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Lyle Lovett interview: ‘William Shatner is a good horseman’ | The Independent

Lyle Lovett is a man of many hats. The Grammy-winning songwriter and singer is an actor and a breeder of horses. He also has a bachelor of arts degree in journalism, evident in the helpful way he spells out tricky names.Lovett studied journalism in the late 1970s at Texas A&M University, where he wrote for the student newspaper The Battalion . “My regular beat was the Bryan city council, so I had to go to a lot of meetings. We all enjoyed writing entertainment stories and I would lobby heavily for music interviews,” he tells me. One of his first was with singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith. Lovett, who was playing occasional gigs in cafes and bars at the time, recalls asking her about “her process” and why in the world she would want to be a songwriter. “My questions in those days were ultimately designed to give me the confidence to think it would be OK to play music myself.”Lovett has always been interested in language and intrigued by “the turn of phrase someone might use”. While attending a Lutheran school near Houston, he started writing songs he could play easily on the guitar. By the time he came to record his eponymous debut album in 1986, his gift for writing rich, colourful songs was evident to the music industry. “There are songs on my first few albums I wrote as a youngster. I wrote the song “Give Back My Heart” when I was 17. I still perform it sometimes.”From extras.It’s hard to categorise a Lyle Lovett song, such is the range on the 11 studio albums he has recorded over three decades. He can be witty (as on the subversive, cowboy-themed “If I Had a Boat”); chilling (“Creeps Like Me” features a narrator who kills his grandmother and makes a ring from her gold tooth); moving (“You Were Always There” is a heartbreaking song about the death of his father); and just plain sweet (“Nobody Knows Me”).“I feel like my songs are just snapshots of the little things that I see,” the 61-year-old says. “They are not of a conceptual scope. My songs are about the accumulated, small moments in the course of a day that turn into your life. Those baby steps we take each day that end up being the long journey. The big issues are important, too, but it’s the moment-to-moment that really interests me. I see people just trying to survive as individuals in a world where you can take the wrong step at any point and it can all fall apart.”In 2017, he married long-term partner April Kimble and is looking forward to making a new album later this year after signing an “an exciting” deal with iconic label Verve Records. He says he remains “an optimistic person” and meets “more nice people than those the other way”.