Book critic Maureen Corrigan

DATE April 5, 2002 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Steve Earle discusses his career as a singer,
songwriter and guitarist and how he overcame his drug addiction
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Singer, songwriter and guitarist Steve Earle has just released his 11th CD.
It collects previously unreleased recordings, alternate takes and songs from
soundtracks, including "Dead Man Walking." It's called "Sidetracks."

Earle moved to Nashville at the age of 19 and recorded his first album in
1986. It fit into the wave of country music's new traditionalism and went
to
number one on the country charts. In the '90s, Earle developed heroin and
crack addictions. In '94, he was convicted for possession of narcotics.
While serving several months in prison, followed by rehab, he gave up drugs.
His 1995 comeback album, "Train A Comin'," launched what Nick Hornby
described
in The New Yorker as `one of the most creatively successful careers in
contemporary American music.'

We're going to hear two Steve Earle interviews today, one recorded last
summer
after the publication of his book of short stories; the other recorded in
1996
when he was making his comeback. Let's start with a track from his new CD.
This is a song he wrote for the new film "The Rookie."

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. STEVE EARLE: (Singing) When I was a little guy, my daddy told me,
`Mister, don't ever try to climb too high, 'cause it's the fall that gets
ya.
And some dreams can never come true. They'll never come true. Well, I
heard
every word he said, but I don't guess I listened. But every time I banged
my
head against a wall or system, yeah, some dreams...

GROSS: My first interview with Steve Earle was recorded in 1996 after the
release of his CD "I Feel Alright." I read him an excerpt of his liner
notes.

You write, `When I was locked up, I was getting ready to go off on this boy
that stole my radio. My partner Paul asked me where I was going. I said,
"To
get my radio and then to go to the hole for a little while." He looked at
me
like I look at my 13-year-old sometimes and said, "No, you ain't. You're
going to sit your little white ass down and do your little time and then
you're going to get out of here and make a nice record." So I made two.'
And
that's dated November of 1995. What's the story behind that paragraph?

Mr. EARLE: Just about exactly what it says. That's...

GROSS: Who is Paul?

Mr. EARLE: A friend of mine that I knew from the street, and I got into
jail,
and he was there. And he was one of a couple of people that I hung out with
when I was locked up that I knew. Two of them I knew from the outside. One
of them was a guy I met in there. But one of the safest ways to go in an
institution is to belong to as small a clique as possible, because they'll
put
50 men in one cell, and so when stuff happens, it happens a lot faster than
the guards can do anything about it, so it's a really potentially volatile
environment. If you belong to a big clique of people, you know, 10 guys, 20
guys, you can't control their actions, and they may do something to make
somebody else mad, and that person that they've irritated may not have
access
to them and then may go off on you in the recreation area or in the gym or
someplace else where the situation is not so controlled.

So I sort of stuck in with one little corner of this 50-man cell that we
sort
of stayed in, except to go and take showers and stuff, and it was just
people
that I knew. And they did take care of me, because I was very sick when I
got
to jail. I was withdrawing from methadone and cocaine, and I was extremely
ill. And I had an upper bunk, and by the third or fourth day, I couldn't
even
get in my bunk by myself, and Paul helped me get up there, and he also sort
of
made sure that I secured a bottom bunk when the upper bunk became totally
unworkable. He had been there for about a year and a half when I got there
and never had been to trial. And he's still there, as far as I know.

GROSS: How long were you in this prison?

Mr. EARLE: I was in 60 days. I was doing a year. I was doing 11 months
and
29 days, but after much begging and pleading from my lawyer and 30 days in
treatment, they finally decided to probate the rest of my sentence.

GROSS: Now you grew up in San Antonio in a pretty middle-class family,
right?
Your father was an air traffic controller.

Mr. EARLE: Yeah. Yeah. I was very middle class. We moved a lot. We were
renters, so we lived all over the San Antonio area. I grew up--what I
really
call home is a town called Schertz that's right outside of San Antonio, and
it's sort of been engulfed by San Antonio now, but it was about 30 miles
outside the city limits when I was growing up there. Randolph Air Force
Base
is there. There's about five Air Force bases in San Antonio, which is the
major industry, no matter what anybody thinks.

GROSS: You dropped out of high school in 1971 and really wanted to, you
know,
write songs and perform. You started hanging out with the songwriter Townes
Van Zandt. Why him? What excited you about him...

Mr. EARLE: Well...

GROSS: ...or was he one of the few songwriters that you actually had access
to?

