It took Lucinda Williams six years and three producers to make her best album, an amazing record that sounds like it was casually banged out in a particularly creative weekend. It's steeped in Southern life, from song titles like "Lake Charles" to the country accents of the music to the accumulation of small details that make Williams' songs feel as vivid as diary entries. Although there must be plenty of outtakes and alternate versions from those six years of sessions, you won't find them here; this two-disc edition of the 1998 release is garnished with three bonus tracks almost as good as the rest of the record (two previously unreleased, one from the Horse Whisperer soundtrack) and a great live concert recorded in Philadelphia that includes most of the songs from Car Wheels, just in a different order.

“(We're Not) The Jet Set”

George Jones and Tammy Wynette were still married when they recorded the tongue-in-cheek "(We're Not) The Jet Set." The lyrics, written by Nashville songwriter Bobby Braddock, who also penned Wynette's "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" and Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today," make fun of the good life by declaring, "We're not the Jet Set/We're the old Chevrolet set." Braddock recalled that while writing the song, he needed the name of a city that evened out the rhyme he had with "Riviera" and "Missourah." “I got out a Rand McNally atlas," he said. "In the first part are the maps. The last part is an alphabetical listing of cities. I wanted a rustic, small-time sound. I went to the listing for Missouri. And I found 'Festus.' I loved the sound of it."