September 05, 2002
Chron review of Lovett/Raitt

Here's the Chron's full review of the Lyle Lovett/Bonnie Raitt concert from Tuesday. Reviewer Michael Clark spends a lot more time on the Lovett half of the show, par for the course when a hometown boy is playing, I suppose. He also makes a curious statement about Lovett's signature song:


"This next song we play everywhere, but nobody knows what we're talking about" was his introduction to the big-band two-step of That's Right (You're Not From Texas).

Dude. I don't know where (or if) you learned how to dance, but that song is so not a two-step. It's a polka. I guess you could two-step to it, but it would be wrong.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on September 05, 2002 to Music
Comments

In re: "That's Right, You're Not From Texas": I'm not from Texas, but always felt at home, be it working barges in the ship canal, prowling the stacks at the LBJ in Austin, cooking barbacoa in las colonias, or trying to eat that steak in Amarillo. As an outsider, and an admitted fan of Lyle and his Large Band, I never felt as if the sentiment of the song was against anyone, just really pro-Texas, but welcoming, too ("but Texas wants you anyway").

I'm no ethnomusicologist, but, being a hunky from Pittsburgh via South St. Louis, I have to question your assertion that the song is a polka. Uncle Stan and Aunt Tess would have broken a hip trying to dance that to a beat that fast.

Wish I could have been at the show, though.

Posted by: Pete Heinricher on September 5, 2002 7:26 PM

Hi, Pete. You're thinking of Frank Yankovic beer barrel polkas, which are indeed not that fast. Country western polkas are pretty up-tempo, moreso than two-steps in my experience.

I'm not from Texas, either, but as the bumper sticker says, I got here as fast as I could. :-)

Thanks for reading!

Posted by: Charles Kuffner on September 8, 2002 8:37 PM