Lucinda Williams has known strange times before these. When she thinks back to her days as a teenage antiwar activist in late-1960s New Orleans, she remembers the first songs that helped her feel connected and sane during another period of societal unrest: the old spiritual “We Shall Overcome” and Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War.”
Now 72, the three-time Grammy winner has her own legacy, writing and performing songs filled with emotional grit and longing, and hopes for a better day. She’s always told vivid stories and cautionary tales, along with some biting social commentary, set to music blending her obsessions with the blues, country, folk, and the guitar fireworks of Neil Young’s band Crazy Horse.
On her new album, World’s Gone Wrong, she veers into the present moment of political unease with 10 songs of defiance and weary contemplation. The opening title track describes a couple persevering through weird times and gaining strength in each other: “C’mon baby you gotta be strong …” On “Something’s Gotta Give,” she notes “a heaviness to these days” and “I think we’ve lost our way.”
The jangly “How Much Did You Get For Your Soul” sounds like a classic early ’60s pop-rocker right off of Nuggets, as she taunts an unnamed villain: “I gotta ask you, how does it feel to be bought?” There’s also a moving reggae cover of Bob Marley’s “So Much Trouble In The World” as a duet with Mavis Staples, and the exhausted but hopeful “We’ve Come Too Far to Turn Around,” with Norah Jones on piano and harmony vocals.
World’s Gone Wrong was recorded in Nashville with producer Ray Kennedy. Some songs were co-written with her husband and manager Tom Overby, and on guitars are Doug Pettibone and Marc Ford (formerly of the Black Crowes).
Born in Louisiana, Williams grew up bouncing from one town to another across the South, Utah, Mexico, and Chile, and as an artist she has passed through the music scenes in New York, Los Angeles, Austin, and, for the last five years, Nashville. Always critically acclaimed, Williams delivered her long-gestating masterwork, Car Wheels On a Gravel Road, in 1998. Ever since, she has been a consistent font of deeply felt songs of vulnerability and righteous anger, and regularly compared to her influences, from Dylan to Memphis Millie.
After a stroke in November 2020, she spent weeks in the hospital, followed by more weeks in rehab, but she was determined to get back out on the road, which she did within a year. She published a memoir, Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, in 2023. World’s Gone Wrong is now her second album since her health crisis, and last year she opened a New York City honky-tonk called Lucinda’s. She’s never been busier.
“Something made me want to just keep going and doing it,” Williams tells me in a video call from a Nashville recording studio. “We kept having gigs to do. People were calling and I went.”
This record is obviously topical and taps into a feeling that’s out in the country right now. What brought you to this place?
Well, sitting down to work on songs, coming up with ideas for songs, there was so much of this political chaos going on and stuff on a daily basis. It was every day in the news—on TV or in the paper—some kind of crazy predicament: He said what? He did what? After a while you just get so frustrated. It helps me process things when I write about them. It could be about a personal love scenario or the President of the United States.
The title of the album and the title song, most people will know exactly what you’re talking about—does it reflect a feeling you’ve had for a while?
It’s a feeling I’ve had for a long time, and I’ve actually wanted to try writing some quote-unquote “protest songs.” But they’re hard to write, because you have to not sound dated and not sound overly sugary or sweet or flowery. Bob Dylan was a master of that, with his songs like “Masters of War” and “With God on Our Side,” “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” even “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Those songs still stand true to this day.
Dylan doesn’t usually name anyone specifically in those songs. In the ’80s there were a lot of punk songs about Margaret Thatcher that may or may not hold up so well anymore.
[Laughs] Exactly. For a long time I just wanted to try to write a really good topical song and just never had succeeded at it. And then I decided to try writing it by looking at the everyday man and woman and looking at it through the human experience. That’s what the title song is more about, just a regular couple going through their day. They can barely make ends meet, the world around them is falling apart, bad things are happening everywhere. They don’t quite know what to make of it, and they’re just trying to keep it together.
Have you felt in the past that you were living in a period where things were uncertain and a little intense?
I haven’t felt this way probably since the ’60s and I hate to harken back to that, the classic stereotyped protest era. But it’s true. It’s hard to discuss this without talking about those times. I experienced it, and I was quite the little activist when I was a teenager back then—went to all the demonstrations and the marches, and I knew all the songs. People would hold hands and sing “We Shall Overcome,” and it was amazing. There’s nothing quite like that rush you get when you’re with that many people out on the street or in a park, all knowing the same song and singing it together.
People are kind of cynical now, so they’d probably be like, “Oh, yeah, right,” but it’s true. That was a heavy, intense experience that I remember. The protests in Portland reminded me of that. We had a gig there during all those crazy wild protests that were going on. I walked on stage and said, okay, I’ve come armed and loaded. It was all I could do not to leave the hotel and go join them, you know? [laughs]
What led you to cover Bob Marley’s “So Much Trouble In The World” on this album?
I love covering other people’s songs and we just thought, let’s take a shot at that. It’d be fun to sing, and the fans would probably like it. Also, the sentiment of the song fits in, because there is so much trouble in the world. That song was ahead of its time. He was certainly a visionary.
How did Mavis Staples get involved with that?