Mr. EARLE: Well, I mean, there were a lot of songwriters in Texas that I
could have access to. Actually, it was a pretty damn good place to be a
songwriter when I first started writing. I mean, there was Townes and Jerry
Jeff and Steve Fromholz, who I saw the other night for the first time in
years. There was just a lot going on in Austin, and, of course, naturally,
everybody was telling me, `Hey, you know, you don't need to go to New York
or
LA or Nashville because, you know, the music business is coming to Austin.
This is going to be the next music industry center.' Even at 19 years old,
I
knew that that wasn't true. Austin--the weather's too good, the girls are
too
pretty and the dope's too cheap. And you can't get anything done in a place
like that. So I came to Nashville.

GROSS: You were like the kid in the crowd. What was it like to be the kid?

Mr. EARLE: Well, it was educational. When I got to Nashville in 1974, this
place was like a university for songwriters because it was very democratic.
On any given night at somebody's house, either John Lomax's house or at Jim
McGuire's Photography Studio, there was a bunch of people sitting around and
several guitars going around the room and a jug, you know. I mean, there
was
plenty of drinking and carrying on going on, too. But we were nocturnal; we
stayed up all night. And we played our new songs for each other. And that
stops, for a lot of reasons, within a couple of years after I got here, but
you can see anybody from like me and David Onley(ph), who were at absolute
street level, to Neil Young in the same room. And it was a great place to
learn how to write songs.

GROSS: Well, let's hear a song that you wrote that Travis Tritt recently
had
a hit of. This is called "Sometimes She Forgets." When did you write
this...

Mr. EARLE: This is...

GROSS: Yeah, go ahead.

Mr. EARLE: It's an old song. It's an old song. It was written during the
period when I was getting up and going to the office and writing songs every
day. And I wrote what I thought were a lot of really commercial songs, and
they told me that they were too country, so none of them ever got recorded
until this one did last year.

GROSS: Oh, I like the song a lot. What do you think of it now?

Mr. EARLE: Oh, I'm real proud of it. It's always been one of my favorite
songs I've ever written. The songs that survived to make it on to "Train A
Comin'" were the older songs of mine that I seemed to always dust off when I
went out and did a solo acoustic tour. That was the main criteria.

GROSS: Oh, OK. Well, this is Steve Earle.

(Soundbite of "Sometimes She Forgets")

Mr. EARLE: (Singing) If you see her out tonight and she tells you it's just
the lights that bring her here and not her loneliness, that's what she says,
but sometimes she forgets. If she tells you she don't need a man, she's had
all the comfort she can stand, you'd best believe every word she says. But
don't give up because sometimes she forgets.

GROSS: Steve Earle from his previous record called "Train A Comin'." Now
you've said you first did heroin when you were 13. How did you do it? How
did you get it?

Mr. EARLE: Well, it's San Antonio, Texas. It's during the Vietnam War. It
was a hundred and fifty miles from the border, so there was a constant
supply
of real strong, real cheap brown heroin, and then the Vietnam War going on,
so
there was lots of dope, and it was very, very cheap. Dope was cheaper than
alcohol in the city I grew up in, much cheaper.

GROSS: Who turned you on?

Mr. EARLE: A lot of people, people at school, my uncle. And he also gave
me
my first guitar, so that was sort of a mixed deal. But he finally ended up
going to prison for selling heroin, and he got out, and he never did heroin
again, but he's had a drinking problem for most of his life since then.

GROSS: Did your father know?

Mr. EARLE: My father--I don't think they knew the extent of my drug habit.
My music also seemed to intervene enough. Like I moved to Nashville, and
the
heroin up here sucked, so I sort of stopped doing it, and it was until I got
to where I could afford it and started traveling around to other cities
where
there were better drugs and I slowly drifted back into doing it again. When
I stopped doing heroin, I mean, I replaced it with other drugs. But my
parents--they were aware. It became an issue in around the house a few
times,
but, you know, I was pretty good. I was an addict. Addicts are good at
getting over, and, you know, I managed to convince a psychiatrist I was sent
to that I was cured, and he pronounced me cured, and that was the end of it
as
far as my family was concerned.

GROSS: What shape were you in when your album, "Guitar Town," came out in
1986, an album that made it to the top of the country charts?

Mr. EARLE: Well, I was a functioning addict. I was probably the ultimate
functioning heroin addict, but I was a heroin addict. I mean, at that
point,
I could lay down and get sick for three days and then go out on the road.
It's just what happened is the same thing that happened to me happens to all
addicts. I got to the point that I couldn't get through, you know, the
three
days that it takes to detox anymore, and it required more drugs, and I
needed
them all the time, and it finally got to where it was a full-time job to get
drugs. And I didn't even have a guitar anymore because there wasn't any
time
to play it.

