searing rock to jazz-tinged balladry -- a scope that earned praise both at home and across the pond, where the Irish Times raved "This is the first mighty country record of the year, a bruised, bedraggled affair full of jagged memories and wry observations."
On his 2008 album Trouble In Mind, there's a much sharper focus to the material, thanks in part, to more time in the studio and some great players sure to be familiar to roots-rock aficionados, including, Dan Baird, Darrell Scott, Will Kimbrough and former Flying Burrito Brother Al Perkins.
“My first record I did in five days, and my second one we did in twelve," Carll explains. "This time around I had a solid month, so it was really a luxury. It was amazing to get all these talented people in the room and have them listen to me describe my vision and then go out and try to realize that and capture it on tape. My strength isn't that I have the world's most amazing voice or that I'm this incredible player -- hopefully it's that there's some aspect of my personality and my lyrics that people can relate to."
Carll’s personality, emotional but never too sentimental, mischievous, funny, world-weary and sardonic, imbues every track of Trouble in Mind. He’s never afraid to be vulnerable and direct, as on one of the standout tracks, “Willing to Love Again” - “I feel too much, I protect too much, most times I probably expect too much. I spend my life on this broken crutch, and you believe I can fly.”
Carll's 2011 album KMAG YOYO (& Other American Stories) was The album includes "Another Like You," a duet with Cary Ann Hearst The L.A. Times described the album as "Carll is every bit as expressive a singer as he is a writer, drawling his trenchant observations with deceptive ease."
Carll’s live performances continue to win over fans everywhere. His clever, irreverent lyrics and sharp observations combined with his warm Texas drawl make his stories and anecdotes as compelling and entertaining as his songs. There’s that sweet taste of honey followed with the sharp sting of a wisecrack. Never is that tongue-in-cheek humor more obvious than on the red neck rant “She Left Me For Jesus”, where a clueless lover is upset and suspicious over the changes in his girlfriend. “Now she’s acting funny and I don’t understand. I think that she’s found her some other man. She’s left me for Jesus, and that just ain’t fair. She says that he’s perfect, how can I compare?” “You know I’m always a little nervous when I sing that song. Like Ray Wiley Hubbard says, the problem with irony is that people don’t always get it.”
Bad Liver And A Broken Heart
Hayes Carll Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I'd love to stick around and maybe make it worse
I got a girl out in Henrietta
And her love's like tornado weather
It's girls like this that keep me trying
She goes off like an air-raid siren
Come in cleanly torn apart
A bad liver and a broken heart
Indian summer, Oklahoma sunset
If there's a nicer place I haven't been there yet
I'm standing outside of the, the Blue Door
Too tired to sleep
Too drunk for more
It's nights like these that keep me trying
A woman always knows when a man is lying
It ain't me, I'm just playing a part
A bad liver and a broken heart
A bad liver and a broken heart
I'll get old before I'm good at this
Who's the president? What year is it?
Doesn't anybody care about truth anymore?
Maybe that's what songs are for
You're the wind and I'm on fire
This line of work, no one retires
Come in cleanly torn apart
A bad liver and a broken heart
A bad liver and a broken heart
A bad liver and a broken heart
A bad liver and a broken heart
The song "Bad Liver And A Broken Heart" by Hayes Carll is a poignant reflection on life on the road as a traveling musician. The singer is exhausted and hungover, suffering from both physical and emotional pain. He longs to stay in Arkansas and drown his sorrows with a girl in Henrietta, but he knows he must keep moving. The contrast between the beauty of the Oklahoma sunset and the singer's inner turmoil is striking, as he stands outside the Blue Door, a venue where he has likely played before. He is too tired to sleep and too drunk for more, yet he soldiers on, driven by his love of music and the thrill of the road.
The lyric "A woman always knows when a man is lying / It ain't me, I'm just playing a part" suggests that the singer is not being true to himself or to the women he encounters along the way. He is trapped in a cycle of bad habits and broken relationships, fueled by alcohol and reckless behavior. The repeated refrain "a bad liver and a broken heart" drives home the message that these two things are inextricably linked, and that the singer's self-destructive tendencies are taking a toll on his physical and emotional well-being.
Overall, "Bad Liver And A Broken Heart" is a powerful meditation on the highs and lows of life as a traveling musician. It captures the sense of exhaustion and loneliness that can come with being constantly on the move, yet it also celebrates the thrill and excitement of performing for a live audience.
Line by Line Meaning
Arkansas, my head hurts
I'm in Arkansas and my head is hurting
I'd love to stick around and maybe make it worse
I wouldn't mind staying here to make myself feel worse
I got a girl out in Henrietta
There's a girl I know in Henrietta
And her love's like tornado weather
Her love is very intense and unpredictable, like a tornado
It's girls like this that keep me trying
It's women like her that motivate me to keep going
She goes off like an air-raid siren
She gets extremely upset and loud like an air-raid siren
Come in cleanly torn apart
I come into situations with my emotions and life in disarray
A bad liver and a broken heart
My constant drinking has led to a bad liver, and my heart is broken from past experiences
Indian summer, Oklahoma sunset
I'm in Oklahoma during an Indian summer, with a beautiful sunset happening
If there's a nicer place I haven't been there yet
This is a really nice spot, and I haven't been to many nicer places
I'm standing outside of the, the Blue Door
I'm standing outside of The Blue Door
Too tired to sleep
I'm too exhausted to even be able to sleep
Too drunk for more
I'm too drunk to continue drinking
It's nights like these that keep me trying
It's these types of nights that keep me motivated to continue
A woman always knows when a man is lying
Women are always able to tell if a man is lying
It ain't me, I'm just playing a part
It's not the real me, I'm just pretending to be someone else
I'll get old before I'm good at this
I don't think I'll ever get good at this, I'll just get old trying
Who's the president? What year is it?
I'm so out of it that I can't even remember basic information like who the president is or what year it is
Doesn't anybody care about truth anymore?
I'm questioning whether or not people care about the truth anymore
Maybe that's what songs are for
Maybe the point of songs is to speak about the truth
You're the wind and I'm on fire
You are thrashing about while I burn with a slow-burning passion
This line of work, no one retires
No one ever retires from this type of job
A bad liver and a broken heart
My life is consumed by alcoholism and a broken heart
A bad liver and a broken heart
My life is consumed by alcoholism and a broken heart
A bad liver and a broken heart
My life is consumed by alcoholism and a broken heart
A bad liver and a broken heart
My life is consumed by alcoholism and a broken heart
Lyrics © JALMA MUSIC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Scott Nolan
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind