WILLIE NELSON
The great divide
CD, Lost Highway / UMG
It
is good to see living legends still getting it done. Johnny Cash, Kris
Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and the other Nashville Outlaws are still out
there picking their guitars, writing songs that have meaning and feeling,
never caring about charts or fashion. Dig into “the great divide” for
another dose of Willie Nelson’s trembling voice, beautiful tunes and a
fresh breath of something that has become more a mythology than a living
legend. And pray for Willie to live forever.
I
just finished reading “Roadkill” by Kinky Friedman, when a friend gave
me this CD as a birthday-present. Now, “Roadkill” is a detective novel,
where the Kinkster himself has to solve murder or murder threat which
involves Willie Nelson and his road crew, his ex-wives, the mafia and some
of the usual New York-cast of Friedman’s novels. Mainly though, it is a
book about Willie Nelson, drawing another picture of the legend of this
survivor. Country-legends either die young or go on living forever. See
Johnny Cash or Kris Kristofferson. (Well, Waylon Jennings died not so long
ago and I guess in the long run we’re all gonna die.) Anyway, in this book
you’ll see Willie Nelson a mythological figure, half Indian, half American
farmboy, loved by Southern Cowboys as well as by Indians, though of course
for different reasons. Did you know, that people in Austin, Texas, think,
that when they die, they’ll all go to Willie’s house? (which has its own
private golf course, by the way.) Me personally, I’d prefer Willie’s
house on Hawaii. As you can see, not even the mighty finance ministry of the
USofA could bring Willie down. Him, Willie, the red-headed stranger with the
marvellous voice that makes thousands of miles turn into nothing if he
speaks to you over the telephone, still carrying his old battered guitar,
singing the most beautiful tunes and picking marvellously, still taking more
drugs than anybody else around him and – most of all – gliding through
live on the zen-buddistic wisdom of a man who has really seen it all.
Definitely.
“The
great divide” is a modern record, full with arrangement, background
vocals, some keyboards even. There are also a lot of ballads and simple
songs, that just make your heart open up. And also some duets and
coverversions. The highlight might be “Mendocino County Line” with Lee
Ann Womack. (Question #1: which movie featured this song during the end
credits?) But I’d like to draw you attention to “Last stand in the
country” – a duet with Kid Rock, the pigrocker himself from Detroit.
There are some things remarkable about this song, for instance the opening
line: “I was looking for America, in a Western movie”, where of course
you won’t find it. Another thing is the difference between these two
singers. Willie Nelson pronounces his lines with the knowing ease of the old
wise men, who has nothing to prove to anybody anymore. Mister Pamela
Anderson, on the other hand, you can hear how much he struggles to not get
out of this duet (or duel) as the loser. Since he can’t be the winner,
this leaves us with another question: if you can’t win and you don’t
lose, what have you achieved? In other words: “who’s to bless and
who’s to blame?” (Question #2: which song by which singer do these words
come from?).