GROSS: My guest is singer, songwriter and guitarist Steve Earle. We'll
talk
more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Steve Earle has a new CD called "Sidetracks." We're listening to an
interview recorded in 1996 while he was making a comeback after kicking
heroin
and crack.

At the periods when you were most addicted, were you able to perform? Were
you able to write? Was there music in your head? I mean, had music
remained
a part of your world?

Mr. EARLE: No. It got to the point where it wasn't at all, the last two
years especially. I hung out in South Nashville for a lot of reasons. It's
where the drugs were, but I could have beeped people and they'd have bought
me
drugs, and one time I did it that way. I didn't have to hang out there.
One
of the reasons I hung out there is black people do not listen to my music,
and
so I was fairly anonymous there, and people just left me alone as long as I
had money to pay for drugs.

And I got to a point that it was a full-time job just to get up in the
morning
and get my hands on enough money to support my habit. Whether I had money
or
not, I still had to go get it, and I used it up at such a furious rate that
I
was always a little bit ahead, you know, of my royalty checks. I didn't
have
to do some of the things other people have to do, but I would have. You
know,
there's no doubt in my mind if the bottom had just fallen out, I couldn't
get
anymore money, you know, I would have been stealing stuff to support my
habit.
It was just a matter of time.

GROSS: So the habit just drove music out of your head?

Mr. EARLE: It drove it out of my life. There wasn't any time. I didn't
even
have a guitar. You know, I'd traded them all for dope in the middle of the
night or pawned them. And I lost a lot of nice guitars. But even if I'd
have
had a guitar, I wouldn't have had time to play it. I woke up in the morning
and I was on the trail from the time I woke up until I went to sleep, which
was usually three or four days later.

GROSS: Did the degradation aspect of it ever get to you, of being...

Mr. EARLE: Sure, it did.

GROSS: ...so enslaved to the habit and having...

Mr. EARLE: Sure, it did.

GROSS: ...lost something that was so special for you, your music?

Mr. EARLE: Yeah. I mean, I know when I started to die, and that was when
it
got to the point that I couldn't write anymore. And I knew I was dying, but
I
just didn't think that there was anything that I could do about it.

GROSS: Now when you were in prison, you ended up in rehab during the prison
stay, so you were addicted when you got into prison. Were you able to kick
during that rehab stay?

Mr. EARLE: Well, I went to a hospital. They finally realized that they
didn't want to be responsible for me at age--I was 39, and I wasn't in the
best physical condition. And my blood pressure got pretty high, which is a
withdrawal symptom, and they decided they didn't want to be responsible for
me
being in the Metro Jail anymore. So my lawyer worked it out for me to go
into
treatment. I was still an inmate, but I went to Lincoln Regional Hospital,
which is down in Fayetteville, Tennessee, and I did my medical detox there,
and that means that they basically give you medication to control your blood
pressure and monitor you. And the food was a lot better there than it was
in
jail.

It was just a matter of once I got there, I don't know what happened, but I
guess the fog cleared because I actually had been physically restrained from
taking drugs for several weeks, and that hadn't happened to me in years. I
just probably wouldn't have gotten clean if I hadn't gotten locked up.
Well,
I know I wouldn't have. I would have just died.

GROSS: After rehab, were you sent back to jail?

Mr. EARLE: Yeah, which was hard because there is dope in jail. Believe
that.
And...

GROSS: Were there dealers inside who tried to get you high again?

Mr. EARLE: Not dealers. There was a big drug roundup the weekend that I
got
back to jail. I got back in on a Saturday, and you're like--you know, that
was just really depressing. And I thought I was going to get out. I
thought
they were going to let me go home after treatment, and it didn't work out.
And I went back to jail, and there was a guy sleeping--I went back to the
Blackwood jail and that was like, you know, just double rows of bunks.
There's four rows, you know, of, you know, just bunk beds in one room. And
you basically sort of sleep head-to-head, so nobody's feet's in anybody's
face, you know--is the idea of it.

And I'm sleeping head-to-head with a guy that had gotten in and they'd
somehow
missed, you know, what was a miniscule amount of rock cocaine on the street,
but was a gold mine in there. You know, he had one big probably 30 or
40-dollar rock, you know, a rock about an inch in diameter. And that was
going around and I knew it was going around, and the only way I dealt with
it
was I just sort of pretended, for the first time in my life, that the rules
weren't to be broken, and I just said, `Well, I'm in jail. There's not
supposed to be dope here, so there isn't.' And I went to every meeting that
was available to me, which was about four a week, between NA meetings, AA
meetings, CA--I went to any kind of A. It didn't make any difference. And
I
just sort of kept to myself and just worked the best program that I could
work
in jail.

GROSS: When did music start coming back into your head?

