Bonnie Raitt is a perfect example of an incendiary talent who was almost shuffled off to obscurity by the whims of the record industry. Her artistic struggles coincided with a rough patch in her life in the early to mid-’80s.
When the clouds started to part in her personal life, it brought light into her art as well. And she channeled it all into the marvelous 1989 song “Nick of Time,” the title track to an album that propelled her to the greatest success in her career.
“Time” Passages
When Bonnie Raitt hit the scene with her first records in the early ’70s, she immediately gained a following with blues-rock audiences, who sensed not just her immense talent but also her authenticity. As the decade wore on, she started to branch out into territory that was based a bit more in the singer/songwriter realm.
While she always earned plaudits from the critics, she struggled to cross over into the mainstream. That problem intensified in the early ’80s when labels started to chase the synthetic sounds of the era. Raitt lost her record deal right around the time she came to the end of a romantic relationship, and soon she was relying on alcohol and drugs to ward off those other problems.
Thankfully, she sobered up in 1987, and as she put her life back in order, she became excited to rev up her career again. A year later, while reflecting on how not only her life had changed but also how friends and loved ones were going through their own periods of upheaval, for good and bad, she began writing “Nick of Time.”
Raitt decided to work with producer Don Was, with whom she had been involved in a previous project. With “Nick of Time” as the centerpiece, her 1989 album of the same name surged to commercial heights and awards love (including Grammy Album of the Year) Raitt had never previously reached, all while maintaining the authenticity and integrity of her classic work.
Diving into the Lyrics of “Nick of Time”
“Nick of Time” wouldn’t have worked quite as well as it does had Raitt simply concentrated on her own problems. Instead, she showed an empathetic touch by looking around her and delving into issues faced by many of her peers. Long known for her interpretations of other writers, the song shone a spotlight on Raitt’s smooth moves as a songwriter in her own right.
The first verse of “Nick of Time” finds Raitt thinking about the time of life when people wanting to start families might start to wonder if it will ever happen for them. She does this through a quick snapshot of a couple with different priorities: And still he can’t decide / Pretty soon she’ll have to choose / And it tears her up inside.
Raitt was inspired by a car trip with her father, the legendary actor John Raitt, to write the second verse: I see my folks are getting on / And I watch their bodies change. That forces her to ponder the fleeting nature of existence: Life gets mighty precious / When there’s less of it to waste.
But Raitt makes sure to express that there is triumph as well as concern and heartbreak to be found as life progresses, using her own example of overcoming obstacles to propel the final verse. She told interviewer Marc Myers in the book Anatomy of a Song it wasn’t any one person who delivered her from her malaise. “The ‘you’ in there wasn’t about any one person in particular,” she explained about the presence in the final verse. “It was about a bigger, more universal love.”
I found love, baby, love in the nick of time, Raitt sings in the final refrain, and you can hear the gratitude in her voice. Nick of Time, the album, sparked a career resurgence that turned Raitt into one of the most beloved performers on the planet. Meanwhile, “Nick of Time,” the song, continues to hit home for anybody dealing with the tumultuous but inevitable life alterations brought about by the pesky procession of the calendar.
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Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images
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