The Sublime Comedy of Patty Griffin

Bouldin Creek Cafe, where Griffin and I convene around coffee and tape recorder, is casually bohemian in a way only an Austin coffeehouse could be, rambling and full of boho bric-a-brac. Griffin’s teased hair is indeed flaming red, and on this cold, drizzly day, she’s wearing a multicolored scarf and thin-rimmed glasses, sipping java and looking rather bookish. She has a reputation for being shy and soft-spoken; sure enough, when introductions are made, she is slightly hesitant and a little close, like a dental patient trying to assess just how uncomfortable this procedure is going to be.

But as we settle into the conversation, she makes herself heard over the din of brisk coffee sales, quickly revealing what should be obvious from her songs—she’s thoughtful, engaging, and an acute observer of the human condition. I asked her what she thought Harris meant when she said we want to be hurt.

“I think there’s so much about the way we live that’s meant to anesthetize us from feeling scary things. Eventually you’re completely anesthetized, so it’s a relief to feel anything. When you’ve been shut down, the initial shock is a painful one, like a muscle you haven’t used for a while.”

Impossible Dream may stretch those unused muscles more than anything Griffin has released so far. With her current situation at ATO, she seems to be at a better place, industry-wise, than she’s been since Flaming Red. But that hasn’t attenuated the doleful spirit always hovering behind her writing. “Some of the saddest stuff I’ve ever put together is on this record, I know that. I didn’t intend for it to be harsh. Sometimes I worry that it’s too difficult and sad. But it’s a relief for me to sing it.” For all the gratification performing affords her, Patty occasionally wonders how much better off she is now than when she was serving pizzas in the early ’90s, while getting started on the Boston folk circuit.

“There’s so much that is expected of you by the industry that makes me really tired and drained. I get up onstage, and I feel like I have to go through the motions just to get myself going. A lot of times I feel like I’ve never stopped waiting on tables, I’ve never stopped walking up to the customer, puttin’ on a perky face for them so I can get a tip. And I’m not really sure that’s ever going to change completely. I think to expect it to get perfect is probably a bad idea.”

If Griffin ever subscribed to the Romantic mythos of the suffering artist finding salvation in her work, it’s not something she buys into anymore. “Singing and writing together was the first time I had the experience of discovering something in myself I didn’t know I had. I thought, wow, there’s so much power here. I thought it was that simple—you just keep pulling more of this power out and then you’ll know everything. But it doesn’t work that way. It’s like the magician—stuff keeps coming out of the hat.”

Griffin has returned to this theme—finding dignity in apparent futility—periodically throughout her career. And until now, her songs generally opened up a window or carved out an escape route. “Chief,” from 1000 Kisses compares the singer’s life to that of a battle-scarred veteran whose entire existence is one long, pointless march. But the song’s bridge digresses into a dreamy soliloquy, Griffin reaching out for her better angels, attempting to make them incarnate: “I wish you could see me / When I’m flying in my dreams / The way I look when I fly / The way I laugh / The way I fly.”

By contrast, Impossible Dream mostly leaves its characters to their own devices, to forge their own dignity or find relief in giving up the quest. This surrender can be heard in her voice; she doesn’t attack notes with the old aggressiveness. The album feels tired, but also wise and somehow stately—a chronicle of Patty Griffin during one of the most questioning periods of her life.

“More than anything I’ve done, Impossible Dream feels like me, right here, waving my arms—‘Hello, I’m here, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing or what I’m talkin’ about—can you listen?’ [laughs] The older I get, the more confused I get, the more I know that I don’t know anything, and it’s interesting to try to put that in your work. Living With Ghosts required a certain amount of cockiness, honestly, to scream some of those songs at people. It’s not that I’ve lost my confidence, I just don’t really know that I have the right thing to say to be in people’s face.”

But Impossible Dream hardly lacks intensity or emotional weight; the songs unfold slowly, with the detail and complexity of a good short story. Two of the later tracks, “Florida” and “Mother of God,” form a sort of couplet, each song taking the perspective of characters with an implicit (though not immediately apparent) connection. “I think ‘Florida’ is the daughter. ‘Florida’ is about giving up all hope. There’s some freedom in that, to let go of hoping for anything. And on ‘Mother of God,’ well, a lot of emphasis is put on women finding fulfillment in relationships. They go through their whole life never having developed a private world because their fulfillment was to be in caring about somebody, and somebody reciprocating. You wait for it to come back, and you might keep waiting. In ‘Florida’ I think she finally figures out she’s gotta make that happen herself. She says, I’m going to get some sleep now; I’m not going to wait anymore.”

After all this talk of resignation and unfulfillment, the question arises whether the introspective Patty of Impossible Dream still feels like blistering paint off walls to Flaming Red. “Yeah, yeah, I mean I love doing that, it feels really good to do that. But I think when I wrote those things, I felt like I needed to tell you this, and now I feel like, oh, it’s really fun. I guess I’m just getting old [laughs].

“I would love to do another rock record, yeah. Somebody who was talking to me about signing for 1000 Kisses wanted the assurance that I would never try to rock out again. I said, ‘What is this, an age-appropriate thing? Is this a female age-appropriate thing?’ It felt really awful to hear him say that. I didn’t end up signing with him, I wanted to leave that open. I always fantasize about getting an all-girl rock band together in town just for the fun of it. But I haven’t had time to pull that together.”