As well, it nearly took him that long to find his own style. Hiatt began his solo career in 1974, and over the next decade he ran through a number of different styles from rock & roll to new wave-esque pop before he finally settled on a rootsy fusion of rock, country, blues, and folk with his 1987 album 'Bring the Family'. Though the album didn't set the charts on fire, it became his first album to gain some major commercial success, and several of the songs on the record became hits for other artists, including the aforementioned Raitt and Milsap. Following its success, Hiatt became a reliable hit songwriter for other artists, and he developed a strong cult following that continued to gain strength into the mid-90s.
While he was growing up in his hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana, Hiatt played in a number of garage bands. Initially, he was inspired by the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, and the music of those two artists would echo strongly throughout his work. Out of all the bar bands he played with in the late 60s, a group called The White Ducks was the one that received the most attention. Following his high-school graduation, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee at the age of 18, where he landed a job as a songwriter for Tree Publishing.
For the next several years, he wrote and performed at local clubs and hotels. Within a few years, his songs were being recorded by several different artists, including Conway Twitty, Tracy Nelson, and Three Dog Night, who took Hiatt's "Sure as I'm Sittin' Here" to number 16 in the summer of 1974. Eventually, his manager secured him an audition at Epic Records, and the label signed him in 1974, releasing his debut album, Hangin' Around the Observatory, later that year. Despite their critical acclaim, neither Hangin' Around the Observatory nor its 1975 follow-up Overcoats sold many copies, and he was dropped by the label. By the end of the year, Tree Publishing had let him go as well.
Following his failure in Nashville, Hiatt moved out to California. By the summer of 1978 he had settled in Los Angeles, where began playing in clubs, opening for folk musicians including Leo Kottke. With Kottke's assistance, Hiatt hired a new manager, Denny Bruce, who helped him secure a record contract with MCA Records. Slug Line, his first record for MCA, was released in the summer of 1979. Where his first two records were straight-ahead rock & roll and folk-rock, Slug Line was in the new wave vein of angry English singer/songwriters like Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, and Joe Jackson, as if Hiatt was vying for the role of the American angry young man. The new approach earned some strong reviews, yet it failed to generate any sales. Two Bit Monsters, his second MCA album, faced the same situation. Although it was well-received critically upon its 1980 release, it made no impression on the charts, and the label dropped him.
Apart from working on Two Bit Monsters, Hiatt spent most of 1980 as a member of Ry Cooder's backing band, playing rhythm guitar on the Borderline album and touring with the guitarist. Hiatt stayed with Cooder throughout 1981, signing a new contract with Geffen Records by the end of the year. Produced by Tony Visconti (David Bowie, T. Rex), his Geffen debut All of A Sudden was released in 1982, followed by the Nick Lowe/Scott Matthews & Ron Nagel-produced Riding With the King in 1983. As with his previous records for Epic and MCA, neither of his first two Geffen releases sold well. By this time, Hiatt's personal life was beginning to spin out of control as he was sinking deep into alcoholism. Around the time he completed 1985's Warming Up to the Ice Age, his second wife committed suicide. Following the release of Warming Up to the Ice Age, Hiatt was dropped by Geffen. By the end of 1985, he had entered a rehabilitation program. During 1986, he remarried and signed a new deal with A&M Records.
For his A&M debut, Hiatt assembled a small band comprising his former associates Ry Cooder (guitar), Nick Lowe (bass), and Jim Keltner (drums). Recorded over the course of a handful of days, the resulting album, Bring the Family, had a direct, stripped-down rootsy sound that differed greatly from his earlier albums. Upon its summer 1987 release, Bring the Family received the best reviews of his career and, for once, the reviews began to pay off, as the album turned into a cult hit, peaking at 107 on the U.S. charts; it was his first charting album. Hiatt attempted to record a follow-up with Cooder, Lowe, and Keltner, but the musicians failed to agree on the financial terms for the sessions. Undaunted, he recorded an album with John Doe, David Lindley, and Dave Mattacks, but he scrapped the completed project, deciding that the result was too forced. Hiatt's final attempt at recording the follow-up to Bring the Family was orchestrated by veteran producer Glyn Johns, who had him record with his touring band, the Goners. Despite all of the behind-the-scenes troubles behind its recording, the follow-up album, Slow Turning, actually appeared rather quickly, appearing in the summer of 1988.
