I was pumped that we were finally going to be getting a new song from Charles Wesley Godwin today.
So when I logged on to Spotify right at midnight and saw that we not only got one song, but a four-song EP, I damn near lost my mind.
Charles has been at the top of my playlist for the past couple of years. His How the Mighty Fall album from 2021 was one of the best albums I’ve heard in a long time. And he’s been teasing new music not only at his live shows but only on social media, after signing with Big Loud Records earlier this year.
And now we not only have the first four songs from the album, but also a release date and track list for his major-label debut record Family Ties.
The full album will be released on September 22, and will feature 19 songs, including songs we’ve heard Charles play already like “Miner Imperfections” and “Two Weeks Gone,” along with a cover of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
But in the meantime, we have four new songs from the up-and-coming superstar to enjoy.
The first is “All Again,” which was recently featured in his Stage AE Documentary, and which Charles says documents how everything that’s happened in his life has led him to where he is now:
“It’s about how my life has gone, and some things didn’t go as I planned or wanted them to at the moment.
Like, never getting to play college football even though I wanted to so bad, but that led me to picking up a guitar. Which then led me to meeting who would become my wife, which led to our kids.
You know, the whole point of that song is basically to say all the twists and turns and the ups and downs in life for all of it…to where I’m at right now, with my life and my family, I’d do it all over again.
That’s a song that is going to be on the album, but we were so excited to go out and play it we just started playing it at our live shows anyways.”
Next we got “Family Ties,” another song that Charles has been playing live, and one of my favorites of the new songs with its booming “strike me down” hook.
The third song is “Cue Country Roads,” a song about getting back to his home in the West Virginia – while taking advantage of a familiar victory cry from his beloved West Virginia Mountaineers. And I’ve gotta say, as a West Virginia native myself, this one has me ready to drive back to the Mountain State right now.
And at long last we also got a studio version “West of Lonesome,” a heartbreaking ballad of love lost, and trying to pick up and find yourself in the lonely wilderness.
“There’s a fire up on my mountain
Blood is on the floor
Water over my levee
Need I say anymore?
About the path that you tore
All the holes that your wore
Right through me.”
I’m happy to report that Charles continues his streak of releasing only incredible music. And these four new songs have me fired the f*ck up for this new album.
Only a little over a month now. Let the countdown begin.
Family Ties Tracklist
Tell the Babies I Love Them (Overture)
Family Ties
Miner Imperfections
The Flood
All Again
Gabriel
Dance in Rain
Another Leaf
That Time Again
Skyline Blues
West of Lonesome
Headwaters
10-38
Two Weeks Gone
Soul Like Mine
Willing and Able
Cue Country Roads
Take Me Home, Country Roads
By Your Side (Underture)
