It’s been said that there is no helicopter you can rent to take you down into the heart of the matter; however, bringing along a venerable master or two as guides may be the difference between life or death. I Was Born, But… the new record by Minneapolis folk singer David Huckfelt, is a silver dagger collection of songs he didn’t write; cover songs that sabotage our collective insistence that we ourselves are the most fundamental facts of our existence, the heroes of our own stories. The truth is the dead far outnumber the living, we never escape even an inch from our interdependence on one another, and we stand on the heads of the elders and ancestors, both living and gone… and some of them wrote much, much better songs.

In a warped-speed era of dysfunctional individuality and insistence on “the self”, this constellation of story-songs by some of the finest songwriters in American music emphasizes interconnectedness, our links-in-a-chain status where we are constantly uplifted and supported by the ancestors of consciousness, the only true aristocracy.

“I had a literature professor in theology school who told me that until I had sufficiently digested the works of the masters and could explain them simply in language a child could understand, she didn’t want to hear a damn thing about what I thought about anything,” says Huckfelt. “Someone gave me a 500 page book called “Bob Dylan: The Songs He Didn’t Write” with over a thousand covers culled from setlists from 1961 - 2008, no feat for the faint of heart. This year one of my favorite folk singers of all-time passed away, the incredible Joe Hickerson, who spent his life archiving and preserving folk songs at the Library of Congress, not to mention singing them just about better than anyone. I’ve always believed part of the vocation of a folk singer is to keep songs alive, intact, like performing little error-free ceremonies. A Buddhist monk from Ceylon said that no one has attained enlightenment in the last 500 years, but that nevertheless it is our duty to keep all the teachings alive so that maybe one day somebody will click. While other folkies were covering “Don’t Think Twice”, I was playing “Desolation Row”, ten verses strong. A delightfully useless exercise in devotion.”

“I probably know about 300 songs to sit down and play on the spot…” says Huckfelt. “It’s a blessing and a curse; once a song really hits me and I’ve heard it a few times, it’s in there and it won’t go away for nobody. I started with a list of sixty songs that had been popping into my shows here & there when the mood was right, which is always a sure sign for me that it was time to finish writing a new batch of my own songs. Tom Waits said "There's only one reason why you write new songs: You get sick of the old songs". In the meantime, why not record these dusky gems that aren’t capable of anything other than helping people through their worlds.”

Recorded totally full-band live in a whirlwind two-day session at Tucson’s, Arizona’s Dust & Stone Studios and produced by visionary workhorse and multi-instrumentalist Gabriel Sullivan of XIXA, Huckfelt laid down sixteen songs in just two days without a single lyric sheet or rehearsal. The band, Tucson’s very own wrecking crew, was built around former Bob Dylan drummer Winston Watson, with Connor “Catfish” Gallaher on pedal steel / electric guitar / dobro, Thøger Lund on bass, Gabriel floating from synths to floor tom to baritone guitar. Special guest appearances by AZ harmonica guru Tom Walbank and the barrio’s favorite outlaw poet / singer Billy Sedlmayr added sizzle & spice.

“I love recording in Tucson because everything new is old again, it still feels like there could be an Apache raid any given Tuesday, and the whole musical community jumps and says yes when it's time to build something new.” Huckfelt brought the record back to Minneapolis, sat on it for a year of personal tumult and sharpening survival skills for Trump 2.0, and called upon his closest friends to help him finish the vision. Renowned jazz drummer turned everything-drummer J.T. Bates (Bonny Light Horseman, Big Red Machine, Hiss Golden Messenger) and Minneapolis’ most inventive guitarist Jeremy Ylvisaker (Andrew Bird, Grace Potter, The Suburbs) jumped in with overdubs to help the songs fully realize what they couldn’t in the breakneck Tucson session. Guest appearances by Twin Cities vocalists Aby Wolf and Lady Midnight, Native Americana legend Keith Secola, Trampled By Turtles blazing fiddler Ryan Young and Iowa City acoustic slinger Dustin Busch helped round out the tracks, and “I Was Born, But…” snuck across the finish line without a shot fired.

With this collection of songs hidden under the opposite of the expected, Huckfelt features lesser-known works by legends like Jackson Browne, J.J. Cale, Tom Petty, Warren Zevon, Gordon Lightfoot & Dylan, as well as songs by dear friends Pieta Brown & Keith Secola. George Jones makes an appearance, Huckfelt’s grandfather’s favorite singer who played his small hometown county fair back in the 1970’s. Adrianne Lenker (Big Thief) also pops by, one of the most prolific & gifted songwriters of their generation, as does Dan Reeder, one of John Prine’s all-time favorites and the funniest writer you’ve never heard of. Special tribute is paid to two songwriters who flew so close to the heart of things that they went under most everyone’s radar: Tucson’s own slide-guitar conjurer Rainer Ptacek, and North Carolina hillbilly poet Malcomb Holcombe, who left this Earth last year & gave his blessing for Huckfelt to record his anti-Trump manifesto “Yours No More”.

“I see these songs as direct messages from the Earth rather than some kind of signs from heaven. They’re meant to be played, shared, banged into around a campfire some night; not hung up on a wall somewhere in your home office. I could have easily dialed up fifteen other songs for this session, but these are the ones that rolled off the tongue. There’s an old curse that says “May God call the tune, and may your enemies play the music”. I think of this record as the direct opposite of that, whatsoever it may be…”

Tracklist:

1. "Changing of the Guards" (Bob Dylan) 
2. "Anything" (Adrianne Lenker) 
3. "Any Way the Wind Blows (J.J. Cale) 
4. "I'm Alive" (Jackson Browne) 
5. "Early Morning Rain" (Gordon Lightfoot) 
6. "All Done In" (Rainer Ptacek) 
7. "Two Gunslingers" (Tom Petty) 
8. "Even When" (Pieta Brown) 
9. "NDN Kar" (Keith Secola) 
10. "The Race Is On" (George Jones) 
11. "Little Satchel" (Public Domain) 
12. "Stop Rainin' Lord" (Warren Zevon) 
13. "Yours No More" (Malcomb Holcomb) 
14. "Who Do You Love?" (Bo Diddley) 
15. "Raft To Freedom" (Dan Reeder)

Release date: January 9, 2026

This is expected to ship on or around January 2, 2026.