Rolling Stone had an exclusive first listen to Matthew McConaughey singing “Texas My Home” with Gordon Wright.
Recorded for Pulitzer Prize winner Lawrence Wright’s audiobook Mr. Texas “It’s one of a kind/And a state of mind.” “It’s not just my home/It’s me” sing the actor and the singer.
Born in Uvalde, Texas, just outside of San Antonio, McConaughey was once Lawrence Wright’s neighbor and during the pandemic, the author reached out to the thespian and asked if “he would duet” with his son Gordon on the track. “He really threw himself into it in the most McConaughey fashion!” Wright tells Rolling Stone.
Wright co-wrote the song with his son and Marcia Ball, a Texas-based pianist and blues singer, and about writing music for the book, he said, “was one of the most creative periods of my life. We composed songs in many different genres to represent the diversity of the state.”
Recorded in part by McConaughey, the composition will be featured in the audiobook Mr. Texas, a story about a dark-horse political candidate running for the Texas House of Representatives as he navigates life in politics and weighs his own ethics and environmental concerns while facing politicians, his own party, and lobbyists.
“I’ve always thought audiobooks had an opportunity to incorporate music and Mr. Texas provided an ideal opportunity to prove it,” stated Wright. “The songs and sounds are a pure essence of the culture of the state.”
In a review described by the New York Times as a “rollicking satire” with a “fiery sample of the chili of Texas politics,” Mr. Texas went on sale on Tuesday (9.19.)
Wright earned a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for his book on the rise of al-Qaeda, titled The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.
Audio is courtesy of Penguin Random House Audio from MR. TEXAS by Lawrence Wright, sang by Matthew McConaughey and Gordon Wright.
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Author: Saul Goode
Photo: Moody College of Communication from Austin, USA