Hear Lucinda Williams’ Mournful New Recording of ‘Sidewalks of the City’
In 1992, when she released her exceptional LP Sweet Old World, Lucinda Williams was smack-dab between the release of her acclaimed self-titled LP, issued four years earlier, and the Grammy-winning classic Car Wheels on a
, which would come six years later. Populated with deeply affecting tunes and showcasing Williams’ heart-wrenching drawl, Sweet Old World was hailed in a Rolling Stone review at the time as an album that “will go a long way toward establishing Lucinda Williams as one of popular music’s treasures. In her voice, we can hear the sound of desire itself.”
That voice, and that sound of desire, have both weathered in the ensuing quarter-century, and with the September 29th release of This Sweet Old World, a complete re-recording of the original album, Williams presents a more stark and lonely landscape than she probably could have imagined in a pre-9/11 world. That’s especially true of the just-released “Sidewalks of the City” lyric video, which churns with the same desperation of the original but finds Williams singing with a voice that’s more commanding yet still delicately melancholic.
“When you look back at your early albums, probably a lot of people go, ‘God, I should just recut these songs,’ because, needless to say the production is like night and day between the original one and this one,” says the singer, who last month debuted the rerecorded version of the LP’s “Six Blocks Away.” “It’s like a whole new album.”
This Sweet Old World, produced by Williams with her husband Tom Overby, is out September 29th and is now available for pre-order.