Willie Nelson Sings Kristofferson (1979)

“All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the ‘Pathetic Fallacy.’—John Ruskin (1856)

If Ruskin is right, does that mean all of Willie’s work is a “pathetic fallacy”?

So I’m flying blind on this one. The liner notes give me nothing. No clue who the musicians are. I don’t need notes to tell me that this rendition of “Me and Bobby McGee” has a funky, driving beat, something not often found in country music. Could it be country R & B? Rhythm and Bluegrass? The drums and harmonica work together with the guitar to keep this one jerking along (pleasantly jolting, that is).

Unlike the Paul Simon tunes, these songs really do need to be re-done because Kristofferson is a much better writer than singer. Willie can actually take these songs to another level. The harmonica kills me on “Help Me Make it Through the Night.” I wonder if it’s Mickey Raphael. The guitar sounds a little too much like Easy Listening for this most heartbreaking of songs. The theme fits Willie’s philosophy perfectly. Making it through the night, making it through the viscosity, the gravity, the inertia, the medium of time. As half-spiritual, half-material beings we struggle with the friction between the two. One way to look at Willie’s (and here Kris’s) songs may be as helps to making it through the night, making it through time.

I notice that Willie produced this album himself. He keeps the vocals in the forefront. “Why Me” stands out as a hardcore gospel tune. I haven’t listened to many of these in my first 17 days of my journey through Willie’s complete catalog.

“For the Good Times” reminds me of Willie’s own “Remember the Good Times.” “There’ll be time enough for sadness when you leave me.” Time for sadness. What else is time for? Perhaps time is sadness. Translated, then, this reads: time for time. Time for contemplating the passage of time.

“If you’ve got the freedom, then I’ve got the time.” Even in a song as silly-sounding as “You Show Me Yours (And I’ll Show You Mine),” we have the Proustian theme of time. “If you’re feeling salty, I’ll be your Tequila.” I wonder if that line ever worked for Kris or Willie.

“Wiping out the traces of the people and the places that I’ve been.” Again, in “Loving Her was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again)” we find that theme of erasing time, of altering or manipulating memories. The harmonica continues to steal the show on this album. This may be the best harmonica performance on a Willie Nelson album thus far. I would almost call this album a duet between Willie and Mickey Raphael (or whoever is on harmonica). “Believing it was never gonna end.” Believing time isn’t real, that it doesn’t apply to us.

“Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down.” I’ve already commented on this song in my blog about Naked Willie. I need to go back and compare these two versions, and then listen to Kristofferson’s own rendition. This time around I notice the line “Disappearing dreams of yesterday.” The significance of days—Sunday and Saturday especially—and months—December—or seasons—autumn—strikes me in Willie’s songs. These are the hard facts, the certainties of time. The nouns in the grammar of time. The guard rails.

“Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends” continues the theme of denial. In “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” he wishes he was stoned so he wouldn’t have to deal with the reality of time. Here he hopes that if you don’t mention it, you don’t talk about it, somehow it won’t end. Earlier, he sings about “believing it was never gonna end,” but this is hard to do if people are talking about how it will, in fact, end. Is this hopeful optimism or simply ostrich-like sticking of our heads in the sand?

The thing that strikes me most about this album, though, is how slow it is. Even for someone who loves Willie for his slow pacing, I started to grow impatient with how long these nine songs took. Maybe this is Willie’s way of stretching time. Testing our patience. Maybe that’s why Proust wrote 6 volumes and 3,000 pages. In this case, the sound truly suggests the sense.

“Never’s just the echo of forever.” Oh my. What can that mean? “Lonesome as a love that might have been.” “Let me go on loving and believing till it’s over.”

“Never’s just the echo of forever.” I’ll need to return to that one. I can’t get my head around it just yet. I need more time.