A Long Way Home is the ninth studio album by American country music artist Dwight Yoakam, released on June 9, 1998.

Although the country star's commercial stock fell as his interest in acting grew in the latter half of the Nineties, Yoakam later insisted: "I wrote some of the best material I’ve ever written while shooting in Austin, Texas.

In his book A Thousand Miles from Nowhere, writer Don McClesse notes, "As long as Dwight sold a ton of product, he was worth the trouble, but as soon as he didn’t, he wasn’t.

"[7] Producer and guitarist Pete Anderson, who was Yoakam's creative partner from 1983 to 2002, told Guitar World in 2012, "Dwight and I sort of blazed our trail and did what we wanted because he had an extraordinary amount of talent.

Biographer Don McCleese writes, "Though the road of love remains rocky in Yoakam’s material, the arrangements reinforce the lighter touch…The opening steel run of ‘Same Fool’ evokes the ‘Rainy Day Woman’ of Waylon Jennings while the following ‘The Curse’ proceeds at a Johnny Cash lope, and the majestic ‘Things Change’ and the string-laden ‘Yet to Succeed’ rank with definitive Dwight.

"[9] Yoakam also employs the vocal mannerisms of his hero Buck Owens on "I Wouldn’t Put It Pass Me" and "Same Fool," the latter sounding like a Roger Miller song.

The two first worked together on Stanley's 1992 LP Saturday Night & Sunday Morning and again on Yoakam's 1997 covers album performing a radically reworked version of The Clash’s "Train in Vain."

The pair’s musical relationship preceded the release of the 2000 film O Brother Where Art Thou?, which would expose Stanley to a wider audience, and collaborate several more times.