Moment of Forever (2008)

Willie’s thinkin’ again. “I started thinking. Thinking about things that might have been.” The most Proustian of country singers. The most cerebral, internal, introspective, and wistful of Texas wordsmiths. “Over You Again” feels a bit like Teatro, but it ends with a trippy, Phishy, jam-band finale. This collection opens with a 5:37 track and closes with a 9:47, so you know something’s up. The title track, “Moment of Forever,” says it all. Kris Kristofferson knows Willie better than he knows himself. Wanting a moment to last forever, or wanting forever to happen all at once, to be condensed into an instant, that is the desire that haunts Willie’s oeuvre. As stark and spare and honest as Willie can be. Not sure what to make of “The Bob Song.” I admire the audacity, but I have no idea what it means or how to classify it. “You swing from your tree and I’ll swing from mine.” Live and let live. Tolerance and acceptance and openness is the word. “Louisiana” has convinced me that Willie should do an entire album of Randy Newman songs. They fit Willie like a glove. I think Willie can sing them better than Randy. He can talk them like Randy does, but he can do more with his voice than Randy can, so he can make them more interesting, more nuanced, more melancholy. Not sure why I don’t like Willie’s version of “Gravedigger” more than I do. I love this Dave Matthews song. I have three versions—one acoustic, one studio, one live. All three are better than this one. And Dave does a great “Funny How Time Slips Away” in concert. Not sure why Willie doesn’t make this work on this album. “Keep Me From Blowin’ Away” is a five for sure. I haven’t heard something this honest and heartfelt since Spirit. Could this be a sign of good things to come? I like this team of Kenny Chesney and Buddy Canon as producers. I hope Willie works with them again soon. Mickey Raphael is the only musician I recognize on this album. “When my mind remembered the days that just crumbled away.” Memory tries to keep the days from crumbling away. This 1971 Paul Craft song fits Willie in 2008. “Takin’ on Water” doesn’t do much for me, but it fits thematically with “Louisiana.” “I gotta get my heart to higher ground.” Love as natural disaster. “Always Now” and “Moment of Forever” may be the best song titles to capture Willie’s obsession with time. Perhaps in 2008 Willie has finally figured out how to stop time from slipping away. If you realize that always is now and now is always, then no time can ever slip away. “Nothing ever goes away/ Everything is here to stay/ And it’s always now.” “It’s more than just a memory.” Really? More than a memory? How can that be? In some ways this song undoes every song Willie ever wrote about time slipping away and memory trying to retrieve it. All this, it seems, was grasping for straws. If it’s always now, then time slipping away is just an illusion. Kenny Chesney wrote, “I’m Alive,” but it fits Willie perfectly. Just thankful to be alive. Thanks to fate, the stars, the present, today, now. In “When I Was Young and Grandma Wasn’t Old,” written by Buddy Cannon, “Memories take [Willie] back again”:

It makes me happy that I can still go back

My memories are so clear

Of how it used to be when I never dreamed

Of ever lookin’ back from here.

That’s pure Willie: dreamin’ of a future when he’ll be reminiscing about the past. Looking forward to look back. Preemptive nostalgia. Missing things before they’re gone. Deja vu in reverse.

“Worry B Gone” is written by a collection of Nashville’s finest: Gary Nicholson, Guy Clark, and Lee Roy Parnell. I used to see Gary Nicholson a good bit at the Bluebird. A regular for their famous “in the round” nights. I love Larry Paxton’s upright bass on this track. Trigger is in fine form as well. A good old fashioned drinking song. Never heard it called Worry B Gone, but the Whiskey River certainly runs through Willie’s repertoire. A way to numb the pain of the past. “Well I can’t suffer fools wastin’ my time.” And yet drinking is somehow making good use of time? I thought Willie wasn’t writing much anymore, but he clearly wrote a few in 2008. In “You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore,” he writes, “I used to fake a heart attack and fall down on the floor, but even I don’t think that’s funny anymore.” The thought of time slipping away like that isn’t funny anymore because you have so little left as it is. When you are young you have time to spare, to kill, and you can laugh as it slips away, but not when you’re 77. It ain’t no joke. And then he ends with Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody.” I like the use of horns, a funky rhythm section, and a B-3 organ, but I think Dylan does this 1973 song better. The last 2 minutes of this track is a recording of Willie messing around with Trigger practicing “You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore” in the studio with the crew cracking up in the background.

