Lucinda Williams has announced her 16th studio album, World’s Gone Wrong. Set to release on Jan. 23 via her own Highway 20 Records, the Americana icon’s follow-up to 2023’s triumphant Stories from a Rock n Roll Heart confronts the trouble in America’s socio-political landscape with the sort of direct, uncompromising and inspiring songwriting that only she can channel. To preview the project, Williams has shared the title track, alongside a live performance video.

“World’s Gone Wrong” introduces the rough and vivid focus of Williams’ urgent album with a story chronicling the struggles and resilience of an abandoned working class, rallying to meet another day with the chorus: “Come on baby, we gotta be strong/ Dark days are getting long/ Looking for comfort in the song/ Everybody knows the world’s gone wrong.” The anthem’s studio treatment features vocals from Brittney Spencer, who also guests on “Something’s Gotta Give.” The soul-stirring live version was cut during a stand at Los Angeles’ storied The Troubadour.

Williams cut her forthcoming project at Nashville, Tenn.’s Room & Board Studio with co-producers Tom Overby and longtime collaborator Ray Kennedy, who also recorded and mixed the album. The record features nine new original songs and a prescient cover of Bob Marley’s “So Much Trouble In the World” with the great Mavis Staples, culminating in the powerful hymn of resistance, “We’ve Come Too Far to Turn Around,” featuring piano and harmony vocals from Norah Jones.

World’s Gone Wrong is available to pre-order now. Listen to both versions of the title track below, and find more information at lucindawilliams.com

World’s Gone Wrong – Lucinda Williams:

1. The World’s Gone Wrong (feat. Brittney Spencer)
2. Something’s Gotta Give (feat. Brittney Spencer)
3. Low Life
4. How Much Did You Get For Your Soul
5. So Much Trouble In The World (feat. Mavis Staples)
6. Sing Unburied Sing
7. Black Tears
8. Punchline
9. Freedom Speaks
10. We’ve Come Too Far To Turn Around (feat. Norah Jones)