NASHVILLE — Gretchen Peters is the writer behind cuts as varied as Trisha Yearwood's "Bus to Saint Cloud," Bonnie Raitt's "Rock Steady," Bryan Adams' "Low Life" and Randy Travis' "High Lonesome."

Her own performing career is a bit more low-profile than those of some artists whose hits she wrote, but when she first moved to Nashville from her Colorado home more than a dozen years ago, Peters was puzzled by the constant question of whether she was a singer or a writer.

"It was baffling, because people didn't do both," she recalled. On a misty spring evening Thursday night at the intimate Bluebird Cafe, Peters showed a sold-out house that she sings as well as she writes.

She opened with "The Secret of Life" (RealAudio excerpt). Before it was a hit for Faith Hill, it was the title of Peters' debut album; it's the story of a couple of guys hashing out the meaning of life with a bartender.

She followed up with "I Don't Know" (RealAudio excerpt), a cut from her forthcoming disc Gretchen Peters, on Sony. The tune neatly captures the state of mind between ending a relationship and beginning another. Peters also offered a passionately understated version of "Like Water Into Wine," a cut that charted high for Patty Loveless, despite record executives' decision to remove its third verse, which includes imagery of Jesus. Peters restored the lines for this performance and her new album.

"I guess you can't mention Jesus in a love song," she said. "When they tell you there's something controversial in your song and you can't figure out what it is, then it seems that one or the other of you has gone too far in some direction. And it's no knock on Patty, because she loved the song as it was."

The Naked Truth

Moving through the stories of three characters facing the bittersweet sides of love, Peters told the humorous tale of "Eddie's First Wife," reflected on the poignancy of memory in "Love and Texaco" and led listeners on an emotional and geographical road trip with a doomed pair in search of love in "Lilies of the Field," all off the upcoming album.

"I want to get the naked truth out there," Peters said. "After all, real life isn't this neat perfect thing. What's beautiful are the scars and imperfect threads that make up people. Someone once said, 'Perfection offends the gods.' I don't know about that ... but I think that one thread of imperfection makes life compelling as hell."

She compares singing — which she does in an expressive soprano that falls somewhere between Emmylou Harris and Pam Tillis — to acting. "You have to inhabit the character and feel what they feel at that very moment. You have to go there, be there. It's very defined, so you just have to be honest."

'Weird, Dark Stuff'

That honesty was apparent as Peters let her four-piece band take a break, and played two of her highest-charting and most enduring hits alone, singing with just her own guitar accompaniment.

Distilled to the essence, Peters offered "Independence Day" (RealAudio excerpt), a controversial story of spousal abuse told from a child's point of view. It ends with the abused wife setting her house — with her husband inside it — on fire. It became a hit for Martina McBride.

"There is some weird, dark stuff in there," said Peters, who put off finishing the song for some time. "One of the magical, mysterious things about writing is you have to go there by being open. You don't necessarily know where it is going, but it'll show you. 'Independence Day' was like that — I didn't know what the song was about for the longest time; then one day it just ended like it was meant to."

A commercial hit for Loveless, "You Don't Even Know Who I Am" (RealAudio excerpt) became even stronger in Peters' stripped-down rendition as she chronicled the end of a marriage in vivid, sparse imagery.

Calling the band back to the stage, Peters played "Bus to Saint Cloud" (RealAudio excerpt), "which was actually a giant flop," she said. "It shot up to #67 on the charts — and then disappeared" in a recording by Yearwood.

It is, however, one of Peters' own favorites of the songs she's written. "It was snowing that day in Nashville, " she recalled, "which isn't all that common, and that's what got me started, looking out the window at the snow. ... It may be the most grown-up song I've ever written. It's got what I like best — it's sad and pretty, but there's an undercurrent of bitterness. It's very open to interpretation," she said of her searing portrait of love and loss.

As the evening drew to a close, Peters offered comments on "In a Perfect World" — the likely first single from the upcoming album — took a road trip across the landscapes of roadside attractions and roadside emotions with "Souvenirs," and looked at Picasso through the eyes of his cat in "Picasso and Me" (RealAudio excerpt).

Inspired By Dolly

The understated, black-clad Peters, playing in an intimate venue beyond the lights of Nashville glitz, might seem far removed from the flash of country-pop icon Dolly Parton, but it was an encounter with Parton that gave Peters her direction.

Peters recalls seeing Parton perform at a Denver club. "She wrote her songs — and hearing them you knew they were a part of who she was. It was so personal. At one point, she even started crying during a song, and it was real! That's when I understood what it took to write songs that really mattered," Peters said.

Closing her set with a mystical walk through hope and redemption, "Revival" (RealAudio excerpt), Peters showed that this is an art she's clearly mastered.

Dogwood Moon opened. In a brief, five-song set, the couple showed a flair for unusual harmony and mixed a talking-blues style with folk-rock and alt-country on original songs including "Come and Go" and "Moonlight."