Noel McKay Releases 'Blue, Blue, Blue' Album

Three decades after Noel McKay was discovered by legendary songwriter Guy Clark, his ability to write the kinds of smart, insightful and sometimes slyly humorous songs that initially caught Clark's attention remains the cornerstone of the music he makes to this day.

His new album, Blue, Blue, Blue, out today, centers around longing: whether it's longing the experiences of a lost relationship, longing to undo unwise decisions, longing for the way one's home city was, longing to travel, longing to have one's story told.

Blue, Blue, Blue is more straightforward and light than McKay's past collections. Album opener "The 50 Loneliest Places in the Nation" was inspired by a dream McKay had and then promptly recorded into a voice memo - in the dream he was scrolling through the internet and stumbled upon a clickbait article with the same focus, and before he knew it, Roger Miller was singing the dream-chorus.

The title track is a candid breakup song, much of the inspiration for which comes from personal experience, though there's a bit of creative license taken. "Somebody, Someway, Somewhere" chronicles the experience of living somewhere a previous partner may have also lived in not so long ago, and "Sleeping In My Car" is about a brief period when McKay was often sleeping in the backseat of his 1998 Chevy Cheyenne in various parking lots around the Austin area.

Listen to the album here: