Hangover Folk Music

For better or worse, Holly Golightly may always be known best as the girl who traded witty one-liners with Jack & Meg on The White Stripes’ “It’s True That We Love One Another,” the closing track on the gargantuan Elephant. When we spoke last week, Golightly and I talked about many things, but I never brought up her White Stripes cameo. After all, the song is four years old, and I figured she was probably long ago tired of talking about it. But it is an important claim to fame—not just because it’s one of the platinum album’s most infectious sing-a-longs, but because had it not been for that song, many fans may never have heard of Golightly. And that would have been a crime since her body of work—a prolific 13 albums in the last 12 years—is a testament to her being one of this generation’s most talented singer/songwriters.

Listening to her latest album, You Can’t Buy a Gun When You’re Crying (Damaged Goods) is like taking a deep breath on a hectic day. The lo-fi recordings sound as seductive as anything by Nancy Sinatra or Dusty Springfield. The echoing twangs and lingering slides and songs about the love of Jesus, the Devil and her daddy—as well as lyrics like “Whoopie ti yi yo, get along little doggies”—add to the nostalgia. This is straight-up country music—Hank Williams country, not Garth Brooks country.

Golightly, however, considers her style more folk. “I haven’t got any country records,” she says. “It’s not something I know very much about. My songs are just nice, simple songs.” She concedes the similarity though, and draws the parallel between the two genres. “Country music is just a hangover kind of folk music.”

But to confine her music to either genre would be selling Golightly short. There’re deep shades of early front-porch blues that, when mixed with the old-timey country, remind you that the combination of the two is what brought us rock ‘n’ roll. In fact, if you quickened the tempo and added an amp, Miss Golightly’s songs would stand toe-to-toe with any of Mr. White’s. But that isn’t the goal.

“Any song could be done in a million different ways,” says Golightly. “There are endless options. But sometimes I think options aren’t a good thing. Sometimes it’s better to keep things quite simple—like you say, stripped down. I don’t go out of my way to strip things down, really, that’s just how they turn out, and invariably I’m happier with the way they sound.”

Golightly is embarking on a two-month U.S. tour with Lawyer Dave, the man who helped conceive and record You Can’t Buy a Gun. Their first stop is New York, for this Thursday’s Rocks Off Cruise, and Golightly should feel right at home on the water. “I lived on a converted Dutch barge for 12 years on the river Midway, till about five years ago,” she explains. “So I’ve played a lot of music on boats. But I think this will be a lot of fun. I just hope it’s really nice weather.”

Rocks Off Cruise, World Yacht Marina (Pier 81), 41st St. (at West Side Dr.), 212-571-3304; 8 p.m. departure, $25/$30.