Slow Turning, like Bring the Family before it, received nearly unanimous positive reviews and it was fairly well-received commercially, spending 31 weeks on the U.S. charts and peaking at 98. Within the next year, Hiatt successfully toured throughout America and Europe, strengthening his fan base along the way. Inspired by the success of Hiatt's two A&M albums, Geffen released the compilation Y' All Caught? The Ones That Got Away 1979-85 in 1989. That same year, other artists began digging through Hiatt's catalog of songs, most notably Bonnie Raitt, who covered "Thing Called Love" for her multi-platinum comeback album, Nick of Time.
In 1990, Hiatt returned with Stolen Moments, which was nearly as successful as Slow Turning, both critically and commercially. "Bring Back Your Love to Me," an album track from Stolen Moments that was also recorded by Earl Thomas Conley, won BMI's 1991 Country Music Award. By the time "Bring Back Your Love to Me" won that award, it had become a standard practice for artists to cover Hiatt's songs, as artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Ronnie Milsap, Suzy Bogguss, and Iggy Pop all covered his songs in the early '90s. In 1993, Rhino Records released Love Gets Strange: The Songs of John Hiatt, which collected many of the cover versions that were recorded during the '80s and '90s.
During 1991, the group that recorded Bring the Family — Hiatt, Cooder, Lowe, and Keltner — re-formed as a band called Little Village, releasing their eponymous debut in early 1992. Based on the success of Bring the Family and Hiatt's A&M albums, expectations for Little Village were quite high, yet the record and its supporting tour were considered a major disappointment. Later, the individual members would agree that the band was a failure, mainly due to conflicting egos.
Hiatt decided to back away from the superstar nature of Little Village for his next album, 1993's Perfectly Good Guitar. Recorded in just two weeks with a backing band comprised of members of alternative rock bands School of Fish and Wire Train, the album was looser than any record since Bring the Family, but it didn't quite have the staying power of its two predecessors, spending only 11 weeks on the charts and peaking at number 47. The following year, he released his first live album, Hiatt Comes Alive at Budokan? Hiatt left A&M Records after the release of the record, signing with Capitol Records the following year.
Walk On, Hiatt's first Capitol album, was recorded during his supporting tour for Perfectly Good Guitar and featured guest appearances by the Jayhawks and Bonnie Raitt. Walk On entered the charts at 48, but slipped off the charts in nine weeks, indicating that his audience had settled into a dedicated cult following. Fittingly, after 1997's Little Head quickly came and went in the marketplace, Hiatt parted ways with Capitol, and his next album, 2000's Crossing Muddy Waters was released on the established independent imprint Vanguard Records. After a second album with Vanguard, The Tiki Bar Is Open, Hiatt alligned himself with another independent label, New West, for the release of his 2003 set Beneath This Gruff Exterior. Master of Disaster, along with CD and DVD versions of Live from Austin, TX followed in 2005.
Same Old Man followed in 2008; then The Open Road in 2010.
I'm A Real Man
John Hiatt Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I'm a real man, don't even know where the boys are
I don't want to frighten you little girl, you're so sweet and nice
But I don't want to have to tell you twice
I'm a real man, I want to rock like a real man
Don't get no shock from that
Elevator music in your computer program
Yes I'm a real man, baby, I'm not lyin'
I'm thirty-one years old now and I still don't mind dyin'
You can put the voodoo on me, girl
There's nothing I can't dodge
Check out this Lincoln in my garage
Kids, these days, I'm talkin' about these young folk
They're about as wild as Pollyanna after she growed up
After a hard day at the Casiotone they just don't want to live
They're about as dangerous as a junior executive
I'm a real man, I want to rock like a real man
Don't get no shock from that
Elevator music in your computer program
Baby, how'd you like to rock with a real man?
