Singin' with Willie (2004)

Well, I haven’t posted in almost a week, but I have been listening to Willie daily. Life’s just become too busy to blog (2B2B). I listened to him on his 77th birthday (April 30th?), and he is supposedly on the Letterman show tonight. I believe I now own 100 of his recordings, most on CD, a half dozen on vinyl, and now one on a USB key. Just discovered the live shows posted on his website (around 16 or so shows?). I ordered a 2000 show in Austin which I hope to review tomorrow. I’ve been listening to that live show and “Singin’ with Willie” for the past few days, savoring them, so I know them well.

“Singin’ with Willie” surprised me. I braced myself for another throwaway compilation. But this one truly serves a useful purpose. This is what compilations are supposed to do: provide fans with hard-to-find isolated tracks from albums they wouldn’t otherwise want to buy. A few of these are from albums I already own or will own soon, but more than half are from albums by other artists which I likely will never buy, and this compilation thus saved me a chunk of change. It also provides some of the more interesting duet partners. Not the big names like Julio Iglasies or Bono, but the lesser known likes of B.W. Stevenson and Steve Fromholz. The liner notes are actually very helpful as well. Well written, too, with clever turns of phrase like “fertile phosphate” and “lachrymose lava.” I don’t know who David Dawson is, or why some guy from Australia is putting together an album of obscure Willie Nelson duets, but I’m grateful. Dawson refers to Willie’s four marriages and four divorces in his first 40 or so years. Still is still moving indeed. These rapid-fire relationships clearly did provide plenty of fuel or “fertile phosphate” or “lachrymose lava” for Willie’s best songs. I’m also reminded that Willie’s house burned down in 1969. The year his career turned around and my life began.

I’ve already reviewed this version of “Willingly,” but it is worth noting that Shirley Nelson may be the only person who could ever truly sing “with” Willie. Most people sing next to him, behind him, or just give up. Willie’s 1978 duet with Hank Cochran—“Ain’t Life Hell”—is a fun romp. Another chance to hear Willie sing with one of his mentors. A very Buddhist sentiment—life is suffering—but Willie, like the Buddha, smiles and two-steps through it anyway. “Time Changes Everything” is another totemic Willie song (written by Tommy Duncan for Bob Wills). Willie is obsessed with time, and he can’t make up his mind whether it changes or stays the same or whether what he thinks about time even matters. If we change our mind can we change time? Is time in our mind? All in our head?

There Was a time When I Thought of no other

and we sang our own love’s refrain

Our hearts beat as one as we had our fun

but Time Changes Eve - ry Thing

When you left me my poor heart was broken

Our romance seemed all in vain

I thought nothing could stop me from loving you

But time changes eve - ry thing

Time has passed; I’ve forgotten you.

Mother Nature does wonderful things.

