STEVE EARLE – I’LL NEVER GET OUT OF THIS WORLD ALIVE

With age, comes perspective (one hopes!). And with age also comes an increasing awareness of mortality. The beauty of Steve Earle is that as he ages, he keeps getting better. The title of Steve Earle’s latest album I’ll Never Get Out of this World Alive (taken from a Hank Williams song) gives a good indication of what is to come, eleven songs “about mortality in one way or another” as Earle puts it. Increasingly in this last decade Earle has used his songwriter’s voice to gently push and prod middle America (those that love to sing along to Copperhead Road). While 2007’s Washington Square Serenade was his look at New York (City of Immigrants), he has cast his net wider here looking at “American exceptional-ism”. With his ode to G. W. Bush – Little Emeror – followed by an  ode for workers and travellers in Gulf of Mexico Earle manages to effortlessly take in either end of the social and political spectrum. Musically the album travels further down the folk and roots path, one of the highlights a fiddle and banjo driven murder ballad Molly-O that sees Earle in Celtic folk mode. This is another great album from Steve Earle, the world (and America) could do worse than pay close attention when he sums it up on God is God – “I believe in God / And God ain’t me”. Amen to that.

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