Rhinestoned says it all. No other word, real or invented for the occasion, sums up as well where Pam Tillis stands now.
She is, after all, a superstar as well as a survivor. A child of Music City royalty and a former rebel, she was determined to find her own way as a singer and songwriter — and she succeeded. A CMA Female Vocalist of the Year, she has written songs for some of the top singers in and beyond Nashville, including more than a few of her own hits.
She knows what it's like to break the platinum barrier, to top the singles charts time and again, to bask in an ovation at her induction as a member of the Opry or play in the intimate hush of the Bluebird Café. She has bathed in the lights of Broadway, posed for glamour magazine spreads, sung ballads in Bay Area bistros, batted wicked one-liners back to Tom Bergeron on Hollywood Squares, even made cameos in movies.
But no matter where she wandered, Pam Tillis never lost her connection to country music — even when country began to lose touch with itself. Trends came and went, and though she rolled easily with the tides and drew something from every new twist, she was aware that changes come with a cost, even as the business side of country flourished.
Her response was to insist on writing and cutting songs that spoke from the soul, rather than the boardrooms and focus groups of the country music industry. The results have been records that emanate an almost painful beauty, as did her 2002 release, the critically acclaimed It's All Relative (a tribute to her father, the great Mel Tillis).
"What I'm doing is country — but not necessarily the kind that you hear on the airwaves these days," Tillis explains, one drizzly afternoon over coffee, not far from Music Row. "Now, I admire a lot of this music; after all, I've sung rock, pop, R&B, and jazz, so I'm hardly a purist. But what I'm hearing now sounds often more like pop than country to me. And I just seriously felt called by that old different drummer to something a little bit more like the country I remember from my formative years, the country music of my youth." It's also something Tillis' fans and friends clamor for as she encounters them out on the road.
With It's All Relative, which she affectionately calls "the Dad album," Tillis produced one of the most memorable discs to have come out of Nashville in years, largely because of her refusal to conform to expectations. Combing through her father's catalog, she chose songs that had an especially timeless quality, with built-in resistance to the whims of the market. It was a bold statement; more than that, it set the stage for the even more assertive statement that Rhinestoned would make.
"Pam had reached a point where doing a record every year or two wasn't as important as taking the time to make something that had more meaning," says Matt Spicher, who co-produced Rhinestoned with Tillis and Gary Nicholson. "So she decided to embrace the momentum she had established with the Dad record."
"That was the first record I ever made where I wasn't concerned about having to come up with three singles," Pam points out.
"The labels understood that from the beginning," Matt says.
"They said they did," she clarifies.
And that's one reason why Rhinestoned marks the first album to be released on Stellar Cat, Pam's own imprint. With total creative control, she let her heart lead the way toward material that she could perform honestly and emotionally. "This is an A&R-free zone," she says, smiling. "But it is, first of all, real country. It's a bookend to the Dad album, except it has all new songs. It's like a bridge between the present and the past."
How past is this particular past? "If you look at my record collection circa 1974," Pam answers, "you'd see Emmylou, Gram Parsons, Waylon Jennings, Don Williams, Linda Ronstadt, and Neil Young. Flying Burrito Brothers — hippie country I call it — that was some of the best music that ever came out of this town. Maybe it wasn't happening on country radio at the time but it sold record and built careers. It was the vibrant scene on the fringes of country, which was very cool — just as it is today."
The Rhinestoned sessions started in 2004. Pam and Matt whittled 20 songs down to ten, which they cut and set aside, like bottles of wine allowed to mature. A few months later they repeated the process. And then, after reflecting for a while on what she had accomplished, Pam decided something wasn't right. She talked about it with her trusted friend and writing partner Gary Nicholson and reached a critical decision.
"It needed to be more country " she sums up. "I played what we had for Gary, brought him into the picture, and suddenly it felt like we weren't wandering in the woods anymore. Then when I found the song "Band in the Window," suddenly I could see and hear the whole project in my mind right down to the t-shirts, Tillis laughs.
With that, the final round of recording began. All of it, aside from backing vocals, was cut the old-fashioned way: live, just the way those bands still play in the windows along Lower Broadway. Many of Pam's performances were actually guide vocals, laid down in real time with the instrumental tracks but too strong in the end to throw away. Overdubs and fixes were kept to a bare minimum.
The rollicking reverence she brings to "Band in the Window," the affection that radiates between her and John Anderson on "Life Sure Has Changed Us Around," the goofball humor of "Crazy By Myself," the insight of her recitation on "Bettin' Money on Love": All of the up-tempo moments on Rhinestoned emit a sense of freedom that's impossible for Pam to suppress or for any listener to miss.