Every dollar I earn, girl, I let it all burn
And if I wind up in jail
Well there's only one of two thousand, seven hundred and sixty-two women that I know
Who would gladly pay my bail
Now you might say I'm just some fool on a boast
But I wasn't gonna hear ya girl from coast to coast
This ain't Dan Rather talkin', this ain't the president's son
But, ah, I'm still gonna have my fun
Cause' I'm a real man, I got to rock like a real man
Don't get no shock from that
Elevator music in your computer program
Baby, how'd you like to rock with a real man?
Turn off that elevator music, in your computer program
Baby, how'd you
like to rock with a real man?
The lyrics of John Hiatt's "I'm A Real Man" are a tongue-in-cheek declaration of masculinity, played out over a driving rock beat. Hiatt emphasizes his manliness, bragging about his real guitar, his ability to rock like a real man, and his garage with a Lincoln parked inside. He contrasts himself with the young folk of today, who he considers less wild and less dangerous than a junior executive. Throughout the song, Hiatt sings about his fearlessness and his willingness to live life on the edge, insisting that he's not just boasting but simply having his fun.
At the same time, the lyrics are also humorous and self-aware, with Hiatt poking fun at both himself and the larger idea of what it means to be a "real man." He acknowledges that he doesn't know where the boys are, and that he doesn't want to frighten the little girl he's singing to. He also suggests that his braggadocio might be viewed as just empty talk, but that he doesn't really care. The song's overarching message is that let's not take ourselves too seriously, and that it's okay to revel in the idea of being a real man without being completely tied to it.
Line by Line Meaning
I'm a real man, I got a real guitar
I pride myself on being a true man with a genuine guitar.
I'm a real man, don't even know where the boys are
I'm so confident in my masculinity that I don't need to know where the other guys are.
I don't want to frighten you little girl, you're so sweet and nice
I don't want to scare you, but I also don't want to have to repeat myself.
But I don't want to have to tell you twice
Please listen to what I am saying the first time around.
I'm a real man, I want to rock like a real man
As a true man, I aspire to rock hard.
Don't get no shock from that
I hope my desire to rock doesn't come as a surprise to you.
Elevator music in your computer program
I find computer-generated elevator music to be dull and unfulfilling.
Baby, how'd you like to rock with a real man?
Would you enjoy rocking with a genuine man like me?
Yes I'm a real man, baby, I'm not lyin'
I truly believe myself to be a real man and am not lying about it.
I'm thirty-one years old now and I still don't mind dyin'
I'm not afraid of death at 31 years old.
You can put the voodoo on me, girl
You can try to put a spell on me, but I will find a way to avoid it.
There's nothing I can't dodge
I am confident in my ability to avoid any curses or obstacles.
Check out this Lincoln in my garage
I want to show off my car, which is a Lincoln and a source of pride for me.
Kids, these days, I'm talkin' about these young folk
I'm referring to young people these days.
They're about as wild as Pollyanna after she growed up
They are not as wild as you might expect.
After a hard day at the Casiotone they just don't want to live
After a tough day, they have little desire to enjoy life to its fullest.
They're about as dangerous as a junior executive
They are not very threatening or menacing.
Every dollar I earn, girl, I let it all burn
I enjoy spending every dollar I make rather than saving it for later.
And if I wind up in jail
If I end up in jail for my actions, so be it.
Well there's only one of two thousand, seven hundred and sixty-two women that I know
Out of all the women I know, only one of them would potentially bail me out of jail.
Who would gladly pay my bail
This woman is willing to help me out if needed.
Now you might say I'm just some fool on a boast
You may think I'm just bragging and talking big for no good reason.
But I wasn't gonna hear ya girl from coast to coast
I refuse to listen to anyone who doubts my masculinity or my abilities.
This ain't Dan Rather talkin', this ain't the president's son
I'm not a public figure and I don't have to worry about the consequences of my words in the same way as they do.
But, ah, I'm still gonna have my fun
Regardless, I will continue to enjoy myself and have a good time.
Turn off that elevator music, in your computer program
I'm tired of the monotony of elevator music on computers.
Baby, how'd you like to rock with a real man?
Would you like to experience true rock and roll with a genuine man like me?
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: JOHN HIATT
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind