Lucinda Williams: ‘I hated the way major labels made my music sound’

Which of your tracks are you most proud of? axolotly
I really like Bus to Baton Rouge: the lyrics, the recording, the way it came about. I was thinking about the house my mother’s parents lived in. My grandfather was a Methodist preacher and I remember the way my grandmother would throw the coffee grounds into the garden. She made the best banana pudding. There’s a little darkness in there, too. “The sweet honeysuckle that grew all around / Were switches when we were bad” is about the narrow branches they’d use to whip us. We were told: “Pick a switch, child”, and you’d have to go into the garden and pick your instrument of torture.

I didn’t get the chance to meet the Pixies or any of those bands, but at the heart of what I do is rock’n’roll and punk. Hank Williams was a punk, but I