I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive
Album | Steve Earle
Earle’s most country album in over a decade.
Before I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive, Steve Earle's last album of original songs was Washington Square Serenade, a love letter to the alt-country hero's newly adopted hometown of New York City and one of his most urban-sounding efforts to date. Ever unpredictable, Earle engineered a 180 for the follow-up, splitting town and heading into the studio with T-Bone Burnett's roots-rock wrecking crew, and coming up with his most country-sounding record since 1999's bluegrass-tinged The Mountain. The Bush-blasting broadside "Little Emperor" and the BP-spill ballad "The Gulf of Mexico" show that the Hardcore Troubadour has lost none of his fierce political fire or ire, but the closing cut, "This City" - featured in HBO's Treme, on which the multitalented songwriter also guest stars - is an anthem of hope for the rebuilding of post-Katrina New Orleans. Speaking of Earle's multifarious interests, he published a novel with the same title as this album, and while the two are ultimately unrelated, their sourcing of one of Hank Williams' most mortality-minded tunes as nomenclature indicates both the rootsy return and loss-informed subtext of these songs.
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Music Review
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
Lucinda Williams -
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Short Man’s Room
Joe Henry -
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Somedays The Song Writes You
Guy Clark -
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Crows
Allison Moorer
| I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive (Trailer) | |
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