San Antonio Rose (1980)—take 2

7/24/2010

There’s only one Willie-penned song on this duet album with Willie’s mentor Ray Price. In Ray Price’s own “I’ll Be There (If You Ever Want Me)” the two outlaws pledge undying love and loyalty, unconditional love. In so many of their songs they’re either boasting of their ability to love this way, or lamenting their inability to do so. I’d like to see Willie sing Harlan Howard’s “I Fall to Pieces” more often. A slow and sparse 2010 version could be even more powerful than this solid 1980 rendition. “Time only adds to the flame.” So many of Willie’s songs are about pieces, which is what time is and does. It breaks life up into pieces, sections, increments. It divides, parcels mortality. Willie’s “lonely all the time” in “Crazy Arms.” It’s another song about the mind being willing but the body being weak. The arms want what they want. “They reach to hold somebody new,” but the “troubled mind” won’t go along. The disconnect between mind and body provides much fodder for Willie’s songwriting. In “Release Me” Willie declares, “I don’t love you anymore.” He begs his lover to release him so he can “love again.” He wants out of his unconditional, “always” commitment from the previous songs. He wants a loophole to allow him to pursue warm lips to replace the ones that have turned cold. “Release Me” is time begging to slip away. It’s funny how Willie asks to be released when he lamented his lover asking for the same thing in so many other songs. You’d think he would get tired of hurting lovers by asking to be released from his commitments, but it sounds like humans in general never get tired of hurting each other. Even, and perhaps especially, when they know how it feels, when it’s been done to them before. Gimble’s fiddle and Raphael’s harmonica put some extra hurt into this song. I’d like to hear Willie do this song more often, though George Jones does it best. “This Cold War with You” basically states “fish or cut bait.” We’re either in or out, but let’s quit debating and hemming and hawing. But that’s what real love is: a constant negotiation. Willie wants a definitive love, a platonic, ideal love. True or false, “do right” or “we’re through,” there’s no in-between. Funny how the only Willie-penned song on the album, “Funny How Time Slips Away,” is still my favorite. It stands out like Willie’s voice, like Mickey’s harmonica, like Gimble’s fiddle. This version is growing on me, moving up the ranks of the numerous