On the heels of my recent post about Lyle Lovett’s first new album of original material in 15 years comes a Random Weekend selection from Lovett’s 2012 collection Release Me.
This album was recorded to fulfill a contractual obligation (hence the cheeky title and the cover art of Lovett tied up with a lariat) and featured only two originals among its 14 tracks.
It’s been ten years since Lyle Lovett’s last album, 2012’s Release Me, and that record was a contractual obligation featuring only two Lovett originals among a slew of covers. Before that came another cover-heavy release, Natural Forces in 2009.
So it has really been 15 years, looking back to 2007’s It’s Not Big It’s Large, since Lovett gave us an album featuring mostly his own compositions.
Lyle Lovett’s 1994 album I Love Everybody has come up on the blog a few times before, and I always say the same thing.
To wit, this collection of odds and ends written before Lovett landed his first album deal was a let-down following the genius run of Pontiac, …and His Large Band and Joshua Judges Ruth, but as let-downs go it contains its fair share of memorable songs.
Today’s track isn’t one of those.
This is the ninth track I’ve featured from Lyle Lovett’s excellent 1996 album The Road to Ensenada, still his finest ever moment on record and one of my all-time favorite albums.
This is where I have to express my incredulity and dismay that Lovett hasn’t released an album of any sort in seven years, and no album of largely original material in 12. I’d like to think he has another Ensenada in him, but I don’t know if he’ll ever record again.
I had forgotten that Lyle Lovett’s song ‘Promises,’ in addition to appearing on The Road to Ensenada, showed up on the soundtrack of Tim Robbins’ film Dead Man Walking.
The film came out about six months before the album, but I’m not sure if the song was written for the movie. The lyrics are certainly appropriate for a film about the redemption of a death row inmate but the feelings described could apply as easily to a relationship as a crime.
Meet Me In Montauk 