From stark images that raise goosebumps on the arms to swoonworthy expressions of love, Lucinda Williams is a master of rustic lyrical beauty. She's also created quite the travelogue, with the references to cities, towns and other geographical landmarks lending local color to her musical poetry, from Beaumont to Birmingham, Minneapolis to Memphis.

Here are a few of the many songs in Williams' catalog that take listeners on a musical journey:

Alan Messer (ENLARGE)
Lucinda Williams moved around a lot as a child, and she does the same in much of her songwriting.
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• "Ventura" — Williams imagines driving up the California coast, perhaps to Ventura, with Neil Young wafting from the stereo. (From 2003's "World Without Tears")

• "Maria" — "New York City was always your home," Williams sings of the title character, "but in your heart you know you were born to roam." Then she lists the places where Maria might end up: Texas, New Mexico, Canada or Colorado. (From 1980's "Happy Woman Blues")

• "Lafayette" — A love song to this Louisiana town in the heart of Cajun country: "It's so hard to leave you, Lafayette, now I know where I belong." (From "Happy Woman Blues")

• "Lake Charles" — Williams tells the tale of a man who "liked to tell everybody he was from Lake Charles," though he was born in the East Texas town of Nacogdoches. This western Louisiana town is also the place where Williams was born. (From 1998's "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road")

• "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" — The title track from Williams' 1998 masterpiece begins with a woman sitting in a kitchen in Macon, listening to Loretta Lynn on the radio. This could refer to Macon, Ga., but it's just as likely that it refers to Macon, Miss., since the song also references Jackson. Then again, Georgia has a Jackson, too, and it's about an hour north of Macon. There's another reason to think it might be the Georgia city. Our Macon is one of the places Williams lived as a child, when her father, poet and professor Miller Williams, moved wherever he could find a teaching position.

In a 2005 interview with Virginia's Port Folio Weekly, the elder Williams talks about meeting Flannery O'Conner during his time at Macon's Wesleyan College. "It got to where I'd go over there every two or three weeks and Lucinda, who was 5, would go with me," he says. "Flannery let her chase her peacocks."