Billy Strings’ ‘So Much for Goodbyes’: All 16 Tracks Ranked

One of two instrumental tracks on Goodbyes, “Bluewater Breakdown” is the type of by-the-book uptempo bluegrass jam that Strings, Failing, Masat, Walker and Hargreaves can toss off in their sleep. That doesn’t make their musicianship any less impressive – but the song primarily functions as a bridge to the second half of the album, and a brief reprieve from its heavy lyrical subject matter.

Walker’s mandolin leads on “Light the Way,” the lilting hymnal that’s Goodbyes‘ shortest track. It’s a particularly traditional cut for Strings, with its three-part staggered vocal harmonies and well-worn subject matter: “When you’re looking down from heaven, won’t you light the way for me?” he repeats throughout the song.

A straight-ahead, story-based folk tune, “Mill Town Flood” tells a familiar story: a hardworking man falls in love with a woman, marries her and then ends up in the gutter without her, befallen by his drinking. It’s a lovely tune, aided by Lindsay Lou’s backing vocals and P.J. George III’s harmonium, even if it’s on the more conventional side by Strings’ standards.

Sometimes Strings can scan as a musical time traveler beamed in from the Depression – but he also finds ways to sneak in his distinctly modern, Millennial sensibility. “I Like Train Songs” is, at least partly, a meta joke nodding to Strings’ well-documented love of, well, tunes about locomotives (at a 2024 show in Tampa, he performed a set consisting solely of them). Here, he sort of explains why, with a line that feels very 2026, even if it could technically apply to any era: “Everybody’s got a protest song for you know who/ Well you can keep those barroom ditties stuck inside your brain/ The only thing that clears ’em out is songs about a train.”

It’s a story as relatable as they come: to stay in or go out? “It’s hard to give a damn/ When you ain’t got a damn to lose,” Strings sings as he considers whether or not to go see The Rolling Stones with his friends (if he leaves now, he can “probably catch most of the show”!). Not-so-subtle underpinning of depression aside, the relatively lighthearted “I Wish I Wanted To” is a welcome respite following the heaviness of “Still I Crash” – and it contains one of Goodbyes‘ funnier lines: “I could get up off my ass/ In a jumpin’ jack flash / If I could put this guitar down long enough to move.” (Also funny: Strings’ ad-libs during the track’s outro, including “This couch feels pretty good, man” and “Put my s–t on ‘do not disturb.’”)

Mourning is tough; mourning during an unforgiving Michigan winter is even tougher. That’s seemingly the scene on “Live To Tell,” where Strings depicts a scene as snow relentlessly falls outside: “The frozen draft that seeps in through the wall/ Comes crawling grimly up my chair/ It wraps around me with its cold embrace/ Reminds me of the absence here.” But icy as its subject matter may be, the loping track isn’t, with backing vocalist Alison Krauss and pedal steel guitarist Paul Franklin – a 16-time recipient of the Academy of Country Music steel guitar player of the year award – bringing much-needed warmth.

“I’m not home but I can still pretend,” Strings sings on Goodbyes‘ wistful opening track, as he delivers a mission statement of sorts for the album. Because what is home, really, for a touring musician who spends half his life on the road and has undergone profound personal change? “I’ve been drivin’ up and down this road / Trying to bring back old memories for one reason or another I let go,” he declares over a plucky instrumental. “Will I wave to all the ghosts / That wander back across this road I’m strolling down?”

Strings has been sober for a decade, but like most recovering alcoholics, he can still readily access how addiction made him feel. “From Albany to Omaha/ It’s Adderall and alcohol/ To pick me up and set me down again” he sings in this weary road chronicle, where substance abuse is a daily crutch that ultimately magnifies the alienation he feels from his loved ones. Respected harmonica player Mickey Raphael, a voluminous session player best known as a member of Willie Nelson’s band since the early ’70s, adds an additional sonic flavor with his bass harmonica work.

The superior of Goodbyes‘ two instrumentals, the album-ending “Debra’s Waltz” is more than just closing credits music – it’s a testament to how evocative Strings’ guitar-playing (as well as that of his trusted backing quartet) can be, even without words. It’s a beautiful elegy to his late mother; in the album’s liner notes, the track’s title and credits are accompanied simply by a portrait of her. Fittingly, it was the first song Strings recorded for Goodbyes across its sessions in January and February.

There’s an elegant simplicity to Goodbyes‘ penultimate song, and its last one with lyrics. With a stripped-back band — Strings on guitar, Walker on mandolin and backing vocals from Walker, Masat and 14-time Grammy winner Dan Tyminski — Strings deploys a powerful, vivid metaphor, singing “Wrestling an angel/ To win is to lose.”

Strings has co-written with Aaron Allen on each of his studio albums dating back to 2019 — including some of his most-played songs, like “Must Be Seven” and “Fire on My Tongue” — and on “Remember to Cry,” one of his four Goodbyes‘ collaborations with Allen, the pair once again captures bluegrass magic. Failing’s banjo drives the fast-paced, rueful song as Strings contemplates the suddenness of death and how to process it: “Now I can’t erase what has happened/ And we can’t backwards in time/ But if I would have known/ You’d leave me all alone/ I would have remembered to cry.”

As Strings gigged around Northern Michigan early in his career, he’d often play in duo formats, including with the mandolinist Don Julin and his stepfather Terry Barber (Me/And/Dad, his 2022 collaboration with the latter, earned a Grammy nomination for best bluegrass album). Playing in a duo suits Strings — a second guitarist supports him, but also allows for compelling counterpoint — and here, he reunites with Bryan Sutton, another longtime collaborator with whom Strings released Live At The Legion in 2025. A calm comedown after the high-octane “Burn the Other End,” the song’s evocative imagery (“The wind by the door/ Stands and delivers/ A most-human roar/ Asking for nothing/ And saying no more”) takes a backseat to Strings and Sutton’s interplay.

One of just four Goodbyes songs featuring solely Strings and his core backing quartet, “Lucid Daydream” feels as feverish as its title, a six-and-a-half minute odyssey without a true chorus that alternates between Strings’ dense verses (“Walking through a lucid daydream every day is like a harpoon through the chest” is among Goodbyes’ most haunting lines) and breakneck instrumental passages (Hargreaves’ fiddle work especially stands out). The most intriguing part of the song may be how it begins and ends – with jazzy, intricate sections that call to mind the Grateful Dead’s “Slipknot!”

No Goodbyes track goes as hard as its first single, “Burn the Other End,” which bottles the fire and brimstone of the headiest moments of Strings’ live shows, and distills it into a foreboding four-and-a-half minute rager. “Empty, but I’ve already left,” Strings declares to open the track over an omnious instrumental, “Nothing to return for and little to be kept.” Written with Greensky Bluegrass mandolinist and fellow Michigander Paul Hoffman, the spooky song features unsettling “gang vocals” from Strings’ band, Burnett and one Jack White — and while Strings has only played it live three times since debuting it in July, it seems destined to become a highlight of his concerts going forward.

Goodbyes doesn’t push drastically beyond the world of bluegrass — but “Lay Me Down” may be its most straight-ahead bluegrass cut, in large part thanks to the legendary Del McCoury’s unmistakable backing vocals. And Strings’ lyrics are as timeless as many of the genre’s standards: “Lay me down on the hillside/ Lay me down and walk away/ Leave no roses on my headstone/ Leave no footprints in the clay.”

As intimate a song as Strings has ever recorded — musically and lyrically — “Still I Crash” is Goodbyes‘ emotional core. “Mother, where did you go now?” Strings begins over nothing more than his own slow guitar plucking. “Tell me I need to know how/ Am I supposed to go on without you?” As the somber track unfolds, Strings reiterates how lost he feels now that his mother is gone, and dreams of reuniting with her one day: “Hoping that this won’t really be the end/ And I am still your one true friend.”