We’ve become friends over the years, and we’ve done a handful of shows together, and been able to hang out and visit a little. She loves me and my work, and I love her and her work. And what better voice to have on that song? We got her in there and said, “Just go in there and sing. Do whatever you want.” We didn’t tell her what to sing.
The song “We’ve Come Too Far To Turn Around” is a pretty powerful song.
That was probably one of the first ones that came out of the Trump chaos that we’re in now, when it first started. When I wrote that, I was thinking about “We Shall Overcome” and those kinds of songs that everybody knew and would sing together. It has a little bit of that. And it reminded me of the Staple Singers, because they recorded “We Shall Overcome,” and I listened a lot to that song and I listened to them a lot back in the day.
There’s a lot of inherent faith in a song like “We Shall Overcome”—not religious faith necessarily, but just faith that things will get better, that they can get better. Have you always had that kind of faith?
I don’t know how or why or where it comes from, but I’ve always had that somewhere lodged away, in my brain and in my heart and spirit and soul, which is what I try to get across in the song.
You’ve obviously met a lot of other great songwriters over the years. When you get together like that, do you talk about songwriting at all?
That’s a really good question actually. We don’t talk about songwriting usually. We might if we were getting together to try to write a song together or something. But it doesn’t come up if I bump into Jason Isbell at the Whole Foods Market or something. We just say, “What’s going on? How are you doing?”
So when you met Dylan, he didn’t share any secrets with you?
No, unfortunately. [laughs] I met him briefly maybe 30-something years ago in New York at Folk City. And then when I played the Willie Nelson/Bob Dylan music festival thing [in 2025], I was able to say hi to Bob there. And the funny thing was that right before that, someone in the press had referred to me as “the female Bob Dylan,” which is incredibly complimentary, but made me feel a little awkward. Bob heard about it. Mavis told me the story. Apparently, they were doing a show together, and Bob was walking around telling his band and crew and everybody, “Hey, there’s a female Bob Dylan out there,” kind of laughing about it, and I don’t blame him.
Mavis and I were sitting talking at a show one time, and she mentioned that to me. She said, “You know, Bob knows about this female Bob Dylan thing.” And I said, “Oh God, no.” So then I got to meet him and say hi again at that Willie Nelson festival thing, and I brought it up. I said, “I don’t know if you heard about the female Bob Dylan thing …,” and he cracks a huge smile and looks at me and says, “Is that you? You’re the one?” And I said, “Yes, I’m kind of embarrassed about it.” He just smiled even bigger and was very gracious.
On Dylan’s last record, people were pretty excited about his epic song about the John F. Kennedy assassination—2020’s “Murder Most Foul”—so he’s still creating meaningful work at this later stage. Does that give you any inspiration going forward?
God, how could it not? He’s still so relevant. I’m one of those people that age is a number kind of thing, which is easy to say, but harder to live that. I feel like I’m trying to cross that barrier, because I’m still out there. After I had that stroke, a lot of people thought I was going to just stop, I guess. But I just didn’t like the idea of that. So I’m still out there.
Do you feel like you’re getting back to normal after the stroke, or do you still have issues?
I still have some issues, but I feel like I’m definitely getting back to normal. I don’t know how long that’ll take, but I’m definitely progressing, because a lot of people who’ve seen me from the beginning [after the stroke] can tell. I can walk, but I still don’t walk very well, and I get tired real easily.
The new song “How Much Did You Get for Your Soul” is pretty biting.
That was Tom’s idea. At first, I wasn’t sure if I liked the idea of it. But I remembered that line Neil Young had in one of his songs [1976’s “Campaigner”]: “Even Richard Nixon has got soul.” I never understood that exactly, but now I do.
What do you think it means?
Well, we all have a soul. It’s a thing. At the end of the day, we all have a soul, and we’re all alike in that regard.
Nixon was really seen as a villain at that time. So for Neil to say that was kind of a big statement.
It was huge. But it also shows, from a spiritual perspective, what we’re supposed to do—you know, compassion and forgiveness.
Who do you listen to now?
Who I really love is Thievery Corporation. They’ve written some topical songs. My favorite one is “Marching the Hate Machines (Into the Sun)”—I love everything about that song. And it was co-written between them and Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips. They came and performed in Nashville, and they invited me to sit in and sing it with them, which was a total blast. They’re great musicians and songwriters. It’s just a different style of music, but at the end of the day, it’s about the songs and they have great songs. And I love that sort of world music hip-hoppy vibe thing.
Does songwriting come easier now than it did earlier in your career?
I feel like it might be coming a little bit easier just because I’ve learned more about songwriting and I might not be quite so hard on myself as I was then. I’m also more secure now as a songwriter. Part of it is your self-confidence. You can start questioning everything when you start writing a song and it’s never ready. It’s never finished. It really helps to have either somebody who’s kind of a mentor or someone you can bounce stuff off of, whose opinion you trust. That really makes a difference.
Have you written a happier song based on what is going on politically and socially in the world?
I think “We’ve Come Too Far To Turn Around”—that’s got some positivity to it. I’m not trying to depress the hell out of people. I don’t have to do that. That part of it is already being taken care of.