Mr. EARLE: As soon as I got to Buffalo Valley. And in jail, there aren't
any
guitars.

GROSS: The treatment center.

Mr. EARLE: Yeah. There aren't any guitars in jail. That's just in the
movies. But in Buffalo Valley, I was allowed to have a guitar an hour a
day,
and I wrote "Goodbye," which is on "Train A Comin'." It was the first I'd
written in four years. And I wrote "Hard-Core Troubadour," which was
actually
a melody that I'd started three or four years before, but I wrote all the
lyrics in treatment.

(Soundbite of "Hard-Core Troubadour")

Mr. EARLE: (Singing) Girl, don't bother to lock your door. He's out there
hollering, `Darlin', don't you love me no more?' You always let him in
before
now, didn't you? He's just singing the same old song that he always sang
before. He's the last of the hard-core troubadours. Now, girl, better
figure
out which is which; wherefore art thou, Romeo, you son of a bitch. Because
you'd just as soon fight as switch, now wouldn't you? He's come to make
love
on your satin sheets, wake up on your living room floor. He's the last of
the
hard-core troubadours. And now he is the last of the all-night, do right,
stand beneath your window till daylight. He's the last of the hard-core
troubadours. Oh, baby, what you waitin' for?

GROSS: How do you think your voice changed after a long period of not
singing
and after a long period of doing drugs, which can be very hard on the voice?
I mean, I think your voice sounds really great and really strong and, I'll
confess, I'm really surprised at how strong it sounds.

Mr. EARLE: Well, my voice got a rest. The one thing about sitting around,
you know, like shooting dope and smoking crack for a few years is I wasn't
singing, and I really had gotten to the point that I toured so much--and
heroin's very hard on your voice. Actively using and singing, heroin
relaxes
your vocal chords. You could always tell when I was high because my voice
would drop about an octave, and you go out and try to sing, you know, you
try
to hit high notes to bring your vocal chords up to tension, then there's a
certain amount of thickening that happens.

So there's a big difference between my voice if you listen to, like, "Exit
Zero"(ph) and "Copperhead Road." There was a lot more gravel in it from
that
point on. And that's still there, but I got a rest, and I think I'm singing
the best on this record. And these are all track vocals on this record.
Every vocal on "I Feel Alright" is the straight track, you know, vocal
performance. There aren't any overdubs on it.

GROSS: I've spoken to some performers who are really surprised at what it
feels like to perform when they're straight because they'd never really
experienced it before.

Mr. EARLE: Yeah.

GROSS: Is that the position you're in? Is it a different experience to
perform straight?

Mr. EARLE: No, it's basically that. I mean, I didn't think that I went out
and performed--yeah, I would have told you that I'd never performed when I
was
high, but I obviously had to at the end, because if I hadn't been high, I
would have been sick. And, you know, I performed sick a lot. You know,
that
ended up happening. You know, something--you know, drug dealers aren't
necessarily dependable people.

It's just I think I'm a better performer than I've ever been. I'm
definitely
a better writer than I've ever been. I'm really, really proud of this
record.
And I was very relieved to find out that I genuinely enjoy my job because it
had gotten sort of miserable for me because everything's miserable for a
junkie. You you get to the point--it's really nice to go out on the road
and
not wake up sick in the morning and not have to worry about where I'm going
to
get dope in a town I've never been to before. And it's put a lot of the fun
back in it for me. And so I'm back to some sort of midlife crisis that's
taking place in a bus, but I'm really, really enjoying being out there.

GROSS: Steve Earle recorded in 1996. In the second half of the show, we'll
hear the interview Steve recorded last year. He has a new CD called
"Sidetracks."

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Today we're featuring two interviews with singer, songwriter and guitarist
Steve Earle. He has a new CD called "Sidetracks" that collects tracks that
were either unreleased or underexposed. Earle moved to Nashville at the age
of 19 and recorded his first album in 1986. It was considered part of the
new
traditionalist movement and went to the top of the country charts. But in
the
'90s, he developed heroin and cocaine habits and, in '94, was convicted for
possession of narcotics.

While serving several months in prison, followed by rehab, he gave up drugs.
He's since recorded several critically acclaimed CDs, started his own record
company, E Squared, and produced CDs by Lucinda Williams and Ron Sexsmith.
Last summer he published his first book, a collection of short stories
called
"Doghouse Roses." That was the occasion for our second interview. I asked
him when he started writing fiction.

Mr. EARLE: Let's see, there's a story in here called "Wheeler County,"
which
I actually started, in '89 or '90, thinking it was going to be a novel. But
the truth of the matter was my drug habit was getting out of hand by that
time, and I was having trouble even finishing records by that point. And I
started pawning everything that wasn't tied down in my house, including the
computer that the book was in, and I never backed it up. So that's gone
forever.

