While I'm Livin'

After Tucker's 2002 album, Tanya, barely broke the top 40 of the country albums chart, she began to retreat from the spotlight. Since 2002, Tucker has only released one studio album, 2009's My Turn, an album of covers of songs by male country stars she listened to growing up, which was a disaster by Tucker's standards. She later recalled to Entertainment Weekly that "It should have been called My Sh—y Turn. They didn't use the final vocals I made. I had no control." After the release of My Turn, Tucker had more personal and pressing issues to deal with. She began to experience health problems from the chronic fatigue disease Epstein-barr. Both of her parents died, her father in 2006 and mother in 2012, leaving her emotionally drained and without management. Tucker's father had been her manager since the beginning of her career. Tucker recalled this time in her life, saying, "I quit touring. I didn't have a band. I went out to Malibu and sat in the sun and spent a lot of money."[1]

Once Tucker decided to come back to the spotlight, she went to various labels only to find that there was little interest. For a while, Shooter Jennings (son of Waylon Jennings) had been casually speaking with her about the possibility of him producing her new album. Plans for a new album really began to speed up once Jennings mentioned to friend and avid Tucker fan Brandi Carlile that he would like for her to write a new song for the album. Carlile and her long-time collaborators, Phil and Tim Hanseroth, wrote nearly an entire album's worth of material. Jennings told Carlile that since she was such a big Tanya fan, she should co-produce the album with him. Tucker recalled that she was hesitant about recording the album at first, saying, "I didn’t know if the songs were strong enough."[1]

The album was recorded over three weeks in January 2019, at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles.[2] Tucker stated in an interview on Acoustic Café that "High Ridin' Heroes" was the first song recorded for the album. Tucker recorded a cover of Dennis Quaid and the Sharks' "On My Way to Heaven" for the album, featuring Quaid and Kris Kristofferson on backing vocals, but it was not included on the album's final track listing.[3]

Tucker performing during the Bring My Flowers Now Tour at Graceland in 2020.

On April 1, 2019, Tucker and Carlile performed "Bring My Flowers Now" at Loretta Lynn's All-Star Birthday Celebration Concert at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.

The album was officially announced on June 5, 2019. The album's first single, "The Wheels of Laredo" was released with the album's preorder the same day, as well as its music video.[4] Also on June 5, Tucker and Carlile performed "Delta Dawn" at the 2019 CMT Music Awards, where they were joined by Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood, Deana Carter, Lauren Alaina, RaeLynn and Carly Pearce.[5]

The album's second single, "Hard Luck", was released on June 28, along with its accompanying music video which features guest appearances from the album's producers, Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings.[6]

The third single, a cover of Miranda Lambert's "The House That Built Me", was released on August 2[7] and its music video was released on August 26.[8]

The album's fourth single, "Bring My Flowers Now", was released on August 16.[9][10] The song's music video premiered on October 22.[11]

"The Winner's Game" was released as the fifth single from the album on November 25.[12] It had previously only been available with the album through Tucker's online store on a bonus lathe cut vinyl featuring the song and a personalized message, which was limited to 50 copies.[13]

A live version of "Bring My Flowers Now" was released on December 13. It was recorded during a sold-out show at the Troubadour in Los Angeles on October 16.[14] It was followed by the release Live from the Troubadour on October 16, 2020, a live album consisting of Tucker's full set from the show.

"Pack Your Lies and Go" was released as the album's sixth single on November 6, 2020. It had previously been released as a bonus track on the Target exclusive version of the album.

The majority of the album was written by Brandi Carlile and twin brothers Tim and Phil Hanseroth. The trio wrote seven of the album's ten tracks. The remaining three songs are covers.

The album opens with "Mustang Ridge", described by Rolling Stone as the album's "sing-a-long mission statement,"[15] it contains references to locations in Tucker's native Texas: Mustang Ridge and San Antonio's Hays Street Bridge.[16] The second track, "The Wheels of Laredo", is described by Taste of Country as a "throbbing ballad that appears to acutely point at the contradictions inherent in the illegal immigration debate."[17] "I Don’t Owe You Anything", the third track, is a "sassy kiss-off from a middle-aged mother who’s had enough," sung over a down-home acoustic arrangement.[15] The album's fourth track, "The Day My Heart Goes Still", is a tribute to Tucker's father and manager, Beau, who died in 2006.[16] Track five, "High Ridin’ Heroes", is a cover of a song written by David Lynn Jones in 1987 and originally recorded by Jones as a duet with Waylon Jennings.[16]

The sixth track is a cover of Miranda Lambert’s 2010 hit, "The House That Built Me", which was written by Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin. Tucker’s version transforms the song into a "deeply moving account of a parent who is searching for meaning in their life after the children have left behind a house whose emptiness becomes too much to bear."[16] The seventh track on the album, "Hard Luck", is another cover. It was written by John C. Bailey, David Lee Mitchell, Raymond L. Turner, and Jerry Ontiberoz, and originally recorded in 1979 by Texas proto-metal band Josefus. In Tucker's hands the song becomes "an outlaw anthem of survival."[16] The track features group background vocals from a number of people; including actor Dennis Quaid; Tucker's son, Grayson; and his father, Ben Reed. On the album's eighth track, "Rich", Tucker recalls the lean years spent traveling with her dad, which plays like her own version of Dolly Parton’s "Coat of Many Colors".[18] Rolling Stone compared "Seminole Wind Calling", the album's ninth track, to Tucker's 1972 debut single, "Delta Dawn", saying that it "conjures the country-gospel of her breakthrough debut."[15] The album closes with "Bring My Flowers Now", which was written by Tucker with Carlile and the Hanseroth brothers. The tender ballad is a reminder "to show appreciation for those we cherish while we still have that opportunity."[9]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	83/100[19]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[20]
Exclaim!	9/10[16]
Mojo	[21]
Rolling Stone	[15]

The album received universal acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received a weighted average score of 83 based on 7 reviews.[19]

Thierry Côté from Exclaim! gave the album a score of nine out of ten and said that the album "is perhaps the finest full-length in Tucker's storied five-decade career."[16] In a positive review for Variety, A.D. Amorosi praised Carlile and the Hanseroth's "intuitive songwriting" and said that Tucker "proudly inhabits their biographical approximation of her nine lives with earnestness and ease."[22] Jonathan Bernstein from Rolling Stone gave the album four out of five stars, praising the album's song selection and said that Tucker "never succumbs to old-age weariness."[15] In a review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave the album four out of five stars. He felt that Tucker's covers of "Hard Luck" and "The House That Built Me" "add texture and deepen the emotional undercurrents flowing through the record." He went on to say that when the covers are combined with the original songs "these tunes paint a portrait of a mighty artist who has been through a lot but is fearless about the future."[20] In a mixed review for Mojo, Fred Dellar said, "Tucker has created an album that should endear her to those who still raise the outlaw flag while also appealing to hard-edged pop-tinged rock believers."[21]

The album debuted at number eight on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, selling 10,000 units in its first week of release, almost all in traditional album sales.[46] The album also debuted at number two on the Billboard Folk Albums chart and number 68 on the Billboard 200. The album saw success internationally as well, peaking at number two on the UK Country Albums chart and number 60 on the Scottish Albums chart.

The album has sold 44,200 copies in the United States as of March 9, 2020.[47]

Adapted from the album liner notes.