Lucinda Williams ‘Locks’ Up First Rock Digital Songs Appearance
Thanks, "The Affair." The singer/songwriter's "Changed the Locks" opens the door to a sales chart for the first time in her lengthy career.
For the first time in her nearly 40-year career, folk-rocker Lucinda Williams makes an appearance on a Billboard song sales chart, as “Changed the Locks” debuts at No. 16 on Rock Digital Songs (dated Nov. 14) with 6,000 sold (up from nearly none the week before), according to Nielsen Music. She first released the track on her self-titled 1988 album. (Notably, Rock Digital Songs didn’t debut until 2010.)
The catalyst for the vault: a synch in Showtime’s The Affair, in which character Helen Solloway (played by Maura Tierney) drunkenly sings along to the song.
“Locks” has charted before on a Billboard ranking: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers‘ version, from the She’s the One soundtrack, reached No. 20 on Mainstream Rock Songs in 1997.
While Williams charts new chart territory, she’s notched seven top 40 albums on the Billboard 200, rising as high as No. 9 with 2008’s Little Honey. Her most recent set, 2014’s Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, hit No. 1 on Folk Albums.
Prior to Petty’s “Locks” cover, Williams scored a commercial breakthrough thanks to her friend Mary Chapin Carpenter: she wrote Carpenter’s 1993 country-pop hit “Passionate Kisses,” first recorded on Williams’ 1988 set. The song hit No. 4 on Hot Country Songs and No. 11 on Adult Contemporary.