Country Favorites: Willie Nelson Style—take 2

Listened to this again on the way back from a day of shopping in Rockland, Maine. Still don’t know anything about the personnel on this album, but still like it. A very pleasant, solid album. Nothing fancy, unusual, or surprising on this album, but it remains pleasingly consistent and straightforward. In “Columbus Stockade Blues” Willie lives in Georgia but longs for Tennessee. His “friends have turned their backs on me.” It’s another “she’s gone” song, and another “don’t let the door hit you on the way out because I don’t care that you’re gone” song. He sings, “go and leave me if you wish to, never let me cross your mind. In your heart you love another. Leave me, little darlin’, I don’t mind.” It’s funny to here Mr. “always on my mind” sing “I don’t mind.” This perfectly exemplifies Willie’s paradoxical, dual nature. Love is always on his mind, and yet he never minds if someone leaves him. He always minds, and yet he never minds. And he always does both at the same time. Always and never are the yin and yang of Willie’s world. It’s crazy to believe in always, and it’s crazy not to. You’re crazy if you do and crazy if you don’t. So Willie does both. The speed of the fiddle and the vocals thrill me on every listen of this opening track. I can’t think of another album where Willie sings this fast. “Season’s of My Heart” appears only here and on The Early Years: The Complete Liberty Recordings. I comment extensively on the lyrics in my blog for that disc, but I think I prefer this less varnished version to the one from 1963. The Proustian implications of “I’d Trade All of My Tomorrows (For Just One Yesterday)” are obvious. “My Window Faces the South” fits with Willie’s hakuna matata, look on the sunny side philosophy. “I’m never frownin’ or down in the mouth.” This from the world’s bluest man. Who else could be so sincerely and relentlessly optimistic and blue at the same time? Willie sings both kinds of songs with equal conviction. How can this be? The cryin’ cowboy smiles on this song, and the fiddle carries me away in a Panglossian cloud of optimism. “Go on Home” appears only here. Willie declares, “I love only you.” Only and always, two of Willie’s favorite words. He also swears that he loves his pretty little “Fraulein.” “I loved her and left her, now I can’t forget her.” It’s a “he’s gone” song. A love’em and leave’em song. But he left her and misses her. He can’t forget her. As so often happens, his memories come back to haunt him. “When my memories wander away over yonder to the sweetheart that I left behind. In a moment of glory a face comes before me.” Remembrance of things past. The sheer speed of “San Antonio Rose” thrills. I wish I knew who was on fiddle. “I Love You Because” appears only here and on 2007’s “Last of the Breed,” and I’m not sure why I didn’t comment on it in my February blog on that album. “I know your love will always see me through. I love you for the way you never doubt me.” There’s that word “always” again. She never doubts him, and he never doubts that her love will “always” be with him. This version of “Don’t You Ever Get Tired (of Hurting Me)” still can’t hang with George Jones’s classic performance, but it’s good to hear Willie make his own interpretation, and it is important to note the significance of Willie’s song selection. When Willie picks a song to record, it tells you something. The lyrics resonate with his entire oeuvre. “Home in San Antone” may be the fastest song yet. Willie says “Wade play” before the fiddle solo on this album, so this must be Wade Ray. Proust could have written “Everyday you love me less, each day I love you more” about Albertine. Willie’s got “Heartaches by the number and troubles by the score.” What happened to his south facing window? What happened to looking on the sunny side? And if “the day that I stop counting, that’s the day my world will end,” then Willie seems to be saying that counting heartaches is what he lives for. Tears are his food and drink. They sustain him. He can’t live without tears, without a “love that [he] can’t win.” Winning = death. Winning = losing. In “Making Believe” Willie insists that he’ll “keep loving you.” He will always be faithful, if only in his mind. He will make believe if he has to. Not only is she “always on [his] mind” when he’s unfaithful, but she’s “always on [his] mind” when she’s unfaithful. He keeps both parties faithful in his mind. “I’ll always dream, but I’ll never own you” reminds me of Proust’s volume 5, The Captive. The desire to own and possess, which kills love. The dream, the mind, is stronger than reality. And this album gets better with each listen. It goes nicely with Willie’s latest release, Country Music (2010). Both albums are “Willie Nelson Style,” whatever that is. It’s like saying “Beethoven style.”