My favorite Willie Nelson recording
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It's probably better not to listen until later to his MOG Radio version of "The Last Letter" up above, which has a more conventional country arrangement. The version I prefer is in a playist I put together for myself a while ago, and why not listen first to the song that came before it, Sam Cooke singing "Blue Moon," from a 1958 single on the Keen label?
Next comes Willie Nelson's version of "The Last Letter" from his 1975 album Country Willie on the Liberty label.
photo of Willie Nelson maybe ten years earlier
In some ways Willie Nelson's own early material is superior to this because of his genius for wry ironic lyrics, but there is something about his interpretation of this old 1930s waltz by Rex Griffin, a composer of cowboy songs, that forces me to listen to it more often than anything else of his. It has a dated but drop-dead beautiful pop arrangement riddled with violins and vocal group harmonies redolent of the late 1940s. I love how I can never predict when he'll sing his next note. Listen at the 1:18 mark how he times the phrase, "I cannot offer you clothes [that your young body craves]." Like many a country recording its sweet sound comes arm-in-arm with grim lyrics.
The song after it on the playlist was Bob Dylan singing his song "Santa Fe" from his Basement Tapes (1967).
P.S.: As part of this 6/22/11 restoration of this post, I'm inserting Willie Nelson's 1961 recording of his song "The Ghost," requested in a comment below by ivylander.
Locating MOG account...
Comments (12)
Amazing photo. Never seen him like this. Love Willie.
extraordinarypoems, the photo does amaze, and in so doing, weasled its way onto the post despite being a decade off.
This track goes well on a playlist right after Sam Cooke's "Blue Moon,"
and then followed by Bob Dylan's "Santa Fe."
very nice trilogy, Spike
Spike, I couldn't agree with you more about early Willie. I am so taken by the tension in many of his songs from those years, between his need to honor the conventions of country music and the equally urgent need to discard them. The two come together nicely, in my view, in the 73 seconds of "The Ghost."
Enjoyed the extra tracks, Spike.
inrumford & extraordinarypoems, it means something to me that you like the track's pals.
ivylander, that's a good way to describe his approach. Thank you for spotlighting "The Ghost," a prime example I now realize. I somehow couldn't get your red button to emit sound for me while it twirled grey, so here it is in case others have the same dilemma.
I'm glad you cleared that up, spike. I was curious about that swirling button. Nice to hear the tune.
Apologies. Odd that "The Ghost" would turn out to be phantom.....
Oh man, if I start going back in time to these posts..I may never leave, and go broke buying hard drives. So many folks talk about the greatness of Willie, but they rarely identify the really "great" tunes. Y'all seem to have honed right in on them.
Thanks, Cody.
Maybe some of us will need a MOG-addicts rehab group. On the other hand, the advantage of commenting on someone's old post rather than their new post is the poster will find it more flattering that one made that extra effort to go into the past and write something even though probably only the poster and and the previous commenter will know about it.
Oh well, I think it is worth it. I tried to do a post like this before, to get folks to trot out their faves..maybe it is time to do an orphan post, where folks bring up there should've been hits..
Most people go through life accepting things the way they are, while you come up with new ideas. That's how progress gets made.