Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones cover the Everly Brothers

By August Brown

Oct. 23, 2013 12 AM PT

If you’re a music fan who woke up today expecting a Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones collaborative album of Everly Brothers songs, we’d like to buy you a drink and get some advice for betting on the ponies.

The Green Day frontman and jazz-folk chanteuse indeed have a new album, “Foreverly,” devoted to the classic vocal group. It’s a full cover of the Brothers’ 1958 album “Songs Our Daddy Taught Us.”

Armstrong told Stereogum that the brisk nine-day studio collaboration was “kinda like a blind date” that started with a cold call to Jones.

PHOTOS: Unexpected musical collaborations

“I got into the Everly Brothers’ record a couple years ago and I thought it was just beautiful,” he said. “I thought it would be cool to remake the record because I thought it was sort of an obscure thing and more people should know about it, but I really wanted to do it with a woman singing because I thought it would take on a different meaning -- maybe broaden the meaning a little bit -- as compared to hearing the songs being sung by the two brothers. And so my wife said: “Why don’t you get Norah Jones to do it?”

The album comes out Nov. 25 on Green Day’s longtime label Reprise, and while no tour dates are planned for it, Armstrong sounds amenable to it in the interview. To judge by the first single “Long Time Gone,” the two aren’t afraid to kick into full classic-country mode, and their very contrasting voices actually stack up nicely in duet.

Listen to it below, and lament that you’re not enough of a rock star to call Norah Jones for your covers side project.