Pabst Theater, Tuesday, March 7: This was one of those concerts where by the third track you are dying to go home just so you can download all of the artist’s songs on iTunes. Lucinda Williams is only the best thing that happened to the music scene since 1995, when we thought Alanis Morissette was able to recreate impeccable albums about being pissed off at falling love after “Jagged Little Pill.”

Williams’ strong southern accent is a spectacle of its own on stage, where she wittily reveals the stories behind the songs with such ease and spontaneity you almost think she is singing for free, just for the fun of it. She takes advantage of her non-apologetic self-exposure to the point where even if she goes out of tune she is excused.

Her lyrics are so smart, so accidentally poetic, so un-rehearsed and bare, it feels like she is singing without realizing other people are looking.

Her songs tend to talk about what it feels like to be ridiculously in love, lost in the blinding force of romance, and yet they seem to all take place in very specific places: Minneapolis, Memphis, Jackson, Baton Rouge, Greenville. As if saying we hurt over feelings, not people per se.

So love always hurts the same at the time that it does, but when you look back, the only tangible things you remember are the road, the hotel room and the street signs.

She alternates between confessing her own impotence and giving in to the infatuation and dishing out self-empowering “this song isn’t even about you” type of verses aimed at ex-lovers.

This is Norah Jones without the faux humbleness, Morissette without the record deal, Martha Wainwright with a little more mileage, Fiona Apple without the teenage angst, Jewel if she had never moved out of her car.

Must downloads: “Passionate Kisses,” “Fruits of my Labor,” “I just wanted to see you so bad” and “Overtime.”

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