And when I got clean and got out of jail, I hadn't written a song in four
and
a half years. And I wrote another record fairly easily, but I guess I was a
little paranoid, and it seemed to me like I had all this time and energy on
my
hands simply because I didn't have to wake up and find $500 worth of dope.
So
there wasn't always a melody lying around, so I started writing fiction just
to write something every day as an exercise. I'm not even sure I ever
really
thought about publishing it at first. And the first thing I did was I
reconstructed "Wheeler County" from memory and found out it was only a short
story after all.

GROSS: All right. I'd like to take a subject about which you've written a
song, a short story and a non-fiction piece, and the subject is witnessing
an
execution. Before we hear--we'll start with the song, but before we hear
it,
tell us a little bit about the person whose execution you witnessed.

Mr. EARLE: His name was Jonathan Wayne Nobles, and he was one of several
people that I corresponded with on death row around the country. And at one
time, I think that was what the extent of my activism was--was I knew some
guys on death row; they wrote me, I wrote them back. And I probably got a
little too close. And Jon was in Texas, and he eventually got a date. And
he
wasn't innocent; he was guilty. For some reason, innocent guys don't write
me; all my guys are guilty. But he asked me to witness his execution. And
I
was totally unprepared for that and didn't know how to say no, so I said
yes.
He just wanted one person there that didn't hate him.

GROSS: What was he guilty of? What was he convicted of?

Mr. EARLE: A really, really heinous double murder. Jon was probably--I
mean,
in his own estimation, he was an escalating, sexually driven serial killer
that happened to get caught the first time.

GROSS: How did you end up corresponding with people on death row?

Mr. EARLE: I wrote a song in 1990 called "Billy Austin," and I've always
been
opposed to the death penalty. I grew up in Texas in a home that was opposed
to the death penalty, and it was just what I was taught. I was just taught
that that's probably not a good thing for us to be, as a people, and for our
government to be involved in doing for a lot of reasons. Then I wrote a
song
called "Billy Austin" that sort of deals with the subject, and then people
from the movement started calling and writing me, and then inmates started
writing me. And over the years, it sort of--you know, then my life got out
of
hand.

And when I came back, shortly after I started making records and being
visible
again, Tim Robbins called me, and he had just finished "Dead Man Walking"
and
he asked me to write a song for that soundtrack. And that was "Ellis Unit
One." And then all of the cast members of that soundtrack record did a
benefit here in LA for Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation. And
meeting those people was a mind-blower because they're murder victims'
family
members, who are opposed to the death penalty and go out and work against
the
death penalty every day. Bud Welch, whose daughter was killed in the
Oklahoma
City bombing, is a member. And they changed my life in the way that I
approach my activism against the death penalty in this country.

GROSS: So tell me something about what you saw or what you felt when you
were
witnessing Jonathan Wayne Nobles' execution that ended up in a song that you
wrote.

Mr. EARLE: Well, I think the deal with Jon is he was suspicious of
abolitionists, and his first priority, I think, was the victims' family
members. In fact, two weeks before he was killed, he met with the mother of
one of his victims. You know, Jon had changed. They didn't kill the same
guy
that they locked up. He still was very confused by what he did, but he
converted to Catholicism and he was a Third Order Dominican by the time he
died.

And he was a huge supporter of other people on death row. He stood up with
Cliff Boggus, who was executed a year before him, who was another one of my
correspondents, as his godfather at, you know, his baptism. And he started
out being one of the most hated people by inmates and guards alike when he
got
there. And, you know, 12 years later when they killed him, he was loved by
everyone at Ellis. In fact, I spent most of the day, the day after he was
executed, delivering flowers and other gifts to people, a long list of
people,
that worked for the prison system; that Jon wanted to make sure that they
knew
that he appreciated, you know, what they had done for him.

GROSS: Yeah. In your song there's a line about who he wants--What?--his
radio and his fan given to.

Mr. EARLE: Yeah. Jon was--they've moved the guys in Texas now. Back then
they were on "Ellis One Unit," which wasn't air-conditioned and it's Texas.
And, in fact, a year before Jon was executed a diabetic death row inmate
died
in his cell from heat exhaustion. So fans are, you know, a real commodity.
And you don't have a fan unless somebody in your family can buy it for you.
So there were lots of guys that didn't have fans. And so Jon left a fan.
He
left a radio. He left--his dictionary I've got. You know, I spent two days
planning for the funeral of a living--you know, helping a living, breathing
man plan his own funeral and the distribution of what goods he had.

GROSS: Anything else you want to say about the song before we hear it?