Even the ballads and deeper performances — the languorous sway of "Something Burning Out," the wounded wisdom of "Train Without a Whistle," the almost whispered yearning of "Someone Somewhere Tonight," and the recklessness of "Down by the Water" — carry a quality that's become sadly unfamiliar in much of today's music.
It's that feeling of delight that comes from singing exactly what you were meant to sing at that moment. It's almost like a kind of ecstasy, which goes a long way when delivered by the incomparable Pam Tillis, without compromise or apology.
You might call it joy, but there's a better word than that for this state of creative exhilaration.
We'd call it Rhinestoned.
Last Train to Clarksville
Pam Tillis Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And I'll meet you at the station
You can be there by 4:30
'Cause I've made your reservation
Don't be slow
Oh no no no, oh no no no
'Cause I'm leaving in the morning
We'll have one more night together
'Til the morning brings my train
And I must go
Oh no no no, oh no no no
And I don't know if I'm ever coming home
Take the last train to Clarksville
I'll be waiting at the station
We'll have time for coffee flavored kisses
And a bit of conversation
Oh no no no, oh no no no
Take the last train to Clarksville
Now I must hang up the phone
I can't hear you in this
Noisy railroad station all alone
I'm feeling low
Oh no no no, oh no no no
And I don't know if I'm ever coming home
Take the last train to Clarksville,
And I'll meet you at the station,
You can be here by four-thirty,
'Cause I've made your reservation, don't be slow,
Oh, no, no, no,
Oh, no, no, no,
And I don't know if I'm ever coming home.
Take the last train to Clarksville,
Take the last train to Clarksville,
Take the last train to Clarksville,
Take the last train to Clarksville.
The lyrics of Pam Tillis's "Last Train to Clarksville" speak of a couple saying goodbye as one person gets on the last train departing to Clarksville. The singer is urging the other person not to be slow in arriving at the station to meet them before they depart. They make plans for a final night together, promising to spend time enjoying coffee-flavored kisses and conversation, but the looming uncertainty of whether or not the departing person will ever return hangs over the lyrics. As the singer gets ready to hang up the phone due to the noise of the railroad station, they express their sadness and doubt by repeating the phrase, "Oh no no no."
At its surface, the song appears to be about a couple saying goodbye before departure. However, it's also believed to have a deeper, more significant meaning tied to the Vietnam War. The song was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart for The Monkees, who recorded it in 1966, and it quickly became a hit. Many have speculated that the song was a subtle anti-war protest song, and the last train symbolized soldiers going to fight in Vietnam. The repeating "Oh no no no" phrase at the end of each verse represented the uncertainty and fear of Vietnam soldiers never returning home.
Line by Line Meaning
Take the last train to Clarksville
Let's meet up in Clarksville and leave together on the last train before I must leave
And I'll meet you at the station
I'll be waiting for you at the train station for our departure
You can be there by 4:30
Make sure to arrive on time so we don't miss the train
'Cause I've made your reservation
I've already secured your spot on the train
Don't be slow
Hurry up and don't be late
Oh no no no, oh no no no
I'm worried that you might not get here on time
'Cause I'm leaving in the morning
I have to leave early in the morning, so this is our last chance to be together
And I must see you again
I need to spend one more night with you before I leave
We'll have one more night together
We have a little bit more time to spend with each other
'Til the morning brings my train
Our time together will end when the morning arrives and my train departs
And I must go
I have to leave soon
Oh no no no, oh no no no
I don't want to leave, but I have to
And I don't know if I'm ever coming home
I'm unsure if I'll ever be able to return home
We'll have time for coffee flavored kisses
We'll enjoy some sweet moments together over a cup of coffee
And a bit of conversation
We'll have a chance to chat and catch up before I leave
Now I must hang up the phone
We have to end our phone call because I have to leave soon
I can't hear you in this noisy railroad station all alone
The station is too loud and chaotic for me to hear you properly, and I'm feeling lonely
I'm feeling low
I'm sad and feeling down
Take the last train to Clarksville
Let's make the most of the time we have left and take the last train out of here
Take the last train to Clarksville
I really need you to come meet me, and we'll leave this town together
Take the last train to Clarksville
Let's leave all our troubles and worries behind and start anew in Clarksville
Take the last train to Clarksville
This is our last chance to escape, so let's take the last train out of here
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: BOBBY HART, TOMMY BOYCE
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
KekoBassPlayer
This is amazing!
Larry Napier
Pam loves jazz ! I do too ! I studied under Buzzy Orange I love her and this rendition ! Go girl !
monster399
Great job on this one Pam.
James Carrera
Excellent
The Dog Dad
Paul Franklin coal train boogie song !