Earle released his first novel and fourteenth studio album, both entitled "I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive" after a Hank Williams song, in the spring of 2011. The album was released on April 26, 2011 and was produced by T Bone Burnett and deals with questions of mortality with a "more country" sound than his earlier work. During the second half of his 2011 tour with The Dukes and Duchesses and Moorer, the drum kit was adorned with the slogan "we are the 99%" a reference to the Occupy movement of September 2011.