Mr. EARLE: You know, it was part of a process that I'm probably still going
through, processing, having--it's not a political song. My other death
penalty songs are. They deal with my opposition to the death penalty as an
idea. This is simply me processing the fact that I witnessed a horrific
act.

GROSS: OK. This is Steve Earle, his song "Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song.)"

(Soundbite of "Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)")

Mr. EARLE: (Singing) I suppose I gotta come in. I can't ever pay enough.
In
all my ripping and a-running, I hurt everyone I loved. And the world will
turn around without me. The sun will come up in the East, shining down on
all
them that hate me. I hope my going brings 'em peace. Well, I am going over
yonder where no ghosts will follow me. There's another place beyond here
where I'll be free. Yeah. That's what I believe.

GROSS: Steve Earle singing "Jonathan's Song." Let's get back to the
interview we recorded last summer after the publication of Earle's
collection
of short stories, "Doghouse Roses."

Before I ask you to read an excerpt of your short story "The Witness," about
witnessing an execution, I want to ask you what you were most unprepared for
when you witnessed the execution of Jonathan Wayne Nobles.

Mr. EARLE: My own empathy for the people that had to participate in that
execution. Jon was really incredibly well prepared, and it was hard to
watch.
He was genuinely remorseful. And, you know, he was just trying to die the
best that he could. But the other people--I don't know where it came from;
I
didn't see anything from them that would normally evoke empathy--but it just
dawned on me that what I was looking at was people protecting a relatively
low-paying job with halfway decent benefits. It's the only industry in
Huntsville, Texas, is the prison system. And, you know, this damages
everybody that touches it. My objection to the death penalty is not about
what it does to the guys on death row as much as it is what it does to all
of

us. I object to the damage it does to my spirit if I kill somebody. And if
my government kills somebody, then I'm killing somebody.

GROSS: Well, let me ask you to read an excerpt of "The Witness." And this
story is told from the point of view of a corporate attorney whose wife was
murdered. And the man convicted of murdering his wife is about to be
executed. The corporate attorney is there to witness the execution. And at
this moment in the story, the man being executed has just picked up his head
and stared at the observers. You want to pick it up from there?

Mr. EARLE: Yeah. `He mercifully turned away. Staring straight up at the
ceiling, he took a long, ragged breath, closed his eyes and began saying a
Hail Mary in Spanish. Gordon(ph) knows that Chaplin Meeks(ph) was resting
his
right hand on Comacho's leg, just below the knee. For some reason that he
couldn't explain, the contact offended him. Now, more than ever, Gordon
wanted the whole horrible business over with, finished. What Gordon didn't
know was that the Hail Mary was the signal that Comacho had agreed to so
that
Warden Larkin(ph) knew when he was ready, and Gordon had missed the warden's
subtle hand signal to the unseen executioner behind the one-way glass.
Therefore, he had no way of knowing that the poison had already made its way
down the plastic tubing and was racing through Andreas Comacho's(ph) body.

(Spanish spoken)

Andy's prayer was interrupted by a sound from his own lips, a low-pitched
bark, a startling incongruous sound like a small child with whooping cough
as
the air was suddenly forced from his lungs. And his head pitched forward
until his chin lodged on his chest. It was as if an invisible anvil had
been
dropped on his chest from a great height. It was much more violent than
Gordon had ever imagined it would be. He had somehow convinced himself that
this would be different somehow. On paper it was efficient and clinical.
Instead there was the unmistakable sense that he was witnessing a soul being
brutally and unnaturally ripped from a human body.'

GROSS: Now, you know, that kind of barking that you're describing...

Mr. EARLE: Uh-huh.

GROSS: ...that the executed man goes through...

Mr. EARLE: Yeah.

GROSS: ...at the moment of death? Is that something that happened in the
execution you witnessed?

Mr. EARLE: Yeah. And it varies. I mean, some people--I mean, I know
people
that witnessed executions. I was fortunate enough to have a lady named
Karen
Sebung who had witnessed an execution before me who I was friendly with in
Houston. That prepared me, to some extent, for what I was going to see.
And
it's different. I mean, some people yawn and some people, there's a gasp.
But basically, it's a massive dose of phenobarbital. And we're told that
that's to put them to sleep before the second chemical collapses their
lungs.
And the truth of the matter is a massive overdose of phenobarbital collapses
your lungs. The second one makes sure that they don't inflate themselves,
'cause people have different tolerances to drugs.

What I saw in Jon's execution was it was so--Jon was singing when he was
executed. His signal was he sang "Silent Night." And when he got to the
line
`mother and child' the sound was so loud. It was like `hooah!' And then he
didn't make another sound, and he didn't move. But as he expelled that air,
his head pitched forward violently enough that his heavy plastic prison
glasses fell off of his face, bounced off of his chest and landed on the
floor.

