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.
Love In Flames
John Hiatt Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Baby, you know that it ain't no big mystery
Just from where you're at
You never had these feelings to burn
You took my love and baby you turned
[Chorus:]
Is it all in my mind
This love in flame
I was up so high
Where eagles fly
I just never looked down
Oh, but you were down there
With the wind in your hair
And your feet on the ground
We might have had the stars in the sky
You never had the courage to try
[Chorus:]
Love in flames
Love in flames
Is it the same
As passion flooding in the name of love
Or is it fear of pain
When love comes crashing down from above
Tonight I lay me down to sleep
On your side of the bed
I pray so hard for somebody to keep
Keep you out of my head
But it's no use the sheets take your form
Into the dawn the ashes still warm
[Chorus:]
Love in flames
John Hiatt's Love In Flames is a poignant depiction of the fragility of love and the pain that arises when it goes wrong. The opening lines - "One in one and one makes three, Baby, you know that it ain't no big mystery" - immediately set the tone for the rest of the lyrics. The singer is lamenting the fact that the love he thought they shared was not reciprocated. He thought they were two becoming one, but she never truly felt the same way.
Line by Line Meaning
One in one and one makes three
The two of us together created something new, more than just us individually, but now it's gone
Baby, you know that it ain't no big mystery
You understand how we got here, but that doesn't make it any less painful
Just from where you're at
You never had the same feelings for me that I had for you
You never had these feelings to burn
You didn't have the same intense passion for our relationship that I did
You took my love and baby you turned
You took all the love I gave you and used it to hurt me and end our relationship
Is it all in my mind
I can't tell if the love we had was real or if I just imagined it
Or is it a cruel game
Did you intentionally play with my emotions, making me believe in something that wasn't real?
This love in flame
Our love burned bright and hot, but now it's just ashes
I was up so high
I was so in love with you, it felt like flying
Where eagles fly
Our love was so strong, it felt like we were soaring among the clouds
I just never looked down
I was so focused on our love, I never considered the possibility of it ending
Oh, but you were down there
You never felt the same way I did, you were never as invested in our relationship as I was
With the wind in your hair
You were free and unencumbered by our relationship, able to move on quickly
And your feet on the ground
You were always grounded and practical, never swept away by high emotions like I was
We might have had the stars in the sky
Our love had the potential to be great, to reach for the heavens
You never had the courage to try
You were never willing to take the risk to make our love work, even though it had potential
Is it the same
Is our love in flames just like any other passionate, intense love that ends bitterly?
As passion flooding in the name of love
Is our love in flames just another instance of passion that blinded us to reality?
Or is it fear of pain
Were we so afraid of getting hurt that we ended up hurting each other instead?
When love comes crashing down from above
When our love ended, it felt sudden and devastating, like a meteor crashing to earth
Tonight I lay me down to sleep
Even though our relationship is over, you still haunt my thoughts and dreams
On your side of the bed
The space where you used to sleep is now empty, but I can still feel your presence
I pray so hard for somebody to keep
I wish someone else could take my place in your heart, so I could move on
Keep you out of my head
I want to forget about you and move on, but it's easier said than done
But it's no use the sheets take your form
Even though you're gone, I cling to anything that reminds me of you, like the shape of your body in the sheets
Into the dawn the ashes still warm
Even though our love is dead and gone, the memory of it still burns hot and bright in my heart
Love in flames
Our love burned hot and bright, but ultimately destroyed itself
Love in flames
Our love is over, burned out and destroyed
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: JOHN HIATT
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind