With the unexpected hit 'Lullaby' throwing Shawn Mullins into the limelight after almost ten years of performing and recording as an independent artist, Columbia. Listen to songs from the album The Essential Shawn Mullins, including 'Lullaby', 'Lately', 'The Gulf of Mexico', and many more. Free with Apple Music subscription.

That oh-so-fallible, yet essential part of our being is, it turns out, the guiding force behind just about every song on the album — the theme of which, he says, is summed up most succinctly by another song title: 'It All Comes Down to Love.' In that respect, Mullins says, it's not all that different from most of his discography — which includes 1998's Soul's Core, the album that shot him to fame on the strength of its Grammy-nominated No.

1 hit, 'Lullaby,' and 2006's 9th Ward Pickin' Parlor, which contained his AAA/Americana No. 1, 'Beautiful Wreck.' (He also co-wrote the Zac Brown Band's No. Best Virtual Surround Sound Software. 1 country tune, 'Toes.' ) But in the years since his last release, 2010's Light You Up, Mullins has experienced more ups and downs on his romantic roller-coaster — a ride he's decided to step off for a while.

He's also stayed busy co-parenting his son, Murphy, with his second wife. Still, nothing inspires songwriters quite like a breakup, and Mullins confirms, 'This record came out of all that; all the feelings, all the heartache.'

He remembers sitting on his porch one afternoon, thinking, 'I know this is all in my head, but it'd be a lot easier just to blame it on my heart.' And then I thought, Yeah, it's my stupid heart.' ' Next thing he knew, lines like 'my stupid heart it plays for keeps/through hoops of fire it bounds and leaps' just started tumbling out. In the studio, the song took on a classic vibe, with impeccable instrumentation and production that sounds as if George Martin supervised.

In other words, it's gorgeous. And it carries a momentum that shifts it away from feeling like a woe-is-me wallow in self-pity. Keylemon License Key there.

Throughout the album, Mullins deftly balances songs of suffering — from the title tune and 'Go and Fall,' to the powerful, yet subtle social commentary of 'Ferguson' (which contains no mention of guns or police officers) — with songs such as 'Roll on By,' co-written with Max Gomez, which strikes an upbeat note of hope. There's humor, too. Sure, much of it is wrapped in sardonic cynicism; 'It all Comes Down to Love' targets TV preachers, politicians, the NRA, Wall Street and street dealers, and 'Pre-Apocalyptic Blues' hilariously lampoons the doom-mongers arming themselves against Armageddon. But the Levon Helm-influenced 'Never Gonna Let Her Go' reveals the thrills of riding that afore-mentioned roller-coaster, and even the sigh of resignation that is 'The Great Unknown' contains lines so striking, you can't help but smile at their brilliance and depth. (Example: 'They got a mirror back behind the whiskey shelves/Where we don't dare look back at ourselves.'

) That song is one of several Mullins penned with his main songwriting collaborator, Chuck Cannon, who happens to be married to the album's producer, Lari White. They not only introduced him to the song's third author, Christina Aldendifer, but many of the album's players as well. (More about them later.) Cannon also co-wrote the title track, 'Ferguson' and the deceptively shimmering 'Go and Fall.' Gomez is co-credited on the dramatic 'Gambler's Heart'; Patrick Blanchard shares authorship of another character-based song, 'Sunshine.' Whether composing alone or with others - including Matthew Sweet and Pete Droge, his bandmates in the early-2000s trio the Thorns - Atlanta native Mullins has always been a dynamic songsmith. Forging influences from folk and R&B to traditional country and even Broadway musicals (the funky ones, like Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell) with pop-leaning melodic sensibilities, he crafts memorable, affecting tunes best defined as Americana.