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Title: Excuse me, but I just don't get it.
Review: I'm baffled by all of the attention being paid to "Car Wheels." I've been listening to LW since "Happy Woman Blues," am crazy about the self-titled album and "Sweet Old World," and have been eagerly anticipating "Car Wheels" for lo these many years. I love the writings of Faulkner, O'Connor, and Percy, grew up in the South, and all of my relatives still live on red clay roads on southern Ga. farms. "Car Wheels" fulfulls New Yorkers' expectations of how Southerners are supposed to sound, and I think that's why Northern critics like it so much. To these ears, it just sounds like a parody, about as authentic as Steven Spielberg's depiction of the South in The Color Purple. There's a stultifying sameness to the melodies, and the lyrics sound like they sprung directly from subconsciousness to paper without any intervening critical faculties. A big disappointment from somebody who ought to know better.
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