Born for Trouble (1990)

This album makes my untenable top ten. I like every song. This may say more about me than Willie, but it is just an all-around solid, consistent country album. It may be the only country album Willie has recorded that doesn’t contain a single Willie-penned song. This album reminds me of a Randy Travis or George Strait album, and that’s because he uses all of the same big-name Nashville Songwriters (regulars at Nashville’s Bluebird Café): Troy Seals, Don Schlitz, Beth Nielson Chapman. I wonder if Willie was trying to cash in on the traditional country revival spearheaded by Travis and Strait.

“Born For Trouble” sounds like an outlaw album, and the picture of Willie on a Harley would seem to indicate that this is a rowdy, Waylon Jennings-styled release. And yet, with the exception of a few good-old boy tunes, this is one of Willie’s mellower collections.

“Ain’t Necessarily So” was written by Beth Nielson Chapman, but it may be the best one-song summary of Willie’s philosophy of life.

I laugh when I can

I live with the rest

I learn that holding on means letting go

I try to be a friend

To the person on my left

They say you just can't be too careful who you know

But that ain't necessarily so

In other words, Hakuna matata. Accept whatever comes your way with a smile. And don’t be particular about your friends. Accept outcasts and strangers. Willie never has been careful about who he knows. He remains open and accepting in all areas of his life: to musical genres, to bands, to styles, to fans. Open to a fault. Recklessly open.

And every time I follow what I'm feeling

I end up in the same place my heart would have me go

If there's one rule of life I trust

It's everything outside your gut

Ain't necessarily so

Follow your gut. It’s what Willie does with his vocal phrasing and with his life. For good or ill. Forsake pattern and predictability, and yet this improvised life leads him to long for order in his mind. What he forsakes in life he craves in memory.

“(I Don’t Have a Reason) To Go to California Anymore” sounds like a true story. Willie didn’t write it, but it sounds like it could be about the woman who acted in Honeysuckle Rose that Willie had a fling with and then she broke it off. Patoski talks about how Willie was devastated by this. He sings it like he means it.

“Ten with a Two” is a clever, word-play Nashville song. It fits into the “beer goggles” template for up-tempo country songs. “Last night I came in at 2 with a 10 but at 10 I woke up with a 2…I ain’t never gone to bed with an ugly woman, but I’ve sure woke up with a few…I’ll bet you 10-1 you have too.” Willie cares, but he’s not careful with friends or women.

“The Piper Came Today” is what happens when you aren’t careful. Karma’s a bummer. “He was hell to pay, ‘cause he took my world away.” So far, Willie has two upbeat songs and too slower sad songs laced with steel. For some reason, I don’t mind the strings and the background singers on this album. Not sure why.

“You Decide” may strike some as too syrupy, but if so, it’s Vermont’s Finest 100% pure maple. It’s another Petrarchan ballad. “Don’t you worry if you see me cry.” I’ll just sit here loving you eternally and waiting. If your fickle ways come to an end, I’ll just be sitting here being true. Another Beth Nielson Chapman song that Willie could have written himself.

“Pieces of Life” brings the album to a 4/6 or 2/3 sad songs to 1/3 up-tempo ratio. It’s so typical of Willie to have a misleading album cover and title. “Always too much whiskey, and women that I never knew too well, all the things I’ve seen and done, most of which I’d be ashamed to tell.” Remembering is regretting things past. “I’m holding onto nothing, trying to forget the rest.” “Looking back on my life, to see if I can find the pieces.” “I found the bad parts, found all the sad parts, but the best part I just threw away…Oh, the pieces of my life…” Wow. This may be one of the most devastatingly sad songs in Willie’s repertoire. Memory is putting the puzzle of the past back together again. Reminds me of “Somebody Pick Up the Pieces” (from Teatro).

And then a driving Don Schlitz/Beth Nielson Chapman song that captures Willie’s philosophy better than he could capture it himself.

It’ll come to me just like a song,

And I’ll make it up as I go along

The push and pull, the give and take

Will even out for goodness sake

The sun might shine and the wind might blow

I can’t say ‘cause I don’t know

Whatever it is that’s meant to be

Sooner or later it’ll come to me

I’ve spent so many yesterdays worried about forever

But no amount of worry made a day go any better

And no amount of planning made a difference worth a dime

Whatever’s gonna happen’s gonna take its own sweet time

No need to comment on this. These lyrics sum up every song Willie has ever written. They sum up his life philosophy, for good or ill.

