Sweet Old World

Critical reception

Sweet Old World was voted the 11th best album of 1992 in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of prominent music critics. Robert Christgau, the poll's creator, ranked it 6th on his own year-end list, later writing that the album was "gorgeous, flawless, brilliant [with] short-story details ('chess pieces,' 'dresses that zip up the side') packing a textural thrill akin to local color". In a contemporary review, Audio magazine said Sweet Old World proves Williams is "a riveting writer and performer whose apparent simplicity is merely the entranceway to a rewarding artist of depth", while Stereo Review wrote "She delivers her searing lines without artificial sentiment or extraneous embellishment, just a wrenching directness that nourishes the spirit and knows no detour to the heart."

In a retrospective review for The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Dave Marsh later wrote Williams was a "damned determined artist" on Sweet Old World, in which the perspectives of her previous work--"adult, Southern, female, sensual but neurotic"--were stronger and more focused. AllMusic's Steve Huey said it was just as good as her 1988 self-titled album, calling it "a gorgeous, elegiac record that not only consolidates but expands Williams' ample talents." Like her self-titled album, Bill Friskics-Warren wrote in The Washington Post, Sweet Old World showcased Williams' "sharply drawn odes to desire and loss", sung with a "grainy drawl" and backed against a "lean, bluesy roots-rock" sound.

Track listing

All songs written by Lucinda Williams except where noted.

1. "Six Blocks Away"
2. "Something About What Happens When We Talk"
3. "He Never Got Enough Love" (Williams, Betty Elders)
4. "Sweet Old World"
5. "Little Angel, Little Brother"
6. "Pineola"
7. "Lines Around Your Eyes"
8. "Prove My Love"
9. "Sidewalks of the City"
10. "Memphis Pearl" (Williams, Lorne Rall)
11. "Hot Blood"
12. "Which Will" (Nick Drake)

Personnel

Charts

Billboard Music Charts (North America) – Sweet Old World