Exclusive track premiere of ‘Love Don’t Live Here Anymore’ by Lars Nagel, taken from the upcoming album, ‘Tomorrow Never Knows,’ out December 8th.

When Atlanta alt-country / cosmic Americana veteran, singer-songwriter, and guitarist Lars Nagel was kicking around titles for his new solo album, he kept coming back to a familiar three-word phrase and well-known Ringo Starr-ism: ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. “I was of course hesitant about using the name of a classic Beatles song,” Nagel says, “but I figured if The Replacements can put out ‘Let It Be,’ I can put out Tomorrow Never Knows.”

Over the years, as a solo artist and with his old bands The El Caminos, The Ditchdiggers and Motor 76, Nagel has opened for artists such as Dr. John, Emmylou Harris, Hank Williams III, Man or Astroman, Agent Orange, Humble Pie, Richie & CJ Ramone, The Misfits & more.

With a psych-tinged late ’60s / early ’70s cosmic psych-folk- & country-influenced sound, ‘Love Don’t Live Here Anymore’ features some gorgeous, sighing Ronnie Wood-style acoustic guitar from Nagel, wrapped in the shimmering atmospheric, Zeppelin III-style Stratocaster swells of producer Daniel Groover. It’s a song about dealing with the truth, owning your mistakes, and learning when to walk away from a relationship.

For Nagel, the idea for the new album came from a conversation with a friend who works at renowned Atlanta trauma center Grady Hospital, and also from the 2004 comeback record by proto-punk legends the New York Dolls, whose guitarist Sylvain Sylvain was backed for a time by Nagel’s old band The El Caminos.

“One day, I was bitching about something trivial, and my buddy Andrew—who had just gotten off his shift at the hospital—said to me, ‘If you can get out of bed in the morning under your own power, you’re having a great day. None of us gets the promise of tomorrow.’ So that was on my mind, and I was also thinking about when I saw the New York Dolls on their first reunion tour. Arthur “Killer” Kane had just died, and the band had released ‘One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This’. It’s a beautiful album with a beautiful title. So when it came time to name my new record, I had to go with ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. Because it really doesn’t. And that title is very representative of the songs on the new record.”

Reflecting on his three-decade-plus music career, and the coming release of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows,’ Nagel says one of life’s greatest blessings is to know exactly what it is you want to do. “Once you have that, especially with music,” he says, “I think you have to claim success. To me that means being an artist who writes, records, releases and performs my own songs. It means being able to do what you want to do—what you love to do—on your own terms.”

Headline photo: Jeff Shipman

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