“This is How Without You Goes” slows it down again with sad steel sentiments. “Watching re-runs of old memory shows.” This brings the album to 5/8 sad songs. “Everything is tear clouds.” “Born for Trouble” bounces with a lighthearted look at the outlaw lifestyle. Sort of an easy-listening outlaw. Hank Cochran, Willie’s old pal, writes songs that fit Willie to a tee. “Little Things Mean A Lot” closes out the set with a sad song (making it 6/10). So it is a balanced album, with a slight tilt toward melancholy. “A line a day when you’re far away.” I can’t picture Willie really following this advice. He doesn’t seem like the type to call to let you know he arrived safely. For a man so obsessed with memory, he seems like the kind who would forget your anniversary. Or worse yet, might be fooling around with someone else on your anniversary. “Always and ever, for now and forever, little things mean a lot.” There’s that word “always” again. The strings might be a bit much on this one. Whether it is sunny or rainy, you can rely on your heart. Love transcends time. Or does it?

Funny coincidence. My I-tunes went straight from this last song to Sonny Rollins’ version of “Without a Song” on “The Bridge.” I just reviewed Willie’s album of the same name a few days ago. And the WSJ has a nice article today about western swing fiddler Johnny Gimble, who is 84.

Six Hours at Pedernales (1994)

“With special guest Curtis Potter” is a bit misleading. Though Willie opens this album singing “Nothing’s Changed, Nothing’s New,” most of these tracks seem to feature Curtis Potter front and center with Willie accompanying. This seems to be another of Willie’s generous outings where he records with an old friend as a kind of thank you. Who else does this? I’ve never heard of Curtis Potter, but I gather he’s a big name in Western Swing, and he certainly sounds like Ray Price. Some would consider his voice to be “better” than Willie’s in a conventional or technical way. And yet, it has none of the qualities that make a voice distinct or intriguing. This gets at the paradox that great artists seem to distinguish themselves by the subtle ways they sing poorly, behind the beat, off key, just enough to create a hiccup, a tension, a crack, and then flirt with perfection. In other words, true perfection, true greatness, seems to be more of a tenuous dance between perfection and imperfection. Pure perfection is too clean and antiseptic.

Buddy Emmons is on steel, but I don’t recognize the other musicians. The lyrics of this first song written by Ray Pennington capture many of Willie’s major themes. “That same old feeling keeps hangin’ on.” Like the local memory, feelings personified haunt Willie palpably. This song has that same wry tone as “Funny How Time Slips Away.” In Willie’s mind, and nowhere else, “Nothings Changed.” Memories embalm love and time.

Willie’s interpretation of “Are You Sure” (and even his attempt at singing harmony with Curtis) make this track worth a second listen. The strings cloy, and the drums create an inappropriately bouncy background for these melancholy songs. Ditto for Willie’s vocals on “The Party’s Over.” Now “Turn Me Loose and Let Me Swing” may be worth the price of this CD. It’s all Willie.

Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” still turns me on

Like Bob Wills and the “Rose of San Antone”

They both played great music,

They just called it different names

But if you put it all together

It would still come out the same.

Willie didn’t write it, but he may as well have. He loves jazz, and who can tell the difference when he sings blues, bluegrass, jazz, pop, country, swing, rock, or gospel?

Willie also takes the lead on Mel Holt’s “Once You’re Past the Blues.” He tells himself he “needed the blues.” He sings, “the blues help me to get over you.” Really? Blues as therapy, as twelve steps. “Sometimes the blues are necessary.” He’s not “recommending the blues,” but, of course, he is. He’s “just saying how they work for me.” In “It Won’t Be Easy,” he sings, “Would you reconsider if you knew I still loved you, if you knew it still mattered?” In other words, if you knew you were always on my mind, if you knew I always loved you in theory, would you love me in practice? Huh? “Stray Cats, Cowboys, and Girls of the Night” gets at the age-old Willie theme of looking for home on the road. “Nowhere is somewhere called home.” The title is the best part of the song. The fiddle is Johnny Gimble-esque. “The Best Worst Thing” is another clever title that the song doesn’t quite live up to. Cleverness isn’t enough. You need credibility.

This collection concludes with two Willie classics: “It Should Be Easier Now” and “My Own Peculiar Way.” Willie’s interpretations are worth checking out for comparison purposes. Willie essentially sings a duet with the steel on “It Should Be Easier Now,” and Curtis and Willie actually sing together better than almost anyone besides Shirley Nelson. Overall, not one of my favorite Willie albums, but worth comparing a few tracks. Willie makes some interesting vocal forays on some of these standards from his repertoire.

