A funny thing happened to musical survivor Steve Earle in recording "El Corazon."

But Earle ain't complaining either.

His last two critically praised albums - "Train A Comin'" and "I Feel Alright" - were generally acoustically based.

So, Earle thought he would make a few sonic changes going into the new disc, English for "The Heart."

"I thought before I started it that I was going to make just like a more electric, guitar rock record, which was probably a direct result of several shows with Neil Young on the last tour," Earle says in an interview from his record company in Nashville. "It didn't turn out that way."

Earle had not expected to be making an album so soon. he was immersed in writing a book of short stories and also had a multitude of duties in running E Squared Records, the company he co-owns with long-time cohort Jack Emerson.

But Warner Brothers Records, which distributes his albums, wanted another album. "The truth was I wasn't making a record yet," Earle says. "People depend on me for a living. People want to know when I was going to go out and tour, and I got a partner in this record label."

Earle still had it in mind to make one of his more rock-based discs instead of the country of the last two. As for Neil Young, Earle characterizes his shows as "the best Crazy Horse shows I've ever seen. They just really impressed me, but I was probably making the record for the wrong reason at that time in my head."

Earle isn't upset with the results of the 12 songs. "I ended up sort of gratified that it came out so differently than it was planned...I'm really proud of that."

"I'm okay with it," he says. "That sort of surprises me, but I think it's really cool. I'm prouder of this record than any I've ever made, and I don't have any I'm ashamed of."

"No matter," says Earle, calling the turn of events "sort of humbling and sort of fun at the same time (because) after all this time it can get totally and completely away from me and still turn out good."

Earle went to Ireland in March and April with the intent of writing a book of short stories. "I thought I would write some songs, but I thought I'd write more of the book," Earle says. "I figured I'd come back from Ireland and take a little while longer, and 'here's the book, and it's really cool.'""So, now I'm now going on the road again," says Earle, who beings touring with a date in Dublin, Ireland in early November.

Earle still is working on the short story collection. For Earle, there are similarities between writing stories and songs. "It doesn't really have anything to do with what I do when I make records," says Earle, while acknowledging, "It's the same creative process."

In fact, the book contains a short story, "Taneytown," the same title as a song on "El Corazon."

"It's the same character. It's much deeper in the story, more details in the story. I wrote the song, wrote the short story and rewrote the song." Emmylou Harris helps out on backing vocals as she has in the past for Earle.

He says he always has written characters in far greater detail than eventually appears in the song as a way of getting deeper into the subject matter.

The song - in the long tradition of Earle's story in song - is about a 22-year-old retarded man who sneaks away from home against his mother's wishes. He is accosted by white youths and within two lines, Earle sings, "But I had my old Barlow knife/I cant that boy and never did look back." The youth runs back home still free. On the way he dropped his knife, picked up by a boy, who was later hung.

Earle has always had an affinity for story songs. "The story songs come pretty easily to me," he says, adding, "I have a real natural sort of aptitude for them, so I'm always more impressed with (songs like) 'My Old Friend the Blues' and 'Valentine's Day.'" The latter is an out-and-out love song from his "Valentine's Day."

"They are journalism more than they are prose," Earle says of his story songs. "I'm less emotionally attached. I do the other things less often, and it's more work for me, so I'm impressed with it," he says laughing.

"I've gotten the impression that I don't apologize for much of anything any more," Earle says jokingly. "Not in this particular area of my life."

Well known for living life sometimes almost past the extreme, Earle is even taking to quitting smoking cigs. Yet again. "I've quit a jillion times. Just need to do it."

The disc is quite musically and lyrically diverse. The album starts with the lean sounding "Christmas in Washington," an indictment of politicians and the Nashville music scene, both repeated targets of Earle's, but also covers bluegrass with "I Still Carry You Around" and backing from the Del McCoury Band, "N.Y.C." with Seattle-based rock band The Supersuckers with whom Earle previously has recorded, helping out on the harsh sounding song, "Poison Lovers" with superb duet vocals from Siobhan Kennedy, the rocking "Here I Am" with 15-year-old son Justin blazing away on electric guitar and the closing "Ft. Worth Blues," an elegy to long-time friend and great influence, the late, seminal Texas songwriter Townes Van Zandt.

Earle first encountered Van Zandt in a Houston dive when he was only 17.

"I knew who he was, and he was stinking drunk," Earle says. "It was pretty irritating actually."

Earle knew who he had been dealing with. "It's a bummer to get heckled by your hero, but it was also embarrassing that I didn't know 'Wabash Cannonball.'"

But when Earle responded with "Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold," a song penned by Van Zandt, that was end of the jousting.

"It sort of established our ground rules for our relationships which were that we would probably like the only moments with real intimacy when there was no audience at all. When there was an audience, we would abuse the fuck out of each other."

Earle later played bass with Guy Clark, another hero. Eventually, Earle earned his own turn.

Earle, 42, has been putting out records since 1983 with his major label debut on Sony. He eventually was dropped and ended up with a long stint on MCA where he gained most of his acclaim starting off with his label debut, "Guitar Town" in 1986. He was part of the new renaissance of country at the same time as Dwight Yoakam and Lyle Lovett were taking country different places than the pop-oriented sound which afflicted the genre earlier in the '80's.

Earle mixed gritty vocals, a keenly sharp songwriting style often telling stories within his songs and edgy music where guitars sometimes reigned supreme though within a country context.

He faced the difficulty of being labelled as too rock for country and too country for rock. While his second album, "Exit O" was certainly country oriented, his 1988 follow-up, "Copperhead Road" was more rock influenced with country stations generally steering clear.

Earle's career spiralled downhill as he continued using drugs. MCA eventually dropped Earle, who developed a reputation as being extremely difficult to work with.

And a headstrong attitude in the go-along, get-along city of Nashville didn't earn him many friends there either. "I sort of slipped in through the cracks and had a number one country album. A lot of people made damn sure it didn't happen again."

Earle eventually found himself in jail for almost a year due to heroin possession. With his life in turmoil, Earle managed to put out "Train a Comin'," a very spare sounding disc receiving much critical praise.

Despite his problems, he maintained a core following.

While certainly affable and in good spirits throughout the interview, Earle still is not one to mince words. And that includes his attitudes towards the music coming out of Nashville these days.

"I haven't heard anything the least bit encouraging that I can think of off hand," Earle says. "In fairness, I don't listen to country radio very much. "

Sometimes Earle says he will sit on the porch outside his record company with a young country singer with a cowboy sauntering boy, telling him that he was a great influence on his work. Earle sometimes will listen to the end result.

"It makes me not want to sit on the porch for a long time. I hear their music and hope to God I didn't have anything to do with it." One artist he did clearly influence was Texan Jack Ingram, whose recent album Earle produced.

Earle, who plans to hit the road in the States in January, hopes changes are on the horizon. "I am hopeful because sales have plummeted, which means they're going to do something. They're panicking so they have to do something. That's what happened when "Guitar Town" came out. That shit nearly caught on. It scared the hell out of everybody."

In addition to his own career, Earle spends much time on his E Squared label, the home of The V-Roys and Cheri Knight.

The record company was almost an afterthought. "We made 'I Feel Alright' basically on Jack's (Emerson)," Earle says. "We started to protect ourselves legally. That really wasn't a conscious decision to start anything to do anything. It sort of happened organically. Now, it's this. I'm sitting here trying to make like it's exactly like I wanted it."

Earle made no such claims about "El Corazon."

And he's not complaining.