I guess it’s true for me and for you

‘Cause Time Changes Eve - ry thing

You can change the name of an old song

Rearrange it and make it swing

I thought nothing could stop me from loving you

But time changes eve - ry thing

So good luck to you and may God bless you

I can't say we won't love again

You go your way, and now I'll go mine

Cause Time changes every-thing

I thought nothing could stop me from loving you; I thought time couldn’t slip away. You said you’d love me forever, and I thought I’d love you forever, too. But ain’t it funny how time slips away? How it changes everything. And yet we keep trying to change it. To make it stand still, like Miss Havisham. Like the Grecian Urn. Willie’s life certainly changed a good bit in the early ‘90s when this was recorded. The IRS took everything and changed everything, and yet Willie somehow remained the same. Nuns Fret Not, and Willie frets not. Willie would still be moving, still be on the road, even in jail. And the road is a kind of prison to him, too. Good to hear Willie sing with the guy who wrote “Whiskey River,” which keeps flowing most nights at the start of Willie’s shows. Johnny Bush sounds like Ray Price. J.R. Chatwell sings straight up country gospel. Willie’s voice is great on all of these recordings, and the backing is mostly spare and restrained. This one is from 1998. “You’ve got to walk down the lonesome valley; you’ve got to go there by yourself; no one else can go there for you.” Even if that lonesome valley is a lonesome highway, is the road itself, you’ve got to walk it, face it, by yourself. I think Willie faces it fully in the album “Spirit,” but I’d like to hear him face it more often. The road is by definition lonely, and you have to go there at some point. The dark night of the soul. Then we jump back to 1974 and a Grammy-nominated duet with Tracy Nelson (no relation), “After the Fire is Gone.” “Nothing as cold as ashes after the fire is gone.” When you can’t find love at home, when it gets too cold, you seek warmth elsewhere, on the road. Willie is the anti-moth. Most moths run to the light, the hearth, to home, but Willie flees the light, looking for love in the darkness of the road. This sounds like a gospel tune turned cheatin’ song. “Boxcars My Home” (1986) almost needs no explication. It fits Willie’s “Still is Still Moving” philosophy perfectly. Railroads have always been his friend. The road has always been his home, his family. “Where I hang my hat is where I call home.” Here today, gone tomorrow. A sad, slow song. Mournful, high lonesome, Bluegrass kind of harmonies. Willie sings back up for Rodney Crowell on his own “Song for Life.” I’d love to hear Willie sing this one himself. “Keeps my feet on the ground.” A beautiful song, but not much Willie in this track. 1982’s “Just To Satisfy You” with Waylon strikes the theme of the elusiveness of satisfaction. I’ll skip a few tracks I’ve reviewed elsewhere, but I still don’t have a copy of Songs from Songwriter, so I’ll comment on the duet with Kristofferson on “Eye of the Storm”:

Maybe you bought all the lines that she told you

Maybe they tore you apart

Maybe she shrugged off your finest emotions

Carelessly walked on your heart

Life ain't for sissies and you ain't no sissy, boy

And only the strongest survive

Bad love is better than no love at all

At least you know you're alive.

Chorus:

And just thank God you still got your feelings

And you're free to be easy and warm

But from here to the end is what matters, my friend

And you're right at the peak of your form

Still in the eye of the storm

Maybe you tried somethin' too hard to handle

And maybe you took you a fall

Is it true that if not for the pain that you're feelin'

It wouldn't have mattered at all?

(tell the truth)

All there is left between living and dying

Is loving or leaving alone

You can take it or leave it, but make up your mind

Or fall on your ass on your own

Life may not be for sissies, but Willie sure cries a lot. The gist here seems to be that it is better to believe lies (like “I’ll love you forever”) and then be devastated, than to never believe them at all. Willie can be studiously naïve, deliberately unsophisticated. Is that what authenticity is? Is that what all New Yorker poems and short stories today lack—emotion?

David Alan Coe’s “I’ve Already Cheated on You” may take the Proustian cake, or Madeline, as the case may be.

