Perhaps the most interesting thing about a conversation with John Paul White is how much his public persona differs from his private one. In conversation, he speaks in a thick, welcoming drawl rather than the agitated, breathy alto of his new album, “Beulah,” in which rarely approaches a Southern lilt.
White, married with children, is more genial than the self-absorbed, post-breakup lover in “Make You Cry” who is desperate beyond measure to hurt his lover as much as she hurt him. In “Beulah,” his first solo album since the dissolution of the critically acclaimed duo The Civil Wars, White vividly imagines a figure tormented by love, loss and his origins. The Cavalier Daily sat down with White to talk about his recent work and his show at The Southern Oct. 19.
Arts & Entertainment: You’ve been to Charlottesville in the past. Do you have any fond memories? Are you looking forward to returning?
John Paul White: I do. You know, usually when I play in Charlottesville, I have to roll into town, play and roll right back out, as with many cities. But the beauty of playing at The Southern is that it’s right there [Downtown] … Lots of great shops, people. It’s a really relaxing place to be. I’ve spent a little bit of time around the Virginia campus too, which is gorgeous. I always have fond memories of going there.
A&E: Getting to your most recent work, there are a number of meanings for the word “Beulah.” What should the audience know about that word and what it means to you?
JPW: When I was growing up, my dad used to call my little sister Beulah as a term of endearment around the house, so I’ve noticed that I do the same thing around the house with my wife and daughter. I had a relative named Beulah. It’s a word that’s sort of synonymous with heaven in Gospel songs in the South, so it’s heavily entrenched in our culture. For me, the main meaning of it, for the record, was based on the philosopher William Blake, and he had his own little mythology for his spirituality. Beulah for him was a place where you could go, as a sinner, to heal, to get it together. It was a place you had to come back from — you couldn’t stay there, it wasn’t heaven. It was just a place you go for meditation. I felt like that’s really where I’ve been. It’s pronounced “boo-la.” It seemed to fit perfectly.
A&E: A lot of songs from the album seemed to portray very self-centred or dark perspectives on love and loss. Do those themes still resonate with you, as a married man, or are they coming from a place of memory?
JPW: That’s a very good question. I’m not sure I have a hard, concrete answer for it, because a lot of times, the songs that I write, I’m not sure exactly where they’re coming from. Sometimes they’re coming from deep in me, sometimes they come from a conversation I had with a friend, or with my family or from literature. They’re from cinema. I pull from different places. But I do know that my answer is sort of twofold. One, I grew up always gravitating towards darker songs. Not necessarily sad songs, but just songs that tended to live out there on the edge with Hank Sr. and those guys and then later Townes Van Zandt. For whatever reason, they just sparked me more than a positive, happy song could. But, the other side of that answer is, I tend to write darker songs when I’m in a good place. … If I’m not in a good place, and I write a super dark song, it just becomes overwrought and heavy-handed. It’s just too “woe is me.” But, when I’m in a good place, I can stand outside and do a better job of seeing the details.
A&E: Songs like “What’s So” and “The Once and Future Queen” seemed at least partially a reaction to the South. How do you think your Alabama and Nashville origins have affected your voice as a songwriter?
JPW: Immensely. There would be no way that that would not be the case — I try to write as conversationally as possible. I wouldn’t pretend to be able to step into characters from other parts of the country as well as I could the folks that I’ve watched around me, and even myself. “What’s So,” without really even trying to go there, is a song about growing up in the South, in a blue collar — if even blue collar — farming town.
You got so used to hearing people say things like, “Don’t put on airs, don’t act like you’re better than anybody else, who’s he think he is?” That was always something I was very mindful of. It would ostracize people — if people’s social stature climbed too much, there would be a stigma attached to that…
To this day, I have issues with being too self-congratulatory about any successes I’ve had ‘cause there’s a voice in the back of my head saying, “You’re the same guy, you’re the same kid that grew up on that farm, don’t act like you’re better than anybody else.” As I talk to other guys from the South, both male and female, we all kind of have that current running through us.
A&E: A big question in recent news for many folk-rock singers is about Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. Do you think of the folk-rock that you make as literature, in any sense?
JPW: I’ve learned early on that what I was really trying to do was write short stories, when I wrote songs. It was really hard for me to make it, considering the three-and-a-half-minute pop format, but that’s what we’re doing. I fully agree that it’s literature. But who am I to say? I would not be the guy to be able to give the definition, but I know when I go about it, I am not writing poetry. I’m writing short stories.
A&E: Which writers have influenced you? You mentioned William Blake — are there any others that come to mind in your recent album?
JPW: Yeah, Elliott Smith was a big influence on me. Elliott had a knack for really dark imagery, lyrically, and then just beautiful melodies over the top of that. And I always loved the juxtaposition, and how it made everything okay. I remember thinking, “This is how he deals with the turmoil that he’s got in his head,” and I always thought that was a beautiful thing. So, I feel like I have definitely used that at times when my imagery gets too on-the-edge, sometimes melody can bring it back to a safer place, a more accessible place. But then other guys, more in the country line, would be Bob McDill, Whitey Shafer, people like that — the classic country writers. They didn’t leave us a lot to do. They covered a lot of our bases.
A&E: What can the audience look forward to when seeing you live, compared to listening to you in your album?
JPW: There are moments in the live show that are a lot like the record. There’s times when I’m playing, just me and the guitar, no one else on stage. I try to run the gamut there. As we play every night, the songs begin to morph into something slightly different, slightly more aggressive, slightly more abstract. We get bored. We want to keep it interesting for ourselves, too. I’ve recently heard the record — I think I was in an interview and they were playing back the clips, and it was just kind of funny, because it was like, “Wow, we play it so much faster than that now…” Actually, I love it. I always love going, seeing shows where there’s a progression, there’s a growth, and I’m not just hearing the record regurgitated in live form.
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