Grammy-winner Shelby Lynne's 'Over and Over' is a smoky, searing ode to past love

It’s been 25 years since Shelby Lynne’s breakthrough album, I Am Shelby Lynne, wowed listeners and earned her the Grammy for Best New Artist, although she’d been creating music since the late 1980s and had released several previous albums. Now Lynne is back with her new single, “Over and Over,” as she preps for a headlining show at Nashville’s famed Ryman Auditorium on September 26, where she’s set to perform I Am Shelby Lynne in its entirety along with her new music.

Coming from an innovator whose oeuvre has elided country and R&B genres, and “Over and Over,” produced by Lynne, Karen Fairchild, Ashley Monroe, and Gena Johnson, is a smoky, urgent ode to the memory of a past love.

“Every note is a song, and / Everywhere I go, it hit me wrong / Every face is the same to me / How many places can one memory be?” she sings with palpable longing.

Shelby Lynne "Over and Over" art Courtesy

In April, she released another single, “But I Ain’t,” hailed as a “bridge between her past and future work, as it interpolates ‘Dreamsome,’ a standout track from her landmark album, I Am Shelby Lynne,” according to a release.

Monument Records released a special reissue of I Am Shelby Lynne to coincide with its 25th anniversary.

A multifaceted artist with 16 studio albums to her name, Lynne famously paid homage to the great bisexual Dusty Springfield with her 2008 album, Just a Little Lovin’, putting her stamp on iconic tracks including “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” and “I Only Want to Be With You.” Though Lynne has said she’s not big on labels or discussing her personal life, in 2012 she responded to The Boot writer Stephen L. Betts telling her he was gay by saying, “I’ve been around the world and back so many times, I think everybody’s gay. Everybody's a little gay. As far as my personal life, I don’t go into details because that’s all I’ve got. With the person that I allow out in the music, that’s plenty.”

“But I am secure enough to say that of all of my relationships, I’ve covered the boundaries,” Lynne added. “I don’t think there’s any need anymore in our time and era for titles or brands ... because either way you try to sensitize it, somebody’s going to be offended.”

Listen to “Over and Over” here, and listen to the I Am Shelby Lynne special reissue here.