Describing his excellent new album I Thought I Was Fine, Tommy Womack says, “This is me being true to myself.”
Womack’s true self is an unrepentant rocker. That’s how he first made his mark in Nashville in the 1980s as a member of Government Cheese — a rock band formed in Bowling Green, Ky. — and later in the 1990s with the Bis-Quits. He returns to those roots on the new record that hits stores and streaming services on Oct. 15.
“I wanted to make a rock ’n’ roll record,” Womack explains. “I’ve made a lot of records that lean Americana, and that’s fine, but I wanted to get back to what I liked as a kid and young adult. There’re a couple of country-ish songs on it, but it’s primarily a rock ’n’ roll record, which is my first love.”
He started working on I Thought I Was Fine in 2020, recording in short spurts over the course of a year with co-producer Jonathan Bright at Bright’s studio. Between them, they played all the instruments: Womack played a variety of electric and acoustic guitars, as well as electric bass and harmonica, while Bright played drums, keys and ukulele. Womack’s longtime collaborator Lisa Oliver-Gray teamed with Bright on the inspired backing vocal parts.
“The guy is a genius,” Womack says of Bright, who also engineered the sessions. “I always knew he was smart and funny, but I didn’t know what a genius he is until we started working and recording together.”
In returning to his rock roots, Womack gives a nod musically to a number of his rock heroes, including The Kinks, Pete Townshend, the Stones and The Clash.
“I would go over to Jonathan’s place about once a week, and we’d work on something for three hours,” he says. “And it was very much like how The Beatles would come into Abbey Road and start a song, like, ‘Let’s play this song I just wrote.’ So everybody learns it real quick and plays it, and in three hours you’ve got the recording done. That’s kind of how it was when we were doing it.
“We didn’t get anal about a single note of music on the record. We just would do something and ask ourselves, ‘Does it sound like rock ’n’ roll?’ ”
Over the course of his career, Womack has written a lot of material best described as tragicomic confessionals. There are a number of songs in that vein on I Thought I Was Fine, including the titular tune.
“That was totally true to life,” he says of the song, which dates back more than a decade, to a time before he got sober. It tells the story of a house concert that he thought went well — which, in reality, went badly, because he had taken too much Xanax in an effort to calm his nerves. “I took the last two Xanax I had scored and wrote ‘I Thought I Was Fine’ on the way to the next gig — and even played it at the gig.”
The hardest-rocking song on the album is “A Little Bit of Sex Part 2,” with the hilarious hook line, “It’s all right, nobody’s getting laid tonight.” It’s Womack’s answer to “A Little Bit of Sex,” which opens his first solo album Positively Na Na, released in 1998.
"The first one I wrote when I was 25, and it’s all about the anxieties and recriminations and pregnancy-scare worries and disease worries — lots of worries," he says. “ ‘A Little Bit of Sex Part 2’ was written by someone who is 58, and it’s all about how sex is now. Part two is a song all about relief: ‘Oh God, I’m glad I don’t have the sex drive I once had. I’m so glad to be on the other side of that bullshit.’ So you could say that part two is a happier song than part one.”
Several of the songs are written to and for Womack’s wife Beth — most notably “I Do” and “It’s All About Me.” Talking about the latter, Womack says: “It’s for Beth, because she’s been living with a guy for 36 or 37 years now [for whom] ‘it’s all about me.’ The only reason I know I’m not a full-blown narcissist is because I wonder if I am. It’s a lighthearted song, and at the end, the character redeems himself a little bit because he says, ‘It’s all about me, yes, but I’m all yours.’ ”
Womack frequently demonstrates his knack for writing artfully about uncomfortable subjects. One of the most disquieting pieces on I Thought I Was Fine is “Call Me Gary.” The song is based on a true story, written from the perspective of a man who was sexually abused by a priest as a young boy.
“I guess my main purpose as an artist is to make certain people feel less alone,” he says. “I’m saying, ‘Hey, I’m fucked-up too. You’re not alone.’ That speaks volumes to a lot of people. I’m not everybody’s cup of tea, but the ones I hit home with, the fucked-up people out there, the worried people out there, the scared people out there, they hear me and go, ‘By God, somebody else feels the same way I do.’ ”
