Hear X Jam With the Doors’ Robby Krieger on ‘Alphabetland’ B-Side ‘Strange Life’

The Doors’ Robby Krieger played jazzy guitar on “All the Time in the World,” the closing track of Alphabetland, X’s first album in decades, and now the L.A. punk group is releasing another song they recorded together.

On Alphabetland, “Strange Life,” was a relatively straightforward punk rocker (and a catchy one at that), but Krieger’s contribution to the new version gives the song a little more texture, as he plays some pleasantly meandering slide-guitar licks underneath the chorus. The track is one of two B-sides that comprise X’s new outtakes comp, Xtras, which is available now.

The other previously unreleased X track, “True Love, Pt. 3,” doesn’t feature Krieger but it does show off X guitarist Billy Zoom’s tasteful rockabilly licks. The track picks up where the first two parts of “True Love” left off on the band’s 1983 LP, More Fun in the New World. “True love is the devil’s crowbar,” Exene Cervenka sings in harmony with bassist-vocalist John Doe in the chorus. “He uses it to pry you out of your car and into the arms of … ” Cervenka sings without finishing the line.

“Robby came down on our last day in the studio and played on ‘Strange Life,’” Cervenka said in a statement. “How fitting and how wondrous! And can there ever be enough ‘True Love’? Writing this reminds me of how much fun it was being in the studio with Rob Schnapf. He is a great producer and really helped make Alphabetland happen.”

Alphabetland came out as a surprise release in April of last year, shortly after Covid-19 sent the world into lockdown. “This is a total indie, punk-rock way of doing it,” Doe said of the album’s release in a Rolling Stone interview, shortly after it came out. “People really embraced it. It feels good, too. It gives people something fun and kind of not just mindless to listen to.” The magazine later named it one of the best albums of the year.