While you’ve been waiting nearly two decades for a new T Bone Burnett album, he’s been “Waiting for You,” or so he sings on the lead single for his upcoming LP, The Other Side. “Waiting for you so long, I’ve been waiting for you,” he sings over acoustic guitar and sighing sounds that could be either steel guitar or vocalizations by the women of Lucius, who features on the song. It’s a melancholy song full of yearning, with a little Spanish guitar flare, setting a gentle tone for the record, due out April 19. Burnett will embark on a “tour” of Nashville in May.
In addition to Lucius, the album features guest appearances by Rosanne Cash and Weyes Blood, as well as Steven Soles, who played in the Alpha Band with Burnett after they parted ways from Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue. Burnett wrote the album’s 12 songs after buying some new guitars renewed his interest in songwriting.
In a statement, Burnett said a lot of the songs on the album are about “you.” “I was reading a news story that some shocking percentage of Number One hit songs had the word ‘you’ in the title,” he said. “I view the purpose of art as creating conscience, so I was constantly appealing to people’s consciences, but I realized when a songwriter uses the word ‘you,’ he is, of course, in the world of conscience, but he’s also in the world of people’s dreams. And when you enter into people’s dreams, you have to be very careful with them.”
Burnett will sing to all the “yous” (try not to read that word with a Joe Pesci pronunciation) by performing the full album at three venues around Nashville in May. Tickets go on sale Friday. Full details are on Burnett’s website.
The Other Side track list:
1. “He Came Down”
2. “Come Back (When You Go Away)”
3. “(I’m Gonna Get Over This) Some Day” (with Rosanne Cash)
4. “Waiting for You” (with Lucius)
5. “The Pain of Love” (with Lucius)
6. “The Race Is Won” (with Lucius)
7. “Sometimes I Wonder” (with Weyes Blood)
8. “Hawaiian Blue Song” (with Steven Soles)
9. “The First Light of Day”
10. “Everything and Nothing”
11. “The Town That Time Forgot”
12. “Little Darling”
T Bone Burnett tour dates:
May 3 – Nashville, TN @ Franklin Theatre
May 9 – Nashville, TN @ The Blue Room at Third Man Records
May 10 – Nashville, TN @ Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s CMA Theater