36 Year Old John Hiatt Sends A Message To 66 Year Old John Hiatt Through The Eclipse Sessions

John Hiatt’s latest album ‘The Eclipse Sessions’ in many ways is a direct link back to his 1987 album ‘Bring The Family’ or maybe 30 years ago he was projected forward to now.

“‘Bring The Family’ took four days to make and it set the precedent,” John Hiatt tells Noise11.com. “Since that record I don’t like spending a lot of time making records. The most time I spent since was three or four weeks from start to finish. It’s about capturing magic. It’s not an easy thing to do”.

66-year-old Hiatt identifies with his 36-year-old self and that is obvious on ‘The Eclipse Sessions’. “I’m 66 now and I was 65 when I made this record. You start to become aware that if you have 20 more years you’ll have a wonderful life,” John says. “You have a lot more behind you than you have in front of you. You get a different view of things. Time is more precious and valuable. Changes, the shifts, seem to be bigger and more monumental in some ways. It is kind of weird. Time seems so strange. A year seems to go by like a month used to go by when I was younger”.

Hiatt is one of those 70s artists who, based on his lifestyle then, should never had gotten this far. “First off I am grateful that I made it this far. I spent the first part of my life trying to destroy myself slowly. I was grateful to get a second chance. The fact that I’, healthy and 66 is a real plus,” he said.

Along the journey from ‘Bring The Family’ to ‘The Eclipse Sessions’ John Haitt has lost a lot of people close to him. “I’ve lost friends and family members,” he said. “It is part of getting older. It’s part of the deal. Death is part of life and I’ll have to be facing my own at some point.”

It is kind of an amalgamation of all the people I have known. The main character singing the song is basically saying ‘I am going to love you the best I can and I know I am going to let you down because I’m just a human being’.