Noel McKay - You Only Live Always (2024) Hi-Res

Veteran country singer-songwriter, Noel Mckay, has a new release, You Only Live Always, out today.

McKay has been writing songs and playing honky tonks and festivals since before he formed a band with his younger brother, Hollin McKay, when he was a teenager. He has traveled the world making music, from his hometown of Lubbock, to the Hill Country, to Nashville, to Austin, to Spain. This collection of songs brings the flavors of all of those places together with lyrics that come from a seasoned songwriter who clearly sees the world with wisdom and humor.

Recorded in Nashville at Sound Emporium, produced by Jay Weaver (Jim Lauderdale), McKay called upon some of his top rated musician friends and called them The Galician Cowboys, a nod to the region in Spain that captured his heart and memorialized in the collection’s closer, “An Old Cowboy in Spain.”

Opening track, “53,” is an upbeat, slow, honky tonk number that embraces the aging process in a humorous way. The lyrics measure up to storytellers like James McMurtry and McKay’s mentor, Americana legend Guy Clark.

“Interstellar Rescue Service” is a slow ballad with a sci-fi vibe.

“Are you still taking them pills” has an almost 60s beach song vibe about it, which lightens the dark topic of the lyrics.

“You Only Live Always” is set to a Spanish Tango.

“The Motel King” has a 50’s old school, rat pack sound and pays homage to the world of 1970’s motels and diner coffee.

Each song is a story. In every one, piano, organ, wurlitzer, pedal steel, fiddle, drums, strings and harmonies come together, creating unique vignettes that pay homage to love, loss, nostalgia, and the passage of time; and transport you to place in time, from a stuck-in-time motel to a beach in Spain.

The album’s closer, “An Old Cowboy In Spain,” is a self-portrait of the singer living out his golden years, ordering drinks with his Mexican accent, searching the shops for an old flamenco guitar, and falling asleep on the train, “an old cowboy in Spain.”

It’s a beautiful self-portrait, as this entire collection is. All in all, a nice amalgamation of McKay’s influences and inspirations.

Whether you are a longtime fan or McKay is new to your playlist, you’ll find yourself listening again and again, breathing each song in like a well-worn tale.