Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room is the third studio album by American country music singer Dwight Yoakam, released on August 2, 1988.

and 1987's Hillbilly Deluxe, both hit #1 on the Billboard country albums chart and established him as one of the hottest stars in what was being referred to as the "New Traditionalist" movement, a shift away from the slick productions of Nashville to a more roots-based sound.

However, for this album the pair introduced a Tex-Mex sound by employing accordion kingpin Flaco Jimenez, who previously worked with artists like Ry Cooder and Doug Sahm.

Foster and fiddler Brantley Kearns leaving and new bassist Taras Prodaniuk, mandolinist Scott Joss, and keyboardist Skip Edwards joining.

The former song was written by Homer Joy, who was approached in 1972 by representatives from Buck Owens' studio in Bakersfield, California, about recording a "Hank Williams Sr.

[4] Owens liked the song and released a recording of it in 1973 on his album Ain’t It Amazing, Gracie, and while that version was not a major hit, the re-recording he did with Dwight Yoakam in 1988 (with slightly changed lyrics) reached number 1 on the Billboard Country Music charts.

[4] The song was perfect for Yoakam, who, like Owens, endured criticism for saying what was on his mind, with lines like "I just want a chance to be myself" reflecting his vision of artistic independence and individualism.

As noted by Yoakam biographer Don McLeese, the subject matter on Buenas Noches "is almost relentlessly bleak, occasionally lethal, a descent into the depths of honky-tonk hell.

"[8] Side one of the original LP contains five songs that tell a paranoid tale of adultery and murder execution-style, although producer later Pete Anderson insisted to McLeese: Dwight went into the third album and, in his mind, he made a theme record.

[6]AllMusic critic Thom Jurek writes, "Not since Leon Payne has anyone gone from love that is so obsessive it cares not a whit for the most basic of life's needs…to a murderous jealousy…to homicide in the first five songs.

With lines like, "I got a letter from the folks over at Bell, just to let me know for my next phone call I could walk outside and yell," the song is practically the album's only source for wry humor, detailing the troubles of a narrator trying to make ends meet while taking solace in the fact that he has the woman he loves "to ease my pains" and "keep me sane."

The story culminates with "She Wore Red Dresses," a murder ballad that finds the narrator "like a madman" praying for vengeance before tracking down the woman and her lover and shooting her in the head.

The cover of Lazy Lester's "I Hear You Knockin’" might sound comparatively cheery, but its lyrics reinforce the emotional bleakness,[8] while Yoakam's interpretation of the Hank Locklin classic "Send Me the Pillow" is full of longing and heartache.

Even the closing number "Hold On to God," a gospel song written for his mother Ruth Ann, sounds more like a declaration of forbearance rather than a celebration of faith.

[13] Writing in 2014, the alternative weekly Nashville Scene said the album "established him (Yoakam) as a master of persona, as well as an ingenious record-maker and self-deprecating songwriter.