For the Sake of the Song: John Hiatt “Have a Little Faith in Me”

For years, John Hiatt was in a category of his own. His own record company didn’t know where to place him. He is undoubtedly under Americana’s broad banner, but would you say he was country, blues or new wave? No matter where you peg Hiatt, he has produced noteworthy music throughout his career.

Major success came his way with the release of ‘Bring the Family’ in 1987, which featured a stellar cast of musicians including Jim Keltner, Ry Cooder, and Nick Lowe.

My first introduction to Hiatt was via the New Musical Express. The publication produced compilation cassettes and albums in the eighties to introduce readers to new music. They issued 37 between 1981 and 1988. I still hold dear and listen to the 1987 ‘The Tape With No Name’. A compilation, using their own words, that brought us ‘The Hard Core of New Country’. Opening with Steve Earle’s ‘Guitar Town’, this cassette shaped my music-listening future. Track 10, side one was John Hiatt with ‘Memphis in the Meantime’, a funky country style rocker, which was pleasant enough from the album ‘Bring the Family’. At that stage, I didn’t investigate the Hiatt back catalogue any further, picking up mainly on Earle, Yoakam and Lovett.

In 1993 Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) released the film ‘Benny & Joon’. The cast included Mary Stuart Masterson, Julianne Moore, Aiden Quinn and a certain Johnny Depp. The romantic comedy included a fantastic soundtrack, starting with the Proclaimer’s ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 miles)’, also including Joe Cocker’s version of the Blind Faith song ‘Can’t Find My Way Home’ and Hiatt’s ‘Have a Little Faith in Me’.

The song completely underpinned the storyline. It was the first song Hiatt wrote after his sobriety from drugs and alcohol. His original arrangement was scrapped for a stripped-down piano version. Hiatt’s voice perfectly captures the emotion of the lyrics. “When the road gets dark/ And you can no longer see/ Just let my love throw a spark/ And have a little faith in me.”

The simplicity of the lyrics and the arrangement let the song breathe in the way it should. ‘Bring the Family’ is a unique album. We all talk about so-called “breakthrough albums”, but it was more than that. Hiatt had a new marriage; he had changed record labels, found his sobriety and left California. It was a departure from the old to the new, and there is confidence in the album and this song. It has been covered many times. Dolly Parton reimagined the song with Swedish electronic duo Galantis, Mandy Moore released her version as a single in 2003, and even Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem gave it the Muppet treatment. The beauty, power and poetry of the original can never be surpassed. Have a little faith.