Hayes: "Love Letter" is saying, "I'm in charge" -- which I love. It's about that moment where you don't really know whether it's actually happening or it's all in your mind. In a way it's kind of creepy, because it's a woman sitting in front of a guy's house… but that night actually happened, right before I got together with the man who would later become my husband.
Cherney: When the band comes in the control room to hear a song again and wants to turn it up, I know that something really cool is happening. Instead of like, "What are we having for lunch?" With “Love Letter” it was like, "Let's hear that again!"
Was: The attitude of the two Bonnie Hayes songs really encapsulates a nice part of the spirit behind Bonnie Raitt. She didn’t care whether she wrote a song or not, but it had to reflect who she honestly was and what she was going through. She didn't have to act -- she would Stanislavski everything.
Hayes: All of those songs were given a gift, including mine, when she chose to cover them. She puts the ache into everything. She never leaves anything in her pocket, which I just really admire.
Was: It's very powerful imagery for her to be a strong and equal partner to somebody and say, "Don't lie to me, don't bullshit me, just be for real and as strong as I am." That wasn't necessarily what women were supposed to be singing about in rock and roll, and there's a lot of that on this album. "Nobody's Girl," "Have a Heart," "I Will Not Be Denied," "I Ain't Gonna Let You Break My Heart Again” -- all of them, really.
You have to get older to be sick of the bullshit and say, “I've had enough of this, here's how it's gotta be. I'm not asking anything of you that I won't give, but you've gotta stand up and meet me.” And it's all real.
“It's a different woman that picked the songs on Nick of Time than picked the ones on my first album.”
The album cuts on Nick of Time show Raitt’s range, from melancholy ballads (“Cry On My Shoulder”) to rough-and-tumble blues (her own composition, “The Road’s My Middle Name”). They also feature some of the album’s biggest names: Graham Nash and David Crosby sang backup vocals on “Cry On My Shoulder,” Herbie Hancock accompanied Bonnie on piano for “I Ain’t Gonna Let You Break My Heart Again,” and The Fabulous Thunderbirds supplemented her band on “The Road’s My Middle Name.” The end result was fluid, creating an album that was bigger -- and more successful -- than the sum of its parts.