The beloved national treasure Mavis Staples‘ latest solo album, the Brad Cook-produced Sad And Beautiful World is slated for a November 7, 2025 release through Anti- Records. The album reportedly sees the 86 year-old legend standing side-by-side with us in the face of dangers she knows all too well — and comes at a time when increasing number of people out there have reason to wonder who and what could be lost.

The new album spans seven decades of the American songbook — a range nearly as vast as Staples’ remarkably lengthy career — and includes reinventions of timeless songs, as well as a batch of originals.

Recently, the legend performed the Hozier and Allison Russell co-written album single “Human Mind” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “Human Mind” was the first track recorded for the Sad And Beautiful World sessions and the single sees the legend acknowledging the complexities, contradictions, violence and heartbreak of our world, while still finding hope and goodness in people — and in turn, the world over a slow-burning, Staple Singers-inspired arrangement.

The song seems to say, “Yes, life will break your heart many times over; but there are small yet mighty measure of love, kindness and faith that hold it all together, barely. And that is what we should cling to when it’s especially dark.