Good Times (1968)

Okay, so I couldn’t wait any longer. I broke down and started ordering albums off of ITUNES. I won’t have any liner notes to give me personnel, but it’s the only way I can get my hands on early albums like 1968’s “Good Times.” I have heard the title track previously on “One Hell of a Ride” and “The Essential Willie Nelson.” I think this is a new (to my ears) version of “December Day.” I now have four or five versions of this song, and this is one of my favorites, though they are all strong. This version of “Sweet Memories” also appears on “One Hell of a Ride” and “Sweet Memories.” See my reviews on the blogs for those albums. Ditto for this version of “Little Things.” I’m seeing a pattern here. Same songs on “One Hell of a Ride,” “Sweet Memories,” and “Good Times.” This version of “Pages” appears on “The Ghost” (part 2). The fact that four of the first five tracks on this album have all been included in various compilations suggests that this is one of Willie’s stronger albums from the 1960s. “She’s Still Gone” is completely new to me. Reminds me of one of my favorite country lines: “Is it still over, are we still through? If my phone still ain’t ringin’, I assume it still ain’t you.” This is a wonderfully spare, mostly acoustic album with prominent vocals. I spoke to soon. Track six is a syrupy arrangement with strings and cheesy back-up vocals which also appears on “The Ghost” (Part 3). “A Wonderful Yesterday” appears to be a new song for my ears. The arrangement cloys like the previous track, but the lyrics make a nice addition to Willie’s canon. “Today’s gonna make a wonderful yesterday.” Most people look forward to the future, but Willie looks forward to the past. He sees ahead to how today will look when it’s gone and he’s looking back at it. It’s almost as if he has a rearview mirror that can see object as they will appear once you have past them. Willie, like Proust and Gatsby, prefer’s things in the past, where he can control them and idealize them. Staying on the road allows him to put everything in the past immediately. It’s almost like he is greedy for memories the way Beowulf was greedy for fame. Beowulf was greedy to be remembered, but Willie is greedy to remember. He pockets the past, hoards history, the way a miser (or a dragon) hoards gold. “Today we have made a thousand and one memories, that we can recall when today is a sweet used-to-be.” This is a new (to me) version of “Permanently Lonely,” but of the four I have, this is by far my least favorite. The versions on “Crazy: The Demo Sessions,” “Always on My Mind,” and “Who’ll Buy My Memories” are far superior. “Down to Our Last Goodbye” is also new to me. “Now all that’s left for me is just the memory of all those happy days gone by.” That’s all? What more could Willie want? A million wonderful yesterdays should be enough. This version of “Buddy” also appears on “Sweet Memories,” but I much prefer the version on “Who’ll Buy My Memories.” “Did I Ever Love You” is new to me. “Did I ever really care. All the times that I cried for you, did I really want you there. Wiser men than I have wondered about love and never knew…All the nights that I spent cryin’, …was it my imagination, was it only in my mind?” This could be Gatsby talking to Daisy. Love is all in your head, a fiction, but a beautiful fiction that may be better than the real thing (see Petrarch, Dante, Don Quixote, et. al.). “Is it here today and gone tomorrow, this love that no one can explain?” So, the moral of this album is, half the songs are on other compilations (the best songs), and the ones that aren’t on the compilations are the ones with treacly arrangements. You still have to buy this album, though, to hear the lyrics to some of the songs that don’t appears elsewhere. For $9.99 on ITUNES, it’s worth it.