Last Friday, Eric Brace & Last Train Home surprise-released three newly recorded songs as an EP, titled Used Songs For Sale, through Red Beet Records, Brace’s East Nashville-based label. The songs are covers, tracks that the boys in the band have always loved, and which they’ve” long wanted to put their stamp on.”

Last Train Home has always covered other artist’s tunes, for instance with their Tributaries EP. Their approach is always to take it as a challenge to find their own interpretations for beloved songs.

The tracks on the EP include “Places That Are Gone” by Tommy Keene, “To Love Somebody” by The Bee Gees, and “Hold Back The Night” by The Trammps, made famous by Graham Parker.

Of “Places That Are Gone”, they say:

This song first came out in 1984, the title track to Tommy Keene’s EP, his second album as a solo artist after having played in the late ’70s with DC-area bands The Rage and Razz. The song flew through the airwaves of radio station WHFS (and other stations) an awful lot back then, and Tommy’s live shows were lessons in showmanship, taste, and craft. He showed a lot of bands (including Eric’s 1980s combos with his brother Alan) how to do all of it: Write songs, put on a show, lead a band, sing, play. Tommy Keene was the total package, and the DC-scene knew big things were on the horizon for him. But despite getting a few big record deals, stardom was never in Tommy’s cards, and the kid from Bethesda who almost hit the bigtime died in 2017. “Places That Are Gone” remains his best known and best loved tune. If you listen to just the lyrics of the title, you might think it’s a bittersweet song of nostalgia, but in fact it’s saying an enthusiastic goodbye to the past, and it embraces a present and future without the shackles that people and places can put on you.

Last Train Home has given the song a sonic reinvention, and includes harmony vocals by rising star RobinAugust, a neighbor of Eric’s on his East Nashville street.