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.
Sure As I'm Sittin' Here
John Hiatt Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Get lost and then ya get found.
Sure as I'm sittin' here,
Sure as I'm sittin' here.
Ya get a laugh; ya get a cry .
Get 'em all before you die.
Sure as I'm sittin' here,
Come on sit down, get down.
Come-a-come-a sit down, get down.
Sure as I'm sittin' here,
Sure as I'm sittin' here.
All the ladies hypnotize you,
And all your friends, well they just patronize you.
Don't God look forgot,
Cause he just sittin' here.
I think it's God's sick plan but it's not so clear.
Lord you get the truth; you get lies.
Get 'em all before you die.
Sure as I'm sittin' here,
Sure as I'm sittin' here.
You get the light; you get the dark.
Fall in love and I break your heart.
Sure as I'm sittin' here,
Sure as I'm sittin' here.
Come on sit down, get down.
Come-a-come-a sit down, get down.
Sure as I'm sittin' here,
Sure as I'm sittin' here.
Now it might seem confusing.
With all you get, well look what all your loosing.
But it's just life and it just goes on.
So quit with your complaining soon enough you will be gone.
Lord, Lord, Lord
Sure as I'm sittin' here,
Sure as I'm sittin' here.
John Hiatt's Sure As I'm Sittin' Here is a song that captures the essence of life's ups and downs, and how they are all guaranteed to happen. The lyrics speak to the inevitability of life's twists and turns, and how we must embrace them all in order to get the most out of our time on this earth.
The song opens with the lines "Get up, ya get down. Get lost and then ya get found. Sure as I'm sittin' here," which suggest the cyclical nature of life's events. We experience highs and lows, get lost in the chaos, but eventually find our way back to ourselves. The chorus repeats this sentiment, urging listeners to sit down, get down, and accept what life has in store.
The following verse, "All the ladies hypnotize you, and all your friends, well they just patronize you," speaks to the many different forms of relationships we have in life, and how they can both lift us up and let us down. The verse ends with the lines "I think it's God's sick plan but it's not so clear," suggesting that there may be a greater purpose to all of life's struggles, even if we cannot always see it.
The song's bridge offers a bit of wisdom, with the lines "Now it might seem confusing. With all you get, well look what all your loosing. But it's just life and it just goes on. So quit with your complaining soon enough you will be gone." These lines remind us that life is fleeting, and rather than dwelling on what we may have lost, we should focus on the present and embrace all that life has to offer.
Line by Line Meaning
Get up; ya get down.
Life is full of ups and downs, and you have to learn to deal with both.
Get lost and then ya get found.
You may go through periods of feeling lost or directionless, but eventually you will find your way again.
Sure as I'm sittin' here,
Sure as I'm sittin' here.
The singer is confident in the truth of what they are saying, no matter how confusing or uncertain life may seem.
Ya get a laugh; ya get a cry .
Life is a mix of joy and sadness, and both are essential parts of the human experience.
Get 'em all before you die.
Make the most of your life and experience everything it has to offer.
Come on sit down, get down.
Come-a-come-a sit down, get down.
The singer is inviting listeners to join them in embracing life, no matter what it throws their way.
All the ladies hypnotize you,
And all your friends, well they just patronize you.
People can be charming or disingenuous, and it's important to recognize the difference between the two.
Don't God look forgot,
Cause he just sittin' here.
I think it's God's sick plan but it's not so clear.
The artist is questioning the role of a higher power in their life, and whether or not there is any meaning or purpose to their struggles.
Lord you get the truth; you get lies.
Get 'em all before you die.
People will tell you the truth and also lie to you in life, and it's important to experience both and learn from them.
You get the light; you get the dark.
Fall in love and I break your heart.
Life is full of both joy and pain, and even the most wonderful things can come with a cost.
Now it might seem confusing.
With all you get, well look what all your loosing.
But it's just life and it just goes on.
So quit with your complaining soon enough you will be gone.
Life can seem difficult and unfair, but it's important to accept it for what it is and make the most of the time you have.
Lord, Lord, Lord
Sure as I'm sittin' here,
Sure as I'm sittin' here.
The artist is reaffirming their confidence in the truth of what they are saying.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: JOHN HIATT
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind