"I am trying to get right with God. I'm sort of making a statement about the excessiveness"
About this Quote
There’s a studied plainness to Lucinda Williams saying she’s “trying to get right with God,” then immediately undercutting any confessional grandstanding with “sort of.” It’s the language of someone who knows how quickly sincerity gets marketed. Williams isn’t selling salvation; she’s signaling a moral reckoning without turning it into a brand-new persona. That little hedge word keeps the spotlight off spectacle and on process, which is exactly where her songwriting lives: in the messy, unfinished middle.
The second clause - “making a statement about the excessiveness” - sharpens the aim. She’s not just talking about personal vice; she’s pointing at a cultural tempo that rewards overdoing it: more noise, more consumption, more drama, more self-mythology. In the Williams universe, excess is both aesthetic (the romantic allure of going too far) and economic (a music industry that turns pain into product and tours into endurance tests). “Excessiveness” lands as an almost formal, slightly awkward noun - like she’s refusing the sexy language of sin and sticking to something colder, more diagnostic.
Context matters: Williams has long been framed as a patron saint of rawness, the artist whose credibility is welded to bruises. This quote reads like a pushback against that expectation. Getting “right” with God isn’t a retreat from grit; it’s a critique of the idea that authenticity requires self-destruction. She’s carving out a space where restraint can be its own kind of truth.
The second clause - “making a statement about the excessiveness” - sharpens the aim. She’s not just talking about personal vice; she’s pointing at a cultural tempo that rewards overdoing it: more noise, more consumption, more drama, more self-mythology. In the Williams universe, excess is both aesthetic (the romantic allure of going too far) and economic (a music industry that turns pain into product and tours into endurance tests). “Excessiveness” lands as an almost formal, slightly awkward noun - like she’s refusing the sexy language of sin and sticking to something colder, more diagnostic.
Context matters: Williams has long been framed as a patron saint of rawness, the artist whose credibility is welded to bruises. This quote reads like a pushback against that expectation. Getting “right” with God isn’t a retreat from grit; it’s a critique of the idea that authenticity requires self-destruction. She’s carving out a space where restraint can be its own kind of truth.
Quote Details
| Topic | God |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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