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.”
The Love That We Need
Hayes Carll Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I say 'me too'
We don't think much about it
It's just a thing that we do
We go out walking
We don't talk much
We lie down together
Oh baby it's a hard way
It's an eternity
We got the life that we wanted
Not the love that we need
We never go to bed angry
Cause we never fight
Yeah we never go crazy
In the middle of the night
We could stay here forever
Just holding on
We both had our reasons
But our reasons are gone
Oh baby it's a hard way
It's an eternity
We got the life that we wanted
Not the love that we need
In our hearts we knew better
But we couldn't let go
Now it's time to quit our island
What we've always known
If something was missing
We were too scared to look
Too busy telling our stories
Instead of writing the book
Oh baby it's a hard way
It's an eternity
We got the life that we wanted
Not the love that we need
Oh baby it's a hard way
It's an eternity
We got the life that we wanted
Not the love that we need
The opening lyrics of "The Love That We Need" by Hayes Carll paint a picture of a relationship that has become stale and stagnant. The couple has settled into a routine and the words "I love you" have lost their meaning. They might say it, but it's just a habit, something they do without thinking about it. They still spend time together, but it feels forced and there is a lack of connection between them. Hayes Carll's vivid imagery captures the emotions and the sense of emptiness that can come from being in a relationship that lacks real love and intimacy.
As the song progresses, we get a sense of the desperation and sadness that the singer feels. They are aware of the problem, but they don't know how to fix it. They have built a life together, but it is not enough. They have the material things they wanted, but they lack the emotional fulfillment that they need. The lyrics "we got the life that we wanted, not the love that we need" speak to the idea that we often focus on the material aspects of our lives, and neglect the intangible qualities that make us truly happy.
The closing lyrics of the song are a call to action. The singer acknowledges that they have been living on an "island" and that it's time to leave. They are ready to take a chance and search for the love and connection that they have been missing. This song is a powerful reminder that sometimes we need to take risks and make changes in our lives in order to find true happiness.
Line by Line Meaning
You say 'I love you'
When you express your love for me
I say 'me too'
I reciprocate those feelings
We don't think much about it
The words come out automatically without much consideration
It's just a thing that we do
It's become a habit that we repeat without much thought
We go out walking
We spend time together outside
We don't talk much
Our conversations are brief and infrequent
We lie down together
We share a bed at night
But our hearts never touch
Our emotional connection is lacking
Oh baby it's a hard way
It's a difficult situation
It's an eternity
It feels like it's been going on forever
We got the life that we wanted
Our current situation may be satisfactory
Not the love that we need
But we're missing a crucial component - true love and emotional fulfillment
We never go to bed angry
We don't hold grudges overnight
Cause we never fight
We avoid conflicts and disagreements
Yeah we never go crazy
We don't lose control or act irrationally
In the middle of the night
Even in the wee hours of the morning
We could stay here forever
It's a comfortable situation
Just holding on
We're staying together out of habit, not true love or passion
We both had our reasons
We entered into this situation with good intentions
But our reasons are gone
But now those reasons no longer apply or seem important
In our hearts we knew better
Deep down, we knew that something was missing
But we couldn't let go
But we didn't have the courage to end things
Now it's time to quit our island
It's time to leave our current situation
What we've always known
Even though it's familiar and comfortable
If something was missing
If we felt like we were lacking something important
We were too scared to look
We were too frightened to address the problem head-on
Too busy telling our stories
We were too preoccupied with our own narratives
Instead of writing the book
To truly build a fulfilling relationship from scratch
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: ALLISON MOORER, HAYES CARLL, JACK INGRAM
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind