“You wait in the car / On the side of the road,” Lucinda Williams sang, and we all agreed that she had a voice like rusty velvet. “Let me go and stand a while / I want to know you’re there / But I wanna be alone.” And another friend said how apropos, how important, that she wanted her own space. She promised to return. But “don’t go and try to find me.” Then another friend quit returning phone calls. He quit returning e-mails. When his child was born, he took the mother home but refused to hold his baby. I know he’s alive, but we had to quit trying to find him. On the new album, Williams sounds drunk. But I can’t tell if she drinks to find someone, or to refuse. by Andrew Hamlin