Today I’ll tackle the second half of disc one of this set. That’s tracks 16-30. And first, I need to state that these are by far the best liner notes I have encountered in 60 or so albums. Incredible detail as to recording and release dates. In fact, the detail is almost overwhelming. Many of these songs come from an album called “Country Willie,” which I gather was released in 1975 but was made up of songs originally recorded in 1961. And this 1975 “Country Willie” should not be confused with “Country Favorites Willie Nelson Style” or “Country Willie His Own Songs.” What’s so confusing about all of this is that often Willie records something and then releases it after other works, so you think it is newer, when in fact it is older. It will obviously take me at least a year to untangle the rubato of his recording career. It makes perfect, sense, though, when you think about his views toward time. He records and releases material the way he holds and releases notes and beats. Completely idiosyncratically and unpredictably.
In track 16, “Country Willie,” he sings, “Every day I pray that you will not forget your country boy.” And asks, “Do you sometimes miss your country boy.” Again, he’s hoping to stay alive in her memory, alive in her mind. His “heart [is] so filled with love that it could die.” Can we die of too much love? Or is he talking about unrequited love, which is a kind of love that becomes its opposite. When you are full of love for someone who doesn’t love you back, you are actually full of an emptiness that weighs more than any other substance. You have too much not enough. Too much absence. You have your fill of emptiness. Once again, Willie plays Jay Gatz to some unnamed Daisy. The vocals are strong, and the piano and drums drive this lonesome song along.
On track 17, he sings, “Go away, can’t you see I’m crying…Let me cry alone…I feel better when you’re gone.” Willie knows he’d “be crazy if [he] took [her] back again,” but craziness and foolishness define his heart throughout his career. He’s a glutton for heartache, a loneliness junkie.
In track 18, “The Waiting Time,” he says he’ll wait “While [she] make[s] up [her] mind.” In fact, “[He’ll] wait forever more.” She decides about love in her mind, and he will outwait time. The battleground of time and mind. That’s Willie’s music in a nutshell. First, he describes a “hurting time” when “I hurt you so.” Then came the “parting time. I watched you go.” Then, she says, “Perhaps in time our love might still be.” So he waits, and writes, and sings. Might this be the source of all great art? Emptiness and loss? Out of emptiness, artists create form and beauty and meaning to compensate for the loss, to fill the void. Willie has more of a Hank William’s vocal style in this tune, and the drums and piano are less intrusive. The back-up vocals still grate.
Track 19 is another FHTSA song (“Funny How Time Slips Away”). “Once you said you’d crawl on hands and knees to be with me,” but now you won’t even cross the street to say goodbye. Funny how time slips away. Funny how fickle and shortsighted and naïve and foolish and hypocritical we are. Funny how we lack integrity. Not ha ha funny, but puzzling funny.
Add “There’s Gonna Be Love in My House Tonight” to Willie’s house songs. He personifies the shingles, which “snuggle closer to each other.” Love animates the inanimate world. Willie is a master of the pathetic fallacy. The piano shines, but the back-up vocals demean.
“Take My Word” picks up the tempo, but can’t outrun the lies lovers tell. Humans, especially lovers, seem incapable of telling the truth. And the question Willie asks again and again is why can’t you (or I) be true? Except in our mind. So much of love is about lies and deception and broken promises. We want too much.
Willie does something new in “There Goes a Man.” He actually feels sorry for the guy his lover left for him. Who does that? Willie realizes it could have been him, and it often has been him, and it will be him again. Only Willie, like Walt Whitman, is large enough to be in both shoes at the same time. He is able to win and lose the girl at the same time. He is able to feel both emotions simultaneously. Willie realizes that “the other other guy is me.” That could be the title for Willie’s biography: The Other Other Guy.
I’m liking “Columbus Stockade Blues” more and more, but track 23 is not my favorite version. I love the piano and guitar solos, and Shirley Collins is without a doubt the best duet partner for Willie. Who else can follow him? She’s better than Emmylou Harris on Teatro. She actually sings with him. No one else does that. They try to sing behind or in front of or next to Willie, but no one gets in the grove with him like Shirley.
“Chain of Love” reinforces the idea, ironically, that there is no lasting chain of love. Love is fleeting, ephemeral, in short, unchained.
In “Willingly,” the lovers know it’s wrong, but they do it any way, which contradicts the sentiment of “There Goes a Man.” In this song, they don’t care about the other guy. I give this 5 stars because it is so different from any other Willie song, and Willie and Shirley actually harmonize, which I’m not sure ever happens again in his career.
This second version of “Columbus Stockade Blues” leaves the first one in the dust. The fiddle is smokin’. So is the piano. It feels like Charlie Parker meets Charlie Pride. Bop meets bluegrass. I’d love to hear Willie do a modern version of this, but I don’t know if he can sing this fast anymore.
In “You Dream About Me,” the lovers close their eyes and are able to be together when they are miles apart. They look forward to the night so they can dream about each other. It’s almost better than actually being together. Making love in their minds. This is a theme Willie returns to again and again. Shirley, again, harmonizes like no other. Why didn’t they record more together? Is she still alive?
“Is This My Destiny?” may be the saddest Willie song yet. “At night I toss and wonder why I must live while others die. The grave would be escape for me, from this my destiny.” Like Buddha, he longs to escape this wheel of suffering. And the haunting steel and harmony actually seem appropriately somber on this one.
“Together” could be a theme song for Barney or a show tune for a cheesy musical, and yet I like it. The tinkling vibraphone is a bit much, but the vocal duet is so Bing Crosby beautiful that I have to give it at least 4 stars. Unlike anything Willie will ever do again.
This last version of “Columbus Stockade Blues” may be even funkier than version two. It’s a close call, but I’ll go with version two. Both are good, but I think version two is faster with more flaming fiddle and piano solos.
Tomorrow, I’ll tackle disc 2 in this set. I’ll say now, though, that you get more music for your money in this set than anywhere else. 30 songs per disc with great liner notes is hard to beat.
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