GROSS: My guest is singer, songwriter and author Steve Earle. We'll talk
more after our break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Steve Earle has a new CD called "Sidetracks." Let's get back to the
interview we recorded last summer after the publication of his book of short
stories. It will be published in paperback in June.

Influences that you've recently gotten deeper into include bluegrass and The
Beatles. And there's a lot of harmony in both of those, although the
harmonies are different.

Mr. EARLE: Yeah.

GROSS: Have you gotten more involved in singing harmony?

Mr. EARLE: Yeah. I mean, I think I've gotten--the main thing is changing
my
writing 'cause I write more chick songs. I...

GROSS: More chick songs?

Mr. EARLE: Yeah.

GROSS: What does that mean?

Mr. EARLE: It means I write a lot more pretty songs, which serves several
purposes. I've become more interested in melody. It also prevents my
audience from getting exponentially hairier and uglier as time goes on,
'cause
I have to look at them, too.

GROSS: Wait. So let's go back to harmony.

Mr. EARLE: Harmony's like something that's been a weak suit for me. And I
was always a really bad harmony singer. But from singing with people that
were good harmony singers over the last few years, I've gotten better at it.
And so I don't automatically break out when someone--you know, people will
very casually ask you to come sing harmony on their record as a guest, and
that used to cause me a lot of consternation. And now I feel a lot more
competent when I'm asked to do that 'cause I think I understand how harmony
works a little bit better.

GROSS: The title story in your new book "Doghouse Roses" is about somebody
who's kind of leaving town, or starts off with somebody who's leaving town
after...

Mr. EARLE: Right.

GROSS: ...a relationship has fallen apart. And, you know, we've been
talking
a little bit about how you've been writing about similar subjects in your
songs and in your stories. The idea of being on a road, or hitting the
road--well, it's one of the oldest subjects certainly in country music and
in
rock music and the blues. And even on your most recent CD, "Transcendental
Blues," there's two songs about the road. And one of them is about the
person
threatening to hit the road and burn the house down.

Mr. EARLE: Right.

GROSS: And in the other, the person has been on the road and they're
thinking
of giving up the road and hanging up their highway shoes.

Mr. EARLE: Right.

GROSS: And they're both really good songs that are opposite sides...

Mr. EARLE: Right.

GROSS: ...of the same coin. I'm wondering if that's been a theme in your
life, the desire to hit the road and the desire to get off the road.

Mr. EARLE: Sure, it has. But, you know--and I'm dealing with it right now.
I'm getting towards the end of the tour. I'm in the best relationship I've
ever been in in my life. I like to be home a lot better and a lot more than
I
used to. And Sarah is sort of like, well, you know, like almost everybody
else I've ever been with--it's like, `Well, I knew you toured, but I didn't
know you toured.' And this tour's gone on longer than I intended it to.
And
so I'm ready for it to be over with. At the same time, I have to admit that
I
do, when I'm home for an extended period of time, start wondering what it
would be like to get back on a bus. And I like to roll after the show and
spend a night on the bus and wake up in another town, and I've been doing it
for most of my life. But things are slowing down a little bit.

And actually, another town was written--the one about burning the house
down--I was using tools that I'd been using in writing songs about leaving
towns all my life and trying to lend somebody else a voice because that song
was written for Sarah to sort of lend her a voice when we first met and she
was in a situation where I think she needed to make a move. And I was just
sort of being a cheerleader there, whereas "Steve's Last Ramble" was a
little
bit more just me.

GROSS: Well, I thought maybe we'd play the beginning of those
back-to-back...

Mr. EARLE: OK.

GROSS: ...and compare these two instincts. Steve Earle, I want to thank
you
so much for talking with us about your music and your stories.

Mr. EARLE: Thank you.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. EARLE: (Singing) One of these days when my mind's made up and I'm sick
and tired of hanging around, I believe I will ...(unintelligible) just move
to
another town. Once upon a time, I loved this house. Now I'm thinkin' 'bout
burning it down. And I believe I'm bound on the back roads and away to
another town. So you'll never see me in a million...

(Soundbite of "Steve's Last Ramble")

Mr. EARLE: (Singing) I'm thinkin' 'bout givin' up this ramblin' around and
hanging up my highway shoes. Baby, when I walk they make a hollow sound and
they're carrying me away from you.

GROSS: Our interview with Steve Earle was recorded last summer after the
publication of his collection of short stories "Doghouse Roses." It will be
published in paperback in June. Earle has a new CD called "Sidetracks" that
collects previously unreleased tracks, alternate takes and songs from
soundtracks.

