Exclusive Song Premiere: Cody Canada & The Departed Pull An "All-Nighter"

Cross Canadian Ragweed were one of the leading lights of the Texas Country scene in the 00’s, and lead singer Cody Canada has continued the band’s “red dirt” tradition—albeit with a harder-rocking edge—with his follow-up band, Cody Canada and the Departed. Meanwhile, Austin’s Reckless Kelly have been a perennial player in the town’s bars for almost two decades now, while Mickey and the Motorcars—which features the two younger brothers of Reckless Kelly’s sibling founders—got their start in town in 2002.

In other words, there’s a lot of recent Texas music history on the song “All-Nighter,” which you can listen to below. The song is on the forthcoming album from Cody Canada and the Departed (out January 13th), and features Canada, as well as both Willy and Cody Braun of Reckless Kelly, and Micky and Gary Braun of Micky and the Motorcars on the track—marking the first time in more than a decade that all four Braun brothers have appeared together on the same track.

“There was a loss in our music family that hurt pretty badly, and I wanted that person to know that we thought of him every day,” Canada explains of the collaboration. “Micky Braun passed on writing the song to me. I think it was a little too close to the chest for him. So on New Year’s Eve of 2013, I finished it. I played it a month later for [their father] Muzzy Braun up in Idaho by his wood burning stove. I noticed the stove had ‘All Nighter’ etched on the front. I had no idea. It was meant to be.”

Canada wrote the song for Mark “Gus” McCoy, the Micky and the Motorcars bassist who drowned in 2012, and says that he was inspired to write it after his wife had a conversation with Braun family patriarch, Muzzy, about how he and his wife raised their sons. “He told us to raise good kids you have to keep them close by your side,” Canada recalls. “I took that in and finished the song with a Braun in mind for each verse.”

The song—a pretty, mournful ballad twinged with a hint of optimism—seems like a loving tribute to McCoy, and there’s something moving about hearing so many musicians pay their respects to someone who meant so much to them on a record. Give it a listen below: