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Lyle Lovett
It's Not Big It's Large
(Lost Highway)
John Metzger's #14 album for 2007
South Texas Girl: Memorable Song #5 for 2007
First Appeared in The Music Box, September 2007, Volume 14, #9
Written by John Metzger
Although he has retained his reputation as a reliable performer in concert,
Lyle Lovett has been lost and adrift as a songwriter for the better part of the
past 11 years. Whether it’s a coincidence or not, his troubles began shortly
after the demise of his high-profile marriage to Julia Roberts in 1995. The
following year, he released The Road to Ensenada, an effort that not only
stood, until now, as his crowning achievement, but also walked a fine line
between being a breakup album and a lighthearted affair. Since then, however, he
has been mired in what appears to be a rather long stretch of writer’s block.
In fact, with the exception of My Baby Don’t Tolerate, his solid if
disjointed studio set from 2003, Lovett has tried every trick in the book to
pass the time while waiting for his muse to return. In lieu of recording a
proper album of new material, he has added a two-disc suite of cover songs (Step
Inside This House); a concert collection (Live in Texas); a motion
picture soundtrack that mostly featured instrumentals (Dr. T & the Women);
a compilation of tunes he contributed to other films (Songs from the Movies);
and a retrospective (Anthology, Volume 1: Cowboy Man) to his canon.
Therefore, it’s impossible not to view his latest effort It’s Not Big It’s
Large as a make-or-break proposition. Fortunately for Lovett, the endeavor
is both a long overdue return-to-form as well as the strongest and most cohesive
outing in his catalogue.
There are several tracks on It’s Not Big It’s Large that initially
stand out — most notably, South Texas Girl and This Traveling Around.
Recasting Bruce Springsteen as a Texas crooner with lyrics that owe a debt to
Steven Fromholz, the former tune is a remembrance of a car ride Lovett took with
his family as a child. It begins and ends with the weathered vocals of Guy
Clark, and the transitions between Clark and Lovett enhance the perception that
through the song Lovett is connecting the strands of his life from some future
vantage point. It is a reflection upon how things have changed as well as how
they have stayed the same, and via this self-examination, it’s possible to hear
Lovett rediscovering who he is as a songwriter. On the latter cut, the notes
from an acoustic guitar twinkle gently like stars in the nighttime sky as Lovett
openly reveals his broken heart and finds the will to continue.
The rest of the material on It’s Not Big It’s Large seems, at first
glance, to be rather inconspicuous. Over the course of his career, Lovett has
taken a rather eclectic approach to his albums, and the familiar blend of
gospel, blues, jazz, folk, country, and rock styles with which he typically has
worked continues to filter through his songs. The difference, however is that
where the lines that divided one genre from the next once were quite pronounced
— on his 1989 effort Lyle Lovett and His Large Band, for example — they
now have become blurred to the point where he is able to switch gears midstream.
Throughout It’s Not Big It’s Large, Lovett — with the help of a cast
that includes guests Sam Bush and Bela Fleck as well as longtime associate
Viktor Krauss — moves among the many implements in his toolbox like a master
craftsman by adding dashes of brassy horns to the country-tinged fare and subtle
shades of mandolin, pedal steel, and banjo to his jazz and blues concoctions.
The result is that It’s Not Big It’s Large shifts seamlessly from place
to place without ever shocking the senses. Although the aforementioned
highlights provide a few attention-grabbing and fully gratifying moments, the
rest of the affair takes a little longer to coalesce. Still, it ought not to be
dismissed quite so readily because with time, Lovett’s grander vision begins to
come into view.
When the songs are taken on their own merit, it isn’t immediately apparent
that It’s Not Big It’s Large is a loose-knit, conceptual work. In order
to help guide listeners to this perspective, the album has been sequenced
carefully. A cover of Lester Young’s Tickle Toe serves as its overture
while reprises of the sharecropper anthem Ain’t No More Cane and the
bluegrass romp Up in Indiana form the set’s finale. At times, Lovett’s
lyrics turn primal and less descriptive than they have in the past, but the way
in which his latest compositions inform each other provides all the meaning that
is necessary. On tracks like I Will Rise Up and This Traveling Around,
he repeats his lyrics until they become mantras of survival that allow him to
beat back the weariness of his lonely existence on the road. On the latter cut
as well as on The Alley Song, he laments for loves that have been lost,
and he pines for women who, as he puts it, got the best of him. During Up in
Indiana, he dreams from his prison cell of a gal from the Hoosier State —
which, incidentally, is where he and Roberts were married — while on No Big
Deal, he seeks redemption by couching a tale of sexual betrayal inside a
Sunday morning confession. He also playfully addresses the precipice upon which
he has sat since the mid-’90s (All Downhill). In effect, what Lovett did
to pull himself out of his rut was to confront the darker corners of his heart
and mind with the determined desire of removing the obstacles that had been
keeping him from moving forward. Consequently, It’s Not Big It’s Large is
the kind of introspective, late-career (or in this case mid-career) masterpiece
that rights a ship that many had thought was lost for good. 
It's Not Big It's Large is available from Amazon.com.
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2007 The Music Box
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