Between acting (The Wire), fiction writing (his novel arrives in May) and psychedelic calls to arms ("The Revolution Starts Now"), it's easy to forget that Steve Earle is a country singer. He reminds you here. Produced by T Bone Burnett, this may be the shaggy outlaw's most polished set: Check the movingly animist "God Is God," the stately Cajun "Waitin' on the Sky" and Earle's own singing, which transcends his usual blasted croak. Yet he's still your lefty BFF on "Little Emperor," a bluegrass kiss-off to George W. Bush that recalls a time when blame was easier to assign.

Listen to Steve Earle's "Every Part of Me":  
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“He Will Break Your Heart”

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."