Steve Earle Readies New Album, Novel: I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive

On April 26, New West Records will release I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive, the new, T Bone Burnett-produced studio album from Steve Earle. The album, which derives its name from a Hank Williams song, is the first collection of new material from Earle since 2007’s Grammy-winning Washington Square Serenade.

“They are all, as far as I can tell, about mortality in one way or the other; death as a mystery rather than a punctuation mark or at least, a comma rather than a period,” writes Earle of the new songs in the album’s liner notes.

Two of the album’s tracks (“God is God” and “I Am a Wanderer”) were covered by Joan Baez on the 2008 Earle-produced album, Day After Tomorrow. “Heaven Or Hell” is a duet with wife Allison Moorer, and “The City” previously appeared in the HBO show Treme. (Earle will be rejoining the cast of Treme this year for the show’s second season.)

I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive is also the name of Earle’s debut novel, which is due May 12 via Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It tells the story of Doc Ebersole, a doctor who is haunted by the ghost of his former patient Hank Williams.

I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive Track Listing:

1. Waitin’ On The Sky
2. Little Emperor
3. The Gulf of Mexico
4. Molly – O
5. God is God
6. Meet Me In The Alleyway
7. Every Part of Me
8. Lonely Are The Free
9. Heaven or Hell (with Allison Moorer)
10. I Am A Wanderer
11. This City