Tommy Womack Gets Back to His Rock and Roll Roots With 'I Thought I Was Fine'
If you're someone who has found the music of Tommy Womack in the last decade or so, you probably know him as an Americana artist. But if, like me, you grew up in the Nashville radio market in the '80s, listening to WKDF's Nashville Tapes (which Womack hosted for a time) every Sunday night, you know him as one of the major names in the city's rock and roll scene at the time. With his band Government Cheese, he joined bands like Webb Wilder, Jason & the Scorchers, and Royal Court of China in dishing out a style of rock and roll so unique it in some ways gave birth to the “a genre defined by refusing to stick to a genre” that is Americana. For those people, or just those who like unvarnished blue collar garage rock, Womack's I Thought I Was Fine is the album you've been waiting for.
The general framework of Womack's Americana records is there. The things that makes Womack such a unique songwriter is his utter refusal to couch struggle in pretty words and chords. Where other artists give you a peek at the monster in the closet, Womack has always thrown the door wide open, riding it around the room like a rodeo bronc. But Womack is also disarmingly self-deprecating, poking fun at his own quirks and struggles, then following it with a tender love song.
But make no mistake, I Thought I Was Fine is a rock and roll record. Not only rock and roll, but rock and roll at its most pure, not just an acceptance of one-take imperfection but a celebration of it. Womack and co-producer Jonathan Bright played all of the instruments, writing and recording in three-hour blocks that intentionally left no time for polish. Or, as Womack put it, “We would listen to the playback and say 'does that sound like a guitar? Good, let's move on!”
The album's highlight is the bookend to a song from Womack's solo debut, 1998's Positively Na Na, “A Little Bit of Sex.” While the original was a comic look at how the constant search for the next good lay drives the behavior of the young, “A Little Bit of Sex Part 2” gives you the view a rocker in his '50s who realizes “all my old groupies got menopause. Them old fans still come around. They stand for the first song and sit back down. But it's alright, nobody's getting laid tonight.” It's not a lament of lost youth and lost libido, but a song about freedom, how not being driven by sex allows him to enjoy other things in life. “A Little Bit of Sex Part 2” is also the album's hardest rocker, with wailing guitars louder than even the heaviest Government Cheese songs.
On the other side, “Call Me Gary” is a chilling tale about a youth pastor who acted as the father figure his mother felt he needed. While the things that happened between the narrator and “Gary” are never explicitly stated (a rare moment of restraint for Womack, which only makes it more terrifying), but the flat, emotionless delivery, the imagery of a melting ice cream cone on a drive home, and the unspoken despair at watching the pastor insisting a first grader call him Gary, leaves no doubt.
Family is a major theme on I Thought I Was Fine as well. “I Wish I'd Known You Better” is an acoustic ballad about a brother 20 years his senior, someone who was an occasional visitor, someone who he heard stories about rather than lived them with. “I Do” is an ode to Womack's wife, a power pop toe tapper that's as simple a love song as they come. “It's All About Me” is another dedication to his wife, not a simple declaration of love but a humorous take on her patience with the self-absorbed semi-narcissism that afflicts many a professional musician used to nightly applause and adoration.
I Thought I Was Fine is not a perfect album. Some songs land better than others. The anecdotes about Elvis lose much of their potency after the first couple of listens. But considering what Womack was going for here, I'm guessing a “perfect album” would be disappointing to him. This is like a car with a few miles on it, a dent or two in the fender, a scuff on the paint job. The kind of car with more personality than a whole fleet of Teslas. That's one thing that can absolutely be said about I Thought I Was Fine. It's an album with all kind of personality. And a damn fun one.