Each week, American Routes Shortcuts gives you a sneak peak into the upcoming American Routes episode. This week, host Nick Spitzer sits down with country star Lyle Lovett. They talk about his life growing up on the farm in East Texas and how his family stories became his songs. To hear more from Lyle Lovett and the full episode, tune into WWNO Saturday at 7 or Sunday at 6, or listen at AmericanRoutes.org
LL: I have great memories of driving from Houston to Lafayette Louisiana, almost every week in the summer times with my grandmother and me in the backseat of our 1968 Buick Wildcat driving through Beaumont and Orange and Lake Charles and over to Lafayette to watch my uncle’s horses run at the old Evangeline Downs.
NS: You’ve got a song with the line, “Home is where the horse is,”
LL: “Home is where my horse is,” yeah the idea in that song, Natural Forces, is really we make the world that we live in.
NS: Tell me a little bit about the family land and the history there around Klein and that part of Texas.
LL: I’ve lived in the same place my whole life. My grandfather’s grandfather was the original immigrant to that area in our family. He came to the United States in 1848 from Germany. My grandpa’s farm was really the place where all of my aunt’s and uncles lived and all of my cousins and so I grew up in a very close-knit family atmosphere.
NS Why do you think you became somebody who would write songs?
LL I think it definitely came from my experience of sitting around in my grandmother’s lunch table or supper table and listening to my aunt’s and uncles tell stories. There was always seemed to exist a sense of humor and irony in the stories I heard growing up. You know, I’m still drawn to that type of storytelling and it can’t help but find its way into some of those songs.