Highwayman 2 (1990)

The highwaymen open this Chips Moman produced sequel singing “We’re gonna ride.” Constant motion on a “Silver Stallion.” Outrunning the wind, trouble, and time itself.

“Born and Raised in Black and White” gets at the paradoxical mix of gospel and outlaw in Willie’s and Johnny’s music. Again, Mickey Raphael on harp is the only road band member to join Willie on this album of quartets.

“Two Stories Wide” is one of two Willie-penned tunes on this album. This may be the best song on the album. “Life’s too long to worry, and it’s too short to cry, and it’s too deep to measure, and it’s two stories wide. There’s your side and my side…Both sides make you lonely.” Of course Willie can’t mean this at all. He has made his career by worrying and crying. And he has taken his time doing. And for someone who thinks too much--like Hamlet, like Proust, like Willie—for someone who sees that life is two stories wide, your side and my side, phases and stages, it can be very lonely indeed. But the artist, it seems, light a nightingale, can redeem the dark night of the soul with a song.

Johnny Cash’s tribute to the sixties, to Woodstock, or to songwriting in general, “Songs That Make a Difference,” is an interesting meditation on songwriting.

In “Living Legend,” the highwaymen are singing about their own history. “Was it better then with our backs against the wall?” They seem to be asking, were we better back then? Was the past really as good as we think it was? “Was he bitter then, with our backs against the wall…2,000 years ago.” They’re singing about Jesus. How do we know what to make of the past? How should we take? How should we feel about it? Should we live in it? Look what it did to Gatsby? Miss Havisham.

I wasn’t crazy about Willie’s “Texas” on “It Always Will Be,” and I like it less on this album, except for Mickey Raphael’s harp. I do appreciate the trippy, creepy, macabre, jazzy, jaunty, flamenco concoction that Willie has brewed. I don’t even know how to categorize it. So I respect it, but I don’t really enjoy it.