Kacey Musgraves’ recent cover of Hank Williams’ classic “Lost Highway” finds the Texas singer returning home. Not to her home state, but to Lost Highway Records, where she began her career.
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The news is full of full-circle moments. Lost Highway was founded in 2000, and Musgraves was the last artist signed to the label before it shut down in 2012. Now, she returns as the first artist signed to relaunch Lost Highway, which gets its name from Williams’ song.
About “Lost Highway”
In 1949, Williams released “Lost Highway” as the B-side to “You’re Gonna Change (Or I’m Gonna Leave)”. The song, written by Leon Payne, uses the timeless “rolling stone” metaphor to describe an aimless and decadent traveler. Payne released his original version in 1948. But Williams made it a country standard.
“I’m a rolling stone, all alone and lost
For a life of sin, I paid the cost
When I pass by all the people say
Just another soul on the lost highway.”
The narrator is broken with regret and loneliness after a lifetime of bad decisions. Life advice from someone too far gone, sad, and damaged to change. However, it will help you write a great country song.
“Lost Highway” has been covered many times. Jeff Buckley recorded a gorgeous version in 1993, which appears on an expanded edition of Grace. Buckley’s bluesy hymn feels like a drifter dragged through some kind of purgatory. But Kacey Musgraves’ cover sticks to a more traditional reading of Williams’ lonesome tune. It’s dusty, ancient, searching.
“Now, boys, don’t start your ramblin’ round
On this road of sin or you’re sorrow bound
Take my advice or you’ll curse the day
You started rollin’ down that lost highway.”
Lost Highway Records for the Outlaws
Though primarily a country music label, Lost Highway was also home to alternative rock and alt-country artists as well as soundtracks like O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Deadwood.
The impressive roster has included Willie Nelson, Ryan Adams, Hayes Carll, Lucinda Williams, Drive-By Truckers, Lyle Lovett, Shelby Lynne, Elvis Costello, and Mary Gauthier.
Of the song’s connection to her hometown, Kacey Musgraves told The Hollywood Reporter, “The story goes he [Payne] was attempting to hitchhike from California to Alba, Texas. His mother was sick, and he was trying to get to her. I almost fell out of my chair—Alba is the next town over to the teeny, tiny town I’m from, Golden.”
“Follow Your Arrow”
Musgraves continues a tradition of country and Americana artists who operate outside the rigid formula of Nashville’s country music industry. Lost Highway occupies the space that Nashville’s major labels either can’t or refuse to fill. She said, “To have a home for artists who are left of center is necessary.”
Payne offered advice on his song “Lost Highway”, and Musgraves shared a different kind of wisdom on one of her early singles, “Follow Your Arrow”.
When Musgraves released “Follow Your Arrow” in 2013, it caused some pearl clutching by country music’s more conservative listeners. Mentions of rolling joints and girls kissing girls were too much to handle. By then, Lost Highway had shut down, and Musgraves wasn’t sure how (her new label) Mercury Records would accept the song. Many told her not to release it.
She released it anyway. Country radio ignored “Follow Your Arrow”, but it didn’t discourage Kacey Musgraves. Her response: “I’ll f**king shovel sh*t for a living at a horse barn, and I’ll be really happy. Or I’ll just be a songwriter.”
Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for ABA
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