In part this is because Nelson’s taste is so impeccable. With nearly 50 years in the business, he can do or say pretty much whatever he pleases, and the music industry-both within Nashville and without-accepts it smilingly. Other artists can criticize the Bush administration and watch their careers head south-not Willie. The ultimate country outlaw, Willie Nelson doesn’t just break rules he invents them. (Pitchfork may earn a commission from purchases made through affiliate links on our site.The ultimate country outlaw, Willie Nelson doesn’t just break rules he invents them. Instead, it sounds like Willie has been living with these songs for so long that he can play them as easily as inhaling and exhaling. Nothing on here sounds rehearsed or calculated. There’s a roominess to the music, a jovial looseness in its rhythmic complexity, and something like celebration in its exploration of these grave subjects. Ride Me Back Home is Willie’s thirteenth album with producer/co-writer Buddy Cannon, the Pancho to his Lefty, and it casually evokes the old Texas dancehalls where Willie cut his teeth long before he embodied the outlaw country ethos.
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Likewise, he capers over the lyrics of Mac Davis’s “It’s Hard to Be Humble,” having a blast singing the word “egotistical” and chuckling with his sons Lukas and Micah over the notion of him wearing “skintight blue jeans.” The slight delay in his delivery on Guy Clark’s “Immigrant Eyes” subtly reinforces the song’s dusty two-step rhythm as well as its very timely sentiments about family, immigration, and empathy. At his best, he can rewrite a song just by singing it, and he can suss out new depths just by adapting it to his own jazzy meter. It doesn’t really matter to Willie who came up with that next tune or that next rhyme. “I’ll know when it’s right, I’ve got one more song to write.” For all his prolificity-is there even an authoritative album count anymore?-he’s always chasing that next tune, that next rhyme, that next show. “I’ve got one more song to write, I’ve got one more bridge to burn,” he sings. “One More Song to Write” sounds so breezy that its insights might initially sound modest, but this gracefully melodic tune might hold the key to his long career.
“Come on, Time, what have you got for me this time?” His desperation barely veiled by his humor, he knows he’s bested before the fight even begins, and all he can do is try to make something out of it: “I’ll take your words of wisdom and I’ll try to make them rhyme.”īuying the farm, at least for Willie, is inextricably linked with making music. “I say come on, Time/I’ve beat you before,” he sings over a chugging rhythm section. “Come On Time” finds him challenging the very notion of time to a fight, as though he might spar his way to another couple years on earth. That doesn’t seem like very many, but they frame this album with warmth, empathy, and humor. That’s a welcome trend that continues on Ride Me Back Home, which features three newly penned tunes. He sings with a kind of chagrinned humor, as if nobody is more surprised by his longevity than he is. Old age is his new favorite subject, or the subject he knows most intimately, or maybe just the subject that lends itself to the best punchlines. Apart from his largely overlooked collection of Sinatra covers (which I’ll argue surpasses Dylan’s handful in terms of interpretation, insight, and just plain ol’ enjoyment), he has made his own thoughts on mortality, technology, and creativity the focal points of his recent work. In recent years, Willie has even managed to enter something of a renaissance phase of his career, with a string of albums that include his first new songwriting credits in decades.
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