"Are You Alright?"
Single by Lucinda Williams
from the album West
Released2007
Genre
Length5:18 (Album version)
LabelLost Highway
Songwriter(s)Lucinda Williams
Producer(s)
Lucinda Williams singles chronology
"Righteously"
(2003)		 "Are You Alright?"
(2007)		 "Real Love"
(2008)

"Are You Alright?" is a song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams. It was released in 2007 as the first single from her eighth album, West (2007).

The song was featured in a season three episode of House ("Fetal Position"), which aired on April 3, 2007,[1] and a season six episode of The Sopranos ("Kennedy and Heidi"), which aired on May 13, 2007.[2] It also appeared in the fourth episode of the HBO series True Detective, which aired on February 9, 2014.[3]

Reception

In a four-star-out-of-five review of West for Rolling Stone, Robert Christgau called "Are You Alright?" one of Williams's "greatest songs ever", writing "Riding a deep, lazy groove and keyed to a title refrain Williams repeats twenty-two times, it employs the commonest words in the language - all on the order of 'Are you sleeping through the night?/Do you have someone to hold you tight?' - to pound home how totally (and tenderly) you can miss your ex-lover."[4] The song later ranked No. 34 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007.[5]

Country music website Holler listed "Are You Alright?" as No. 13 of the best Lucinda Williams songs; "The exploratory empathy Lucinda expresses throughout this track is a hallmark of the artist’s career spent identifying with the marginalized. Like a lullaby, this melodic sees Lucinda once again directing the lost, offering a hand to the lonely. Sincerity resounds from the repetitive chorus line as she genuinely asks 'Are you alright?'"[6] NPR also named it one of Williams' best songs, writing "Empathy for the lost and the marginalized runs through Williams's songwriting, and this gentle secular hymn for someone who's gone missing offers it in heartbreaking measure."[7]

Accolades

Nominations for "Are You Alright?"
Year Award Category Work Recipient Result Ref.
2008 Americana Award Song of the Year "Are You Alright?" Lucinda Williams Nominated [8]

Charts

Chart performance for "Are You Alright?"
Chart (2001) Peak
position
US Billboard Adult Alternative Airplay[9] 24

References

  1. ↑ "House - Fetal Position - Soundtracks". IMDb. Retrieved July 30, 2022.
  2. ↑ "The Sopranos - Kennedy and Heidi - Soundtracks". IMDb. Retrieved July 30, 2022.
  3. ↑ "True Detective - Who Goes There - Soundtracks". IMDb. Retrieved July 30, 2022.
  4. ↑ Christgau, Robert (February 22, 2007). "Williams breaks it off with alt-country once and for all, and the music soars as she suffers". robertchristgau.com. Rolling Stone. Retrieved July 30, 2022.
  5. ↑ No byline (December 11, 2007). "The 100 Best Songs of 2007" Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2007-12-21
  6. ↑ Crone, Madeline. "The Best Lucinda Williams Songs". Holler. Retrieved August 2, 2022.
  7. ↑ Powers, Ann (April 24, 2020). "Lucinda Williams: A Guide To Her Best Songs". NPR. Retrieved August 1, 2022.
  8. ↑ Americana Awards - 2007 Archived 2021-10-16 at the Wayback Machine americanamusic.org. Americana Music Association. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
  9. ↑ "Lucinda Williams - Chart History". Billboard. Retrieved February 10, 2018.
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