\n<\/p>\n
\n\tHayes Carll<\/a> is ready for you to hear his new record. Opening up about it, however, is another matter.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cTalking about it and discussing it has always been problematic for me. I\u2019ve always approached it with some dread and anxiety,\u201d Carll says. We\u2019re staring out the window of a room at the Days Inn in Okemah, Oklahoma, on a July afternoon, a few hours before Carll and Evan Felker<\/a> kick off this year\u2019s Woody Guthrie Folk Festival with a song swap in a renovated theater a few blocks away. <\/p>\n \n\tWe\u2019re Only Human<\/em>, Carll\u2019s 10th record in a career that dates back to 2000, drops on Friday. It is both vintage Carll and something brand new and unexplored. Everyone who has followed Carll\u2019s career knew he was one of the foremost songwriters in Americana, with a gift for storytelling and a knack for wry humor. Whether pontificating divorce and drug use on a military base (\u201cKMAG YOYO\u201d<\/a>), paying tribute to a woman who likes to lay naked and be gazed upon (\u201cDrunken Poet\u2019s Dream\u201d), or carefully laying out the hypocrisy God would surely see if \u201cshe\u201d came down to earth (\u201cNice Things\u201d), Carll\u2019s worldview and music have always been inseparable. However, with rare exceptions \u2014\u00a0such as 2004\u2019s eulogy for a friend in \u201cLong Way Home\u201d \u2014 the most notable absence in his music has been Carll himself.<\/p>\n \n\tThis record is a personal one that finds Carll staring down his own demons and his wishes for the world around him \u2014 and this marks his first time talking about it. If he hadn\u2019t already been open in his discomfort with our discussion, he conveys it by easing into his hotel room chair as though there are snakes on the floor.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cTodd Snider has this great quote where he says, \u2018I don\u2019t write these songs to change anybody\u2019s mind, I write them to ease my own,\u2019\u201d Carll says. \u201cI always thought that was a really cool quote, but I realized that wasn\u2019t how I approached music. I wasn\u2019t working through stuff. I was writing about things and trying to be creative, but I wasn\u2019t working on myself.\u201d<\/p>\n