My Top 20 John Hiatt Songs: Something Broken (#11)

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I'll close out the day with the continuation of my 20 favorite songs by the great John Hiatt, who's written songs covered by people as diverse as Ronnie Milsap in country, BB King & Eric Clapton in blues-rock, and Three Dog Night in pop-rock. Here's the end of the "bottom" half of the top 20. #11: Something Broken The album this song came from, The Tiki Bar Is Open, was highly anticipated, and Hiatt went to New York City to do promotion for its release. Unfortunately, the release date for this album was September 11, 2001. Hiatt would later write a song about that awful day, "When New York Had Her Heart Broke." Because of that, much of this album sort of fell by the wayside (save for the title song, which Jimmy Buffett did frequently in concert). That's a shame, because it's a really good album. And this is the absolute highlight of the album. Yesterday I mentioned with the great love song "What Love Can Do" that Hiatt had mentioned that all of his love songs were inspired by his wife. Here he sings of a failed relationship so convincingly that he said fans were writing him to ask if his marriage was on the rocks!! The answer was (and is) no, he's just that good of a songwriter. And he sang this song like there really was something broken, but he's just that good a singer, too. Something Broken Written by John Hiatt From The Tiki Bar Is Open, 2001 Here's John proving he can sing sad songs, too: