Pancho and Lefty (1982)

The title song from Towns Van Zandt about a Mexican bandit who “wore his gun outside his pants” fits Willie’s outsider, on-the-road image perfectly. This song tells a gripping tale, but the angelic choir backing vocals break the spell for me. As is often the case, though, Willie and Hag’s vocals make up for it. That and the word “Federales.” I just like the sound of that word.

Chips Moman brings his Muscle Shoals R&B bounce to this album so Willie and Hag can walk down “Memory lane,” as if your mind, as if time, were something you could stroll down, casually, lazily, on your “Lazy Day.” As if they were somehow outside time.

“Half a Man” may make my top ten list of favorite Willie Nelson songs. The bass and drums thump with authority, but Willie and Hag sing so far behind the beat they almost fall over, tripping the song. “If I only had one eye to cry.” “The half a man that you’ve made of me” ranks up there with the all-time best country music turns of phrase. “One less memory to recall” gets at that theme of desiring to erase memories. “Reasons to Quit” right next to “No Reason to Quit” creates a yin-yang, a paradox, a flip-side, an “on the other hand.”

The bass and drums are like the babysitters in this band, the solid dance floor upon which Willie’s vocals can waltz at will.

“Still water runs the deepest,” but Willie and Hag lived fast, more like rocky rapids. Is Willie really criticizing a woman for not being true, peaceful, and dependable? “Still is still moving to me,” I guess.

On one hand, Willie seems reckless, which means he doesn’t think about what he’s doing. But so many of his songs are about thinking. So he doesn’t think, then he thinks about why he didn’t think. He ends up thinking more than people who do think in the first place.

“I still love you as I did in yesterday, many years have gone by though it seems just like a day.” Many years telescope into a day. Concentrated, distilled, strong as whiskey. “There will never be another, it will always be just you.” Always? Is this a joke?

I like the title “All the Soft Places to Fall,” but the logic of the song escapes me. Outlaws grow old and start looking for the comfort of clean sheets and family.

This “Opportunity to Cry” is a jazzy, trippy, almost soul sounding version. Johnny Gimble’s fiddle and mandolin, a sax, and an organ add to the intrigue.

The second “Half a Man” (bonus track 11) gets even slower, and Mickey Raphael makes his harmonica do some things I’ve never heard before. Willie is once again testing the limits of his listeners’ patience.

And just when you think he can’t sing any slower, get any further behind the beat, he almost comes to a complete stop on bonus track #12. Willie sings, “I’ll always love you in my own peculiar way.” Always? Mickey’s peculiar harmonica sounds work on this quirky version that grows on me with each version.

The way Willie keeps recycling songs is almost like reincarnation. His songs never die because he keeps re-doing them, re-making them. Sometimes they are better, sometimes worse. Willie’s relationship to his songs like Dr. Frankenstein’s to his monster? The monster just wanted love, and all he got was an opportunity to cry.