Lucinda Williams - World's Gone Wrong (Album Review)
Thursday, 05 February 2026
Written by Jeremy Blackmore
Photo: Mark Seliger
Americana legend Lucinda Williams channels all her righteous anger into ‘World’s Gone Wrong’, her sixteenth studio album and collection of protest songs fearlessly confronting political and economic turmoil in the United States.
Williams has long wanted to write a protest record, having been drawn to Bob Dylan’s work in the 1960s and Bob Marley’s So Much Trouble In The World, which she covers here with Mavis Staples, doyenne of the civil rights movement. But events in the US over the past year drew her ire and provided the spark for these songs.
Her passion undimmed by the stroke she endured in 2020, she sounds revitalised and ready to impart tough lessons.
Her trademark rough-edged voice lends a raw truth, while she is accompanied by a crack band who provide both grit and pathos, and by a number of effective guest soul singers.
The songs range from the gnarly, driving rock of southern gothic ghost story Sing Unburied Sing, to the swampy blues of Black Tears, a song about racism that asks how long tears must rain.
Something's Got To Give conveys simmering rage, duelling guitars creating a sense of tension and danger, but he album is also shot through with dark humour. Williams and her band nail the garage-rock vibe on How Much Did You Get For Your Soul, a biting rock and roll satire of the current American leadership.
Low Life provides welcome relief. Featuring blues harmonica, it neatly captures the vibe of a laidback evening in a “little funky bar” in New Orleans with Slim Harpo on the jukebox. Opening track World’s Gone Wrong, written from the perspective of a working-class couple struggling to make ends meet and sense of the world, ends with the pair putting on a record and dancing across the tiles to momentarily forget their troubles.
Freedom Speaks imagines freedom warning humanity not to take it for granted but fight to keep it alive. Meanwhile, joined by Norah Jones on the closing track We’ve Come Too Far to Turn Around, Williams taps into the spirit of We Shall Overcome, a touchstone of the ‘60s protest movement, inspired by fresh protests in the US. Her parting message is that artists need to keep providing a voice in troubled times.
Lucinda Williams Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows
Thu February 05 2026 - BASINGSTOKE Anvil
Sat February 07 2026 - BEXHILL ON SEA De La Warr Pavilion
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