Coming up, book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "The Nanny Diaries." This
is
FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus' "The Nanny Diaries"
TERRY GROSS, host:

"The Nanny Diaries," a new novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus,
purports
to give an insider's view on the rituals of Upper East Side child rearing.
Book critic Maureen Corrigan says this novel reads like `the real poop.'

MAUREEN CORRIGAN reporting:

Due to a snafu, I never received my review copy of "The Nanny Dairies," the
new fictional expose of child-rearing practices of the filthy rich who live
in
cavernous splendor on Manhattan's Upper East Side. That's when I learned
firsthand just how hot this book is. Not only was the quaint little
neighborhood bookstore all cleaned out, but the nearby chain superstore had
only one copy left in stock, which I snatched up with glee. Now this is
Washington, where Tom Clancy thrillers and stolid political memoirs by
MacNeil/Lehrer pundits are the big best-sellers. But I guess dirt has a
universal appeal, and this tell-all tale of the dirt under the alma rugs(ph)
in upper-crust New York nurseries bears the stamp of vengeful authenticity.

"The Nanny Diaries" was co-written by two former New York nannies: Emma
McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. As you'd expect, there are plenty of
outrageous
revelations here about Manhattan socialites whose wretched excess is offset
by
their emotional stinginess towards their own children. What's surprising
about "The Nanny Diaries," however, is how detailed and astute it is in its
depiction of work, probably the most undertreated subject in fiction.

"The Nanny Diaries" is the story Jane Eyre might have told had she sat down
and written an account of the everyday horrors and humiliations of her job
instead of getting distracted by her class-climbing romance with Mr.
Rochester and by that troublesome madwoman in the attic. The novel's
heroine,
simply called `Nanny,' is a student at NYU. Her family is rich in cultural
capital--they're teachers and artsy types--but poor in cash. So Nanny needs
to work her way through college by caring for the cosseted offspring of New
York nobility.

As Nanny tells us, it's easy for her to land these jobs. `I am white. I
speak French. My parents are college educated. I have no visible piercings
and have been to Lincoln Center in the last two months. I'm hired.'

When the novel opens, Nanny has just started working for Mrs. X, who, like
her
predecessors, is glossy and erectic and intent on establishing her
motherhood
creds by loading Nanny up with an obsessive list of pint-sized dietary

rules,
like lunch sandwiches must be cut in quarters and have no crusts.
Sandwiches
must be made facing east. And no additives, no skins of any kind, no
American
food.

The X's are basically absentee parents. She's always off getting manicures
and being immersed in sensory deprivation tanks. He's busy being a captain
of
industry and having affairs. So Nanny becomes the prime caretaker for the
Xes' four-year-old son, Grayer, who, despite the biological odds, is sweet
and
funny. The genuinely touching relationship between Nanny and Grayer is
destined for doom because, as Nanny says, echoing the wisdom of Mary
Poppins,
`To do this job well is to lose it.'

The crucial element in a good satire is specificity, and "The Nanny Diaries"
tosses around designer labels and Upper East Side landmarks of consumption
like a true trader's insider. We hear about Grayer's preschool, where
private
chefs come in to prepare the morning snack, and the other kids sport names
like Carter(ph), Darwin(ph) and Alex(ph), loads of Alexes. These kids go to
birthday parties on the Circle Line and sleepovers at Gracie Mansion.
They're
kept running on a schedule that would exhaust a Navy SEAL: piano lessons,
swim lessons, karate and mommy-and-me classes where at least half the mommy
group is composed of nannies.

The ostensible aim is juvenile enrichment. The underlying goal is to keep
these ricocheting kids out of their own Delftware-filled museumlike
apartments. It's all nasty fun. But as I said, what bumps "The Nanny
Diaries" up a couple of notches is its shrewd take on work and on the subtle
dynamics of this particular employer-employee relationship. Before the
first
week is through, Mrs. X is regularly running late. But overtime rules
aren't
clarified because, as Nanny says, `The thought that I might actually be
doing
this job for money is too vile.' Soon Nanny is performing extra duties,
like
lugging Mrs. X's discarded outfits back to Bergdorf's.

Even at the sad climax of this novel, when Nanny is fired, she doesn't talk
back to the odious Mrs. X. Instead, in an inspired twist, she speaks her
mind to the teddy bear nanny cam. Class intimidation, as it so often does,
silences Nanny. Only in fairy tales like "Jane Eyre" does the non-union
underling get to mouth off to the boss and get rewarded with a promotion.

GROSS: Maureen Corrigan teaches literature at Georgetown University. She
reviewed "The Nanny Diaries."

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.