Lucinda Williams’s nearly half-century recording career has always been characterized by literate lyrics and strong musicianship, but just as importantly, by heartfelt sentiments. It still is, though recent events have ostensibly prompted the singer to change the focus of those sentiments.
On early standouts like “Passionate Kisses,” “Something About What Happens When We Talk,” and “Right in Time,” she delivered emotional meditations on personal relationships. However, her preoccupations began to change as she witnessed America heading down an increasingly dark road.
Good Souls Better Angels, which Williams recorded in 2019, begins with her proclaiming, “Yeah, man, I got a right to talk about what I see / Way too much is going wrong, it’s right in front of me.” In another number on that album, she laments “bad news on my TV screen, bad news in the magazines…I can’t get away from it,” while a third song seems to address a certain president: “You’re a man without truth, a man of greed, a man of hate / A man of envy and doubt, you’re a man without a soul… / You hide behind your wall of lies, but it’s coming down.”
With Trump out of office, Williams largely reverted to more introspective music on 2023’s Stories from a Rock N Roll Heart. Even then, though, she fit in some social commentary with lines like “they’re sending in all the clowns…to play on all your fears.” And now, in 2026, she’s back with an almost entirely political 10-track album whose strongly worded and fervently delivered message is summed up by its title, World’s Gone Wrong.
Written and recorded in Nashville last spring, the new, rock-based LP was co-produced by the same duo who also jointly produced many of Williams’s previous albums: her husband, Tom Overby, and Ray Kennedy. The band is excellent and a good fit for the music, though one misses ex-Wallflowers guitarist Stuart Mathis, who played on Williams’s last few records but has retired due to health reasons.
The singer’s current band includes electric guitarist Doug Pettibone; electric bassist David Sutton and organist Rob Burger, both of whom contributed to several of Williams’s earlier releases; drummer Brady Blade, who has worked with artists ranging from Steve Earle to Emmylou Harris and the Indigo Girls; and electric guitarist Marc Ford, a veteran of the Black Crowes.
Williams, whose effusive, world-weary vocals are compelling throughout, wrote or co-wrote all but one of the songs, in most cases with Overby and Pettibone. The album begins with its title cut, which features up-and-coming country singer Brittney Spencer and limns the circumstances of a middle-class couple who are struggling to get by—and to make sense of today’s world:
They get up every morning and go to work
He sells cars, and she’s a nurse
Workin’ long hours is the devil’s curs
Things are getting’ tight, but it could be worse
She tries hard to ignore the news
Nothing makes sense, and she gets confused
Between what is false and what is true
She worries they won’t get through.
In the verses that follow, this couple tries to “find comfort in a song…put on some Miles and dance barefoot across the tiles and forget our troubles for a little while.”
Williams, too, clearly attempts to find solace in music, but she can’t forget the world’s troubles, at least not on this album. In “Something’s Gotta Give,” where Spencer also guests, she observes that “we’ve lost our way” and “there’s a danger in these days,” and, in “How Much Did You Get for Your Soul?,” she again appears to address the President: “You sold the one thing given by God, ’cause you thought it would make you rich / You’re nothing but a worthless fraud, it was all just bait and switch.”
Bob Marley’s still-timely 1979 song, “So Much Trouble in the World,” the CD’s only cover, finds Williams dueting with Mavis Staples and singing of “men sailing on their ego trips…million miles from reality,” and, in “Punchline,” she observes that “people are angry, looking for answers, wondering where to turn, evil growin’ like a cancer.”
In “Freedom Speaks,” meanwhile, she confides, “It’s hard to believe what’s going down” and adds, “Let me remind you just what’s at stake, apathy will blind you until it’s way too late.” The album concludes with the poignant “We’ve Come Too Far to Turn Around,” on which Norah Jones shares vocals and plays piano, and Williams sings, “We are here to bear witness to this monstrous sickness.”
We are now many decades removed from the time when Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, Bob Dylan, and countless others wrote and performed topical songs. At least a few artists are still stepping up to the plate, however, and Williams deserves praise for adding her impassioned voice to that regrettably small chorus.
Also Noteworthy
Dave Miller, Party in the Pines. Country/Americana artist Dave Miller has been making music since age 13, joined his first band at age 14, and has been performing across North America for five decades. However, it wasn’t until 2016 that the now 73-year-old Arkansas native began issuing albums. On Party in the Pines, his fifth LP, the Memphis-based singer, songwriter, guitarist, and banjo player offers a consistently entertaining, all-originals set that should appeal to fans of artists like Doc Watson and Earl Scruggs.
The album combines first-rate musicianship with evocative lyrics. Don Richmond, who co-produced with Miller, contributes fiddle, bass, electric guitar, pedal steel, mandolin, accordion, and more, while other musicians add harmonica, piano, drums, keyboards, and several additional instruments. Memphis’s Abbye West-Pates sings along on three tracks, and Rhonda Schoenecker of the Rio Trio adds backing vocals on two others.
Standouts in the 14-song program include “Nail Can,” which finds Miller conjuring up warm childhood memories of his dad; “Café Afternoon,” a reportedly autobiographical tale of a rekindled love affair; and the sprightly title cut, which namechecks Watson and Scruggs as well as Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Lester Flatt, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Johnny Cash, and John Prine. That one will have you tapping your foot if not singing along or getting up to dance.
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Jeff Burger’s website, byjeffburger.com, contains more than four decades’ worth of music reviews and commentary. His books include Dylan on Dylan: Interviews and Encounters, Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon, Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters, and Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters.