Fat City (album)

Track listing

1. "Polaroids" (Shawn Colvin) - 5:53
2. "Tennessee" (Colvin, John Leventhal) - 4:21
3. "Tenderness on the Block" (Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon) - 5:05
4. "Round of Blues" (Colvin, Larry Klein) - 4:47
5. "Monopoly" (Colvin) - 4:25
6. "Orion in the Sky" (Colvin, Klein) - 6:38
7. "Climb On (A Back That's Strong)" (Colvin, Leventhal) - 4:16
8. "Set the Prairie on Fire" (Elly Brown, Colvin) - 7:01
9. "Object of My Affection" (Colvin, Leventhal) - 3:53
10. "Kill the Messenger" (Colvin) - 4:36
11. "I Don't Know Why" (Colvin) - 4:37

Personnel

Shawn Colvin – guitar, vocals

Bruce Hornsby – piano, background vocals

David Lindley – Hawaiian guitar, bazouki, lap steel Guitar

Joni Mitchell – percussion

The Subdudes – vocals

Richard Thompson – guitar

Chris Whitley – National Steel guitar (8)

Tommy Malone – guitar, background vocals

Valerie Carter – background vocals

Jim Keltner – drums

Alex Acuña – percussion

Steve Amedee – drums, background vocals

Robin Batteau – background vocals

Larry Campbell – fiddle, pedal steel

Mary Chapin Carpenter – background vocals

Vinnie Colaiuta – drums

Denny Fongheiser – drums

Béla Fleck – banjo

Milt Grayson – background vocals

Richie Hayward – drum brushes

Curtis King – background vocals

Larry Klein – bass, percussion, guitar, keyboards, drum programming

Greg Leisz – pedal steel

John Leventhal – guitar, bass, percussion

John Magnie – accordion, background vocals

Bill Payne – organ

Jeff Pevar – guitar

Steuart Smith – guitar

Fonzi Thornton – background vocals

Ken White – keyboards, background vocals

Vinnie Zummo – guitar

Johnny Ray Allen – bass

Booker T. Jones III – Hammond organ

Songwriting

In an interview with Performing Songwriter magazine, Colvin described how she co-wrote songs for Fat City:

The way that I generally co-write is that someone else writes the music or part of the music. Like on "Round of Blues" I wrote the whole song but Larry Klein said that it needed a bridge. So he wrote the bridge and I wrote the words to it. But Elly and I really shared every part of ["Set the Prairie on Fire"] equally. She wrote some of the words, I wrote some of the words, she wrote some of the music, I wrote some of the music.