Without a Song (1983)

Another Booker T. Jones produced album, this time with Willie’s road band and Booker T. on piano and Julio Iglesias guesting on vocals on one track. This is no Stardust (but then what is?). Willie has to be kicking himself wondering what it was that made Stardust so special. Why couldn’t he easily recapture that sound on another album? “Without a song, the day would never end…the road would never bend…a man ain’t got a friend without a song.” Art, in this case music, alone helps us make it through life. It is our only faithful friend and solace. Why? Because it alone transcends time. It alone gives our lives an arc, a narrative shape, closure. There “Ain’t no love at all without a song.” You can’t even have love without art. Even love needs art to help it escape from the clutches of time.

“Once in a While” suggests the ever-present Willie theme of time. “If love still can remember, the spark may burn again. I know that I’ll be contented with yesterday’s memory knowing you think of me once in a while.” Memories of your love, even fleeting memories, stay me against the ravages of time. My only bulwark.

And then, of course, “Autumn Leaves.” Willie’s always singing of September. Who sings of spring leaves? “I miss you most of all…when autumn leaves start to fall.” Why does autumn stir up memories more than any other season? Why is it the most nostalgic season? Memory and death seem connected. Willie’s vocals are strong, but the London Symphony Orchestra is killing me. “I can’t tell you how happy I would be if I could speak my mind like others do.” It’s the oldest sentiment in the book. “You were always on my mind.” In other words, I loved you perfectly in theory. I loved you perfectly without words, and yet, who wants to be loved this way? What is love without words? Mickey Raphael isn’t listed in the liner notes, but it must be him on harmonica trying to save each song from the strings. “Harbor Lights” get Willie’s tears starting again. “You were on the ship and I was on the shore,” like Gatsby staring at the light on Daisy’s dock. Lights and leaves are just symbols of memory and nostalgia. Willie goes flamenco, as he is wont to do, with “Golden Earrings.” He hopes these magic golden earrings will make his gypsy love eternal. A gypsy is by definition always on the road, fleeting, evanescent, and yet Willie somehow longs for a paradoxically stay-at-home gypsy. A gypsy who will be true, who won’t gyp him the way time does.

“You’ll Never Know” how much Willie loves you because his love is all in his head. You’re always on his mind, but never on his tongue. Funny how writers and singers always sing and write about how they don’t have the words to express their love. They only have the words to express how they don’t have the words. So much time and so many words to say how we can’t find the words. If we could find the words, ironically, we’d have so much less to say. Our speechlessness leads to more speech. I’m actually speechless, for the first time, after listening to “To Each His Own.” Musically and lyrically, it leaves me unresponsive, without a song. “As Time Goes By” we grasp for it like fireflies for our jar, and yet it always slips away. Funny how time slips away, how it goes by. “You must remember this.” Even Julio can’t save this album. I just can’t “climb aboard a butterfly” with Willie on “A Dreamer’s Holiday.” The syrup is a bit too thick on this collection of standards. One of the definitions of sentimentality is emotion that is not warranted, not believable, not earned. I don’t feel like Willie means these songs the way he meant the songs on Stardust. I think those truly were his favorite songs, and he just can’t mean these songs as much as he meant those. “Time there’s plenty of,” but not enough to spend it on this album when Willie has dozens that deserve much more.

One Hell of a Ride (disc 4 of 4)

Disc four of this set opens with “Write Your Own Songs” from the Booker T. Jones-produced 1984 Music From Songwriter album. Willie tells “Mr. music executive” and “Mr. purified country” to “write [their] own song[s]” if they don’t like the ones he’s writing. He warns that listening to his songs “might make you dwell on your feelings a moment too long.” He basically tells the music executives that they can’t understand or appreciate or handle his music, so they should just sit back and get rich off the music without listening to it. It’s a slightly uncomfortable mix of humor and seriousness. He’s not joking, but it’s funny. And Mickey Raphael’s harmonica works its haunting magic in the spaces between the lines.

Neil Young is an interesting choice for a duet partner on the 1984 album Partners, and “Heart of Gold” is a daring choice for a remake, but as with Paul Simon’s music, I’m not sure Neil Young’s music can or should be re-done. This version seems too cheery and upbeat. Willie usually slows, pares, strips, and breaks down a song into its most basic elements when he redoes it, but in this case he tries to pretty it up. Not sure that’s possible or desirable with Neil Young’s music.

Then Willie sings a tune with Hank Snow from the 1984 album Brand on My Heart. Hank Snow actually sounds like Dylan on this track. I guess that means Hank Snow influenced Dylan. I’ll need to look into that. This is another chance to hear Willie singing side-by-side with one of his Western Swing mentors. The theme of “movin’ on” and hittin’ the road again obviously fits perfectly with Willie’s larger project.

The rest of the songs on this disc I have already reviewed (except for “Rainbow Connection,” which I will save for a separate blog on the album of the same name).

Lastly, the best part of this whole collection is how it begins with a 1954 version of “When I’ve Sang My Last Hillbilly Song” and then ends with a 2007 version (though “sang” is changed to “sung”; is that intentional? If so, what’s the significance?). I much prefer the 2007 version, which must be a previously unreleased track that Willie recorded in his Pedernales studio, and it may be an indication of the kind of gems that await us when he starts releasing the stuff that is gathering dust in his home studio. Imagine a collection of tracks like this! This track alone is worth the price of the collection. “When I’ve sung my last Hank Williams song, I hope that someday she’ll forgive me and remember.” Forgiveness is a kind of re-writing of history, a kind of re-making and re-doing. A kind of re-incarnation. A kind of re-membering. Memory and redemption are so closely intertwined in Willie’s music. Maybe they are the same thing. Maybe memory is his redemption. Maybe art is memory and art redeems. As much as Willie has changed over these 53 years (from 1954 to 2007), he’s still singing the same songs, still singing the same way, still hitting the same themes. Still is still moving, and he both changes and stays the same simultaneously, like the seasons. This track is Willie at his very best musically, vocally, and emotionally. I can’t get it out of my head and don’t want to.

One Hell of a Ride (disc 3 of 4)

Disc three of this set opens with three songs from the 1978 Willie and Family Live album. This version of “Whiskey River” rivals the 1974 Texas Opry House version, but I’d have to do a head-to-head comparison to say for sure which is stronger. The same goes for “Stay a Little Longer.” “Till I Gain Control” also appears on the album Take it to the Limit, but this live version takes “Take it to the Limit” to the next level. Willie sings (what Rodney Crowell has written):

I have never gone so wrong as for tellin’ lies to you.

What you’ve seen is what I’ve been.

There is nothin’ that I can hide from you.

You see me better than I can.

Out on the road that lies before me now

There are some turns where I will spin.

I only hope that you will hold me now

Till I can gain control again.

In the next verse he refers to her love as like a lighthouse that will guide him home after being lost at sea. He admits that she sees him better than he sees himself, and yet, by admitting this, he shows that he has an even greater awareness of himself, even if it is a Buddhist awareness of his lack of awareness. The tension between motion and stillness, the road and home, lost and found is everywhere in Willie’s music. Here we see it in the spinning out of control on the road, and then the desire for love to hold him in its arms till he can gain control. In a musical sense, we have Willie’s unpredictable vocal lines spinning out of control and then finding their way back to the meter, the lighthouse, home. Sound and sense become one. This song also contains some of Mickey Raphael’s finest work on harmonica. A life and a style of music that always seem on the verge of being out of control, and yet the method in the madness always quietly surfacing to bring it back home to sanity.

Then follows two tracks from One for the Road, which I have already reviewed, and a song from Willie Nelson Sings Kristofferson (also already reviewed). Greg Allman’s “Midnight Rider” from the 1979 album Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack The Electric Horseman is new to me. Willie sings, “I ain’t gonna let ‘em catch me, no I ain’t gonna let ‘em catch the midnight rider.” Always outrunning something or someone. “I’ve gone by the point of caring. Some old bed I’ll soon be sharing.” You hit the road because you don’t care about what’s behind you. If you cared, you’d stay. And yet we don’t really believe Willie. He does care. His songs are full of caring and sensitivity and crying. The paradox and riddle continues. Mickey’s harmonica is on fire as “This old road goes on forever.” How long is forever this time; how long is the road that goes on forever? Are the concepts of the road and time merging? The road is both time itself and an attempt to escape the limits of time. How can it be both? And yet it is.

Then follows tunes previously reviewed from San Antonio Rose, Honeysuckle Rose, and Somewhere Over the Rainbow. “Old Friends,” from the 1982 album of the same name ( with Roger Taylor and Ray Price), lets you hear Willie’s voice side by side with two of his most important mentors. Then two previously reviewed tunes from Pancho and Lefty. The Jimmie Rodgers tune “In the Jailhouse Now” from the album of the same name (with Webb Pierce), also lets you hear Willie sing with one of his mentors. Again, you hear Willie’s Western Swing background. Then previously reviewed songs from Take it to the Limit, City of New Orleans, and a Julio Iglesias album. This disc ends with two tunes from Willie’s 1984 album with Faron Young, Funny How Time Slips Away. This version of “Three Days” is not one of my favorites, but it does give you another insight into one of Willie’s mentors. You can hear the voice that sang many of Willie’s early songs and made them hits. Faron has an interesting yodel-like hitch to his voice. Sort of a cross between Ray Price and Hank Williams or Jimmie Rodgers. Johnny Gimble steals the show on fiddle. Same goes for this version of “Touch Me.” Buddy Emmons’ steel steals the show on this one.

One Hell of a Ride (disc 2 of 4)

With the addition of this disc I have surpassed the 1,000-song mark and the 2-day mark on my nano. I can now drive to Maine and back (a 48-hour round trip) without repeating a song.

Willie sings on his 1971 RCA album The Willie Way, “Today might be the day that you walk away, but you left me a long, long time ago.” Again, it doesn’t matter what you do physically. What matters is when you left me on the inside. Willie is always giving precedence to internal actions. It’s all in the mind. Very Platonic. And yet, at other times, he revels in the nitty gritty of the concrete here and now. He seems to embody both Plato and Aristotle. The inductive and the deductive. “She’s Not For You,” from the album Willie Before His Time, was recorded in 1965, but all tracks on that album were previously released except for my favorite, “You Ought to Hear Me Cry.” I just received the 1977 LP in the mail, but will review it in its entirety in a future blog. For now, I can just say that this track fits right into Willie’s canon of crying. When he sings, “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet,” he means you haven’t heard anyone cry like this. The crying outlaw. It’s so hard to reconcile all this crying with the John Wayne cowboy tough guy loner persona. And yet there it is. The problem with Willie Before His Time is that the liner notes of the LP don’t tell you where and when these tracks were previously released. I don’t recognize this spare version of “It Should Be Easier Now,” but it may be the best one I’ve heard to date. Just guitar, steel, and drums accompanying Willie’s vocal. Three tunes from Waylon and Willie, which I have already reviewed, follow. “Blackjack County Chain” may be the darkest tune in Willie’s repertoire. Too dark and harsh for the radio. And what can he possibly mean by the title of this album, Minstrel Man? I can see why that didn’t sell big. Sounds more like a Johnny Cash story song. “Johnny One Time” from the album Don’t You Ever Get Tired is another FHTSA (“Funny How Time Slips Away”) song. “Did he tell you that he’s known as Johnny One Time?” Of course not. He told you he’d love you forever. It’s what we all tell each other. And then time slips away. We are a race of Johnny One Times. Or so it would seem from listening to Willie’s early music. This fits with Willie’s obsession with time. We desire to transcend this limited, finite view, but we just can’t escape our mortal coils. And yet, he sings, “Bring Me Sunshine.” He alternates the darkest possible songs with the most Panglossian. He is both Martin and Candide. He is, somehow, Both Sides Now. “I Just Can’t Let You Go” appears to be a live version from 1965. Just guitar and drums with Willie’s voice. A song about strangling a woman so she can’t leave him. Ouch. “Death is a friend to you and I.” And yet the audience is hooting and hollering like it’s “Freebird.” That’s a bit disturbing. Makes you wonder how much people are listening to the lyrics, even though he enunciates them clearly and slowly. In this song, Willie is willing to kill to remember the past, and to maintain it in eternal perfection. Must we kill love to make it permanent? Must we murder to dissect? Is that the only way to make it last? Is what we really yearn for lovers frozen on a cold urn?

Then follows a string of songs from albums I’ve already reviewed. What makes this collection a good one, though, is that it provides one song from most major albums in chronological order, so you get a sense of Willie’s evolution as an artist, and then it gives you 2-3 songs from his greatest albums, like Stardust and Red Headed Stranger. This disc ends with “A Song for You” from Willie and Family Live in NV in 1978. Just guitar and vocals. A 5-star performance.