Out on the road that lies before me now
There are some turns where I will spin
I only hope that you can hold me now
Til I can gain control again
I only hope that you can hold me now
Til I can gain control again
One sure sign of spring is a new Willie Nelson album - and Nelson just announced his 75th solo studio collection of new songs.
The Border is due May 31 and is named for the cover of Rodney Crowell’s title track, also the lead single. Nelson and company stick close to Crowell’s 2019 original, setting the song to a sashaying, Spanish melody with Nelson’s trademark runs on Trigger dancing gently alongside accordion and flamenco accompaniment as Nelson delivers the words in a craggy voice:
I work on the border/I see what I see/I work on the border/and it’s workin’ on me, he sings.
The 10-track LP features four originals and six covers. And though Nelson doesn’t name his backing band, it’s said to include “some of Nashville’s finest musicians.” The sound of “The Border” makes that assertion easy to believe.
I’m gonna link the whole thing because I just watched this in full for the first time and it is absolutely amazing. Something that you definitey couldn’t tell just from shorter clips is how truly and utterly devastated everybody looks.
And I get it. I can’t even imagine how I would feel having known Townes all my life if it’d only been a few months since I lost him. But I don’t have to imagine it, as it’s written all over the faces of some of the best artists in the history of country music who all gathered to pay tribute to someone who was the definition of irreplaceable.
I wished they showed Susanna more - honestly she should have been on that stage with the rest of them - especially when they performed Heavenly Houseboat Blues - but just seeing her there makes me cry. As does Guy clearly trying to be stoic when he’s suffering more than almost everyone else in the room. This is all just incredibly beautiful and moving.