To Lefty From Willie (1977)

What a find! In his liner notes, John Morthland calls it “the Great Lost Willie Nelson album from this era.” Everyone knows Stardust (1978) and Red Headed Stranger (1975), but no one knows this one, which was also recorded in 1975. He didn’t release it till 1977 because Frizzell died shortly after Willie recorded this tribute, and he didn’t want to appear to be trying to exploit Lefty’s death for monetary gain. Willie has the same road band with him that he used on Red Headed Stranger. I need to listen to some of Lefty’s music to see how innovative his vocals were at the time and how he influenced Willie’s own vocal style. Morthland refers to Willie’s “virtually monochromatic timbre and phrasing.” Like Chinese landscape painting, there is a power to the monochromatic palate. Lefty’s “Look What Thoughts Will Do” clearly influenced many of Willie’s songs. “If drinking won’t kill me, her memory will.” Drinking doesn’t kill you; thinking about lost love kills you. “I’ve got a thinking problem.” So did Proust. Thoughts and memories can be just as fatally intoxicating.

Once I thought I loved just you, and I thought you loved me too

But today you say we're through; just look what thoughts will do.

Now another wears the crown, and you think that you have found

Just what makes your world go round; watch those thoughts they'll get you down.

And if within your future years your new love should bring you tears

Then you'll think of me I'm sure, but those thoughts won't help you, dear.

Once I thought I loved just you, and I thought you loved me too,

But today you say we’re through; now just look what thoughts will do.

This song is a precursor to “Funny How Time Slips Away” and other songs about thinking love would last forever, and finding out it won’t. Forget what they say about country music. It is cerebral stuff. If Proust was a neuroscientist, so was Lefty Frizzell. The guy who wrote the Proust book found a novel connection when reading Proust while working in a neuroscience lab. I found an equally novel connection by listening to Willie while reading Proust (and reading the Proust guy’s book).

“Always Late with Your Kisses” the way Willie is late with the meter. Perhaps his behind-the-beat singing is his revenge on those tardy kisses, the way Gatsby was Fitzgerald’s revenge on all those elusive Daisys. The question is, for how long will Willie “Want to Be With You Always.” Put another way, “How Long is Forever This Time.”

Jimmie Rodgers influenced Lefty, so I need to listen to more Jimmie Rodgers. I have checked out a collection of his songs from the library and will pursue that connection. Apparently Lefty had a huge influence on Merle and Randy Travis as well, and I can hear it now. I’m wondering if Mickey Raphael doesn’t play on some of Randy’s early albums, too. I love Merle’s version of “That’s the Way Love Goes,” but now I understand where it came from.

You want me to love just you

While you love your share

Don't you think that's a little unfair

It's me that stays home

While you stay gone

Till you decide to care

Now don't you think that's a little unfair

I can't see how it can be anything for me

What's mine is yours

What's yours is yours

That's how you wanted to be

And you want me to wait for you

Till you decide to care

Don't you think that's a little unfair

You want permanence from me while you seek change. You want to have your fidelity and violate it, too. You want me to care while you are careless. And yet, the phrase “a little unfair” has that wry, casual, quizzical feel that “funny” has in “Funny How Time Slips Away.” It says, “I’m not mad, just chuckling at how absurd your demands are. I’m not outraged and bitter. I’m smiling at how you are doing me wrong.” Maybe this how Willie wished his ex-wives treated his infidelities. Surely they did not display this stoic calm, this Buddhist serenity in the face of faithlessness.

Willie strips down the lyrics to “I Never Go Around Mirrors” and just sings the very essence of the song. He stretches out each word and each line, like a French chef creating a reduction. He distills it and distills it down. In this case, he distills the tears down. Here we see again the love-hate relationship with memories. I want to remember you, I don’t want to remember you. Maybe I can outrun or hide from or numb memories. Maybe if I stay away from mirrors I can deny how these memories are affecting me. Maybe I won’t see my shadow if I cover my eyes. It’s a charming, child-like response because doesn’t heartbreak reduce us to those raw, childlike emotions that adults usually can suppress?

I never go around mirrors

It just tears me up to see a grown man cry

And I never go around mirrors

‘Cause I’ve got a heartache to hide

“Railroad Lady” is a hoot. “She’s a railroad lady, just a little bit shady.”

This unreleased version of “If You’ve Got the Money” doesn’t seem as good as the single version.

It’s good to hear Willie singing straight country with no frills, just his own distinctive phrasing. I’m moving this into my untenable top ten.

Morthland asserts that Willie uses the “up and down volume of his voice” to achieve the effect Lefty gets by “breaking up notes and toying with them.” Willie seems to get more desolation in his voice with fewer theatrics. The genius is how he gets so much out of his voice with seemingly so little. So much suggestiveness with such subtle, such slow, such quiet variations. He makes it seem so easy and so effortless. Effortless desolation, unlike George Jones who is working hard to hit that mournful note. More like Miles Davis. He does more with silence between the notes, like Thelonius. Using the negative space of sound.