The Early Years: The Complete Liberty Recordings Plus More (part III)

“There are no bad shows at the John T. Floore Country Store, and there’s no bad place in all the world to see Willie Nelson.”

So says John Spong in the March 2010 issue of Texas Monthly. He goes on to recommend that we hear Willie play at the old dance patio at Floore’s (which he still plays once a year). Willie started playing there in the sixties, and Spong still considers it Willie’s “home court.”

The first track on disc two, a second version of “How Long is Forever,” may be even slower than the first version. He pauses again for what feels like forever between “how long is forever” and “this time.” The angelic choir is toned down a bit but still grates. The delicate quietness of this track is Morton Feldman-esque.

Willie’s “lonely just won’t go away” and his “sorry gets bigger each day” on “You Took My Happy Away.” The strings and back-up vocals take my happy away. The vocals, steel, and piano deserve better support.

“Roly Poly” is new to me. It’s another old song I’d like to hear Willie do live today. From the album Here’s Willie Nelson, it’s fast and furious like “Stockade Blues.” The fiddle, piano, drums, and guitar keep this playful tune motoring along.

The next track is one of my least favorite versions of one of my most favorite songs, “Half a Man.” This could start an interesting list: least favorite versions of favorite songs. And then I could list favorite versions of least favorite songs. Strings and back-up vocals taint this otherwise strong vocal and piano performance.

“The Last Letter” is another FHTSA song (my new acronym for “Funny How Time Slips Away”). “I think of the past and of the promises that you have broken so free.” In song after song, Willie asks, “Why, oh why, can’t you (or I) be true?” In Graeme Thomson’s book Outlaw, he writes about Willie’s more recent song “It Always Will Be,” which now that I think about it is a fittingly ironic twist on “Always.” “Crazy” and “Always” could be the twin poles pulling the tides of the tension in Willie’s music. It is “crazy” to maintain that we will love each other “always,” and yet we keep wanting it. Like the lady who just wrote a book about her 47 affairs with men, but then she was devastated when her husband cheated on her. How can we be so hypocritical? It seems that what “always” will be is not love, but our inability to sustain love. That is the universal constant that will “always” be with us. Willie writes, “Sometimes I think that love/Is somewhere living on an island all alone.” Does he mean Love personified, like cupid, lives somewhere we can never reach him, like the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock? Or does he mean true love can only be had in your own mind, in some hermetically sealed platonic ideal form, where it can’t be tainted by other people?

Willie is crying on the inside in “Second Fiddle.” This may be my favorite song on this disc. The fiddle shines appropriately. “Must I play second fiddle while you’re dancing with them?” “Is it me, Joe, or Jim?” In other words, “Do you love me? Why do you hurt me? How long will you love me? How long will you hurt me? How long will I put up with this? Why? How long till I’m over you? Why can’t you be true? Why do I still love you?” These are the questions Willie asks again and again and again.

Then he asks, “Could it be that I’m just imagining things?” Could it all be in his head? In this song, he’s even crying in his mind. He even has to imagine his tears. Does crying imaginary tears count? This stark, spare music is so interior. So much happens on the inside.

“Take My Word” picks up the tempo. This may be the most overproduced track in this set. Sounds like a movie score. Ironically, in love, you can never take anyone’s word. That’s the whole problem and puzzle. Time slips away with these words that must be taken with a grain of salt. “Take my word…with a grain of salt” is the implied sense.

In “Right or Wrong” Willie claims he’ll always love you, even though he knows you won’t be true and he’ll lose you. Again, a glutton for punishment in love. He “can’t forget” and he’ll “keep on dreamin’.” It’s all about memory and mind. Mind over matter in love. Still he prays that she’ll be true. I think George Straight covers this tune, or Randy Travis. Willie does some uncharacteristic yodeling toward the end of this track. “Right or Wrong” captures Willie’s Gatsby-like ideal of perfect love, which he pursues though he knows it doesn’t exist. Not only doe she know no Daisy can live up to it, he knows he can’t live up to it either. He casts no blame, but he paddles on against the current, toward the elusive, ever-receding green light.

“Feed it a Memory” may be the most concrete personification in Willie’s repertoire on this subject. “They said my heart wouldn’t have long to live.” So “I just feed it a memory to keep it alive. A taste of the love that we once knew.” Dare I say a “Madeline”? The taste of memory that tastes better than the real thing (richer, fuller, more alive)? We just keep feeding our mind memories the way we feed a jukebox quarters (see Wurlitzer Prize).

Musically, “Let Me Talk to You” may be the best song on the album. So slow with just steel and piano laying low. “Don’t live too fast. Forget the past.” As if Willie could. As if Willie really wanted to. Willie stretches time further on this song than any others in this set, in seeming opposition to his stated desire to forget the past. If you really wanted to forget the past, outrun it, leave it behind, why would you sing so slowly? Strings and back-up vocals are mercifully absent on this track.

Actually, I lied. “The Way You See Me” takes the prize. That same spare treatment with just fiddle, piano, and the faintest hint of drums. “Don’t tell my darlin’ that you saw me lookin’ the way you see me now.” “Tell her I’m happy alone.” Basically, lie for me. Fight lies with lies. Ironically, Willie seems to do better singing other people’s songs on these early tracks. His own songs need the treatment he gets on Red Headed Stranger, but he seems to be able to do other people’s songs okay in this format.

In “The Things I Might have Been,” Willie speculates about the ideal past and future. Another keeper from Here’s Willie Nelson, an album I must get my hands on. These tracks are as good as or better than any on Stardust.

This version of “Home Motel” is growing on me despite the cheesy strings. Willie somehow makes even the strings and the back-up singers swing on this one.

This version of “Opportunity to Cry” pales in comparison to the earlier demo version. It reminds me of strawberry-rhubarb pie. People like the strawberry because it cuts the overpowering tartness of the rhubarb, but if tartness is what you want, then the strawberry has to go. Or when people praise a Margarita because “you can’t taste the alcohol at all.” But this only holds true for bad Tequilla. If tartness or tequila is what you need, then you want to taste the full force of it without strawberry or mixer masking it. The strings are like a packaged Maragarita mixer on this song. I want to taste more Tequila and rhubarb.