Happy New YEAR Top Ten: Thirty Years of Tears (#3)
By Four Walls
@FourWalls (86950)
United States
January 4, 2018 6:52pm CST
In order to celebrate the new year, I’m counting down my favorite songs that have the word “year” in the title. This was one of the quickest, “wrote itself” countdowns I’ve ever put together. Even putting them in order wasn’t all that difficult. One great song after another on this list, and here’s the next one.
#3: Thirty Years of Tears - John Hiatt
And if you’re playing along in the “six degrees of Linda Ronstadt” game, she covered Hiatt’s songs “Icy Blue Heart” and “When We Ran” on her album We Ran.
Did I mention my first purchased 2018 concert ticket is for John Hiatt? I bought it back in November. He’s playing March 30th in Bloomington, Illinois, on a 30th anniversary of Slow Turning tour. I’m all over that!!!
Slow Turning was the middle of a “trilogy” of albums from John Hiatt that had a tremendous amount of autobiographical detail in the songs (not all of them, mind you: I don’t think he ever “shot up an automatic teller machine” as he sang in “Trudy and Dave” 
). The third album, 1990’s Stolen Moments, was definitely the most personal. He addressed his alcoholism in serious (“The Back of My Mind”) and comical (“these days the only bar I ever see has got lettuce and tomatoes” on “Stolen Moments”), as well as other painful (“Seven Little Indians,” about growing up in Indiana with his father’s and brother’s deaths) and much happier (“Have a Little Faith in Me” from Bring the Family, which some friends of mine used as their wedding song) subjects.
In this song Hiatt is dealing with the future while acknowledging the past still has a painful grip on him (he was 38 when he recorded this album), saying in the chorus that “these are tears from a long time ago, and I need to cry 30 years or so.”
He’s had a lot of pain in his life (the brother referenced above committed suicide, as did Hiatt’s second wife), so the crying would be therapeutic.
Thirty Years of Tears
Written by John Hiatt
Recorded by John Hiatt
From Stolen Moments, 1990
A heartbeat that tells me it’s so:
). The third album, 1990’s Stolen Moments, was definitely the most personal. He addressed his alcoholism in serious (“The Back of My Mind”) and comical (“these days the only bar I ever see has got lettuce and tomatoes” on “Stolen Moments”), as well as other painful (“Seven Little Indians,” about growing up in Indiana with his father’s and brother’s deaths) and much happier (“Have a Little Faith in Me” from Bring the Family, which some friends of mine used as their wedding song) subjects.
In this song Hiatt is dealing with the future while acknowledging the past still has a painful grip on him (he was 38 when he recorded this album), saying in the chorus that “these are tears from a long time ago, and I need to cry 30 years or so.”
He’s had a lot of pain in his life (the brother referenced above committed suicide, as did Hiatt’s second wife), so the crying would be therapeutic.
Thirty Years of Tears
Written by John Hiatt
Recorded by John Hiatt
From Stolen Moments, 1990
A heartbeat that tells me it’s so:
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2 people like this
3 responses
@RasmaSandra (98156)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
5 Jan 18
First time I hear this and about the singer. Will check him out some more.
1 person likes this
@FourWalls (86950)
• United States
5 Jan 18
He’s never had commercial success as a singer on his own, but he’s written a number of hits: “Sure As I’m Sittin’ Here” (Three Dog Night), “Thing Called Love” (Bonnie Raitt), “Angel Eyes” (Jeff Healey), “The Way We Make a Broken Heart” (Rosanne Cash), and a number of album cuts.
1 person likes this
@JohnRoberts (109841)
• Los Angeles, California
5 Jan 18
John Hiatt...hmmm...trying to remember if you have mentioned him before....
1 person likes this
