Ride Me Back Home: What’s in it for Willie Nelson’s Fans

Willie Nelson, who is celebrating his 86^th birthday today, has yet proven that he isn’t retiring from singing soon. That’s after he announced the release of his new studio album entitled Ride Me Back Home a few days ago. The upcoming record is set to drop on June 21 via Legacy Recordings and will be available on vinyl, CD, and digital formats. This will also be made accessible from Nelson’s web store.

About the Upcoming Album, Ride Me Back Home

The 11-track album will be comprised of a mix of original and cover songs. Nelson enlisted the help of long-time collaborator Buddy Cannon for the writing of the original materials while its title track was co-penned by Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member Sonny Throckmorton. Cannon briefly shared what inspired Throckmorton to write that song.

“Sonny lives right by Willie’s Luck studio. He said he wrote that song because he was over then and he saw Willie’s horses. I don’t even know if Willie knows that or not.”

Nelson is said to have adopted more than 60 horses over the years and these were what Cannon was referring to. The country outlaw singer welcomed those horses, most of them were rescued from the slaughterhouse to his “Luck” Ranch and offered them a home there.

Ride Me Back Home will round out a trilogy about mortality that Nelson has started making. The series also includes 2017’s Gods Problem Child and 2018’s Last Man Standing. Aside from the original tracks that Nelson co-wrote, the album also features covers of selected hits written by a variety of pop and country songwriters and performers. Ride Me Back Home will be the 13^th album that Cannon produced for Nelson in more than a decade. It debuts three new tracks that they wrote together namely “Seven Year Itch,” Come On Time,” and “One More Song to Write.”

Listen to the album’s title track below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7vYsSluX-Q

Complete Tracklist

1. “Ride Me Back Home”
2. “Come On Time”
3. “My Favorite Picture of You”
4. “Seven Year Itch”
5. “Immigrant Eyes”
6. “Stay Away from Lonely Places”
7. “Just the Way You Are”
8. “One More Song to Write”
9. “Nobody’s Listening”
10. “ It’s Hard to be Humble” (with Lukas Nelson and Micah Nelson)
11. “Maybe I Should’ve Been Listening”