She was only a face in the crowd

But our needs and desires spoke so loud

And before I could say I would try to be true

I'd already cheated on you

Oh the mysteries of love born at night

As we lay there it all seemed so right

Now it's too late to say I'll be true

Cause I've already cheated on you

I've already broken the vow that I made

The damage is already done

And though I know you've never been unfaithful to me darling

So the score now is zero to one

I feel guilty enough anyway

There's not really much more to say

I could say that I'm sorry

But what good would it do

Cause I'd already cheated on you

This takes Funny How Time Slips Away a step further. Time doesn’t just slip away quickly; love doesn’t just fade away fast; it’s gone before it even started. We’ve broken our vows before we’ve even made them? Is this the fall? Our fallen condition? Before I even say I’ll love you forever, I’ve already cheated on you? Now Willie is predicting the future, projecting lamentation and loss forward before it even happens. Not only can we cry over the past, but we can cry over the future, the certain failure of our future attempts to be true. If our minds TIVO time, then we know how it ends, and we can cry before it happens. I need to find more of Willie’s work with Coe. Willie’s 1977 cut with Mary Kay Place is another fun romp of a song. She hangs with Willie vocally like Shirley Nelson. Willie then goes Zydeco with his 1994 duet with Buckwheat Zydeco. A twist on Willie’s own “Man with the Blues.” Add this to the many genres in Willie’s repertoire. “Hondo’s Song” reminds me of some other Willie song I can’t put my finger on. “Beer for My Horses”? I can hardly believe what I’m hearing in Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “These Eyes”: “I won’t do you know wrong. I never will lie. Can’t you tell that I love you by lookin’ in these eyes?” Is that not the biggest lie of all? “I won’t do you know wrong”? “I never will lie”? After just singing that “I’ve Already Cheated on You.” Ha! Listening to these albums could make you schizophrenic. The 1986 duet with B. W. Stevens is a real find. An interesting singer and writer. Spare recording with harmonica, guitar, bass, and two voices. A touch of drums. This guy wrote “My Maria” in 1973. “Just One Love” sounds better than I remember it. May need to revisit that Kimmie Rhodes album. I think “Memphis” with Janis Ian may be the best cut on the compilation. No need to comment on it. Just listen. As good as Willie gets. Haunting vocals. Actually, I can’t resist commenting.

[Ian:]

We were standing by the river,

Staring into town.

All the world was on his shoulders,

The tears were raining down.

All along the southern skyline,

City lights begin to loom.

[Nelson:]

He said, "If you only knew her,

The way that I do, sir,

You would be crying too."

[Both:]

If you could see Memphis,

[Nelson:]

The way that I do,

[Both:]

She would look different to you.

[Nelson:]

Queen of the delta,

[Both:]

Tip your tiara,

Memphis, the belle of the blues.

[Nelson:]

Streets were filled with cotton.

And music filled the air.

All the paddle boats came rollin',

From east of everywhere.

Now the streets are filled with silence,

And songs no one can hear.

But her memory lingers,

It slips through my fingers,

[Both:]

And into this river of tears.

[Both:]

If you could see Memphis,

The way that I do,

She would look different to you.

[ Find more Lyrics on http://mp3lyrics.org/HMGU ]

[Nelson:]

Queen of the delta,

[Both:]

Tip your tiara,

Memphis, the belle of the blues.

[Instrumental break featuring Chet Atkins on guitar.]

[Both:]

So roll on, roll on.

[Nelson:]

My sweet magnolia,

[Both:]

Roll on.

Now the memory lingers,

It slips to my fingers.

[Nelson:]

And into this,

[Both:]

River of tears.

[Both:]

If you could see Memphis,

The way that I do,

She would look different to you.

[Nelson:]

Queen of the delta,

[Both:]

Tip your tiara.

[Ian:]

Memphis the belle of the blue-hoo-hoo-oos.

[Nelson:]

Memphis the belle of the blues.

[MEMPHIS]

Written by: Deana Carter & Janis Ian

Performed by: Janis Ian & Willie Nelson [1] , with Chet Atkins on guitar.

Appears on: Appears on: God & the FBI (US-11 tracks) [2] -2000, God & the FBI

(Japan-14 tracks)-2000 & Singin' with Willie-2004.]

[1] Attempting to save money on the production of the album, God & the FBI,

the core group (instruments & vocals by Janis, Jim Cregan, Marc Moreau, and

Philip Clark), did all the singing, with the exception of this song, which was

the only one on the album to have outside musicians--Willie Nelson and Chet

Atkins.]

[2] Transcribed from the track on this album.]

[Copyright © Janis Ian/her co-writer(s) if any/their publisher(s).

All rights reserved.]

Lyrics: Memphis, Janis Ian [end]

Here “memory lingers” and then it slips away, “It slips through my fingers,” but it isn’t funny this time. It slips “into this river of tears.” And what can it mean to be the “Belle of the Blues”? Who would want to be the belle of such a thing? Is it like Beauty and the Beast? Beauty and the Blues? Or is Blues Beauty? Truth is beauty, beauty truth, and truth is the blues, the blues truth. Another river of tears. It seems time and tears are indistinguishable. Both are rivers. Both roll unceasingly.