My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys
Before I start this review, let me tell you where I’m coming from. I started listening to Willie Nelson, along with Cash, Haggard, etc. pretty much as soon as I was born. I had a pair of cowboy boots and a little red cowboy hat and my parents taught me line dances (no, that’s not the thing you do when you’re jockeying for position to get a turn at the zombie powder) and once in a while would even take my brother and I to the honky tonk for family night. I was raised on country music, and I’m proud of it.
Willie and Waylon and the boys kick ass, and if you wanna challenge that, I’ll get drunk on whiskey and fight you dirty with a broken beer bottle. Jess has my back. And lest ye think that Willie is just another red-state good ole’ boy, know that Willie, even in his twilight years, is a huge pro-biodiesel proponent, (his tour bus runs on it, he works around the country with farmers to promote its use, and he even started his own biodiesel company), is well-known for his stance on the legalization of marijuana, and is also such a bad-ass progressive democrat that Republican jerkoffs in Texas (his home state) are refusing to name a highway after him.
Now, here’s the scene: the Dixon May Fair. Dixon is a little farming town just north of Vacaville. They had all the usual fair trappings: carnival rides, funnel cake (we had one of course), Budweiser, cows, goats, lambs, and of course, pigs. We had to search around for the pigs for a while, because there was no way I was gonna leave that fair without seeing some pigs. They were mostly sleeping when we found them, so we just quietly sang to them, “Sleep well, little piggies, for tomorrow you’ll be in the frying pan.” It was lovely. The 4-H kids had tacked posters along the walls with pictures of pigs all sectioned off and labeled with the various cuts of meat therein. That’s one of the reasons farm kids kick hippie kids’ asses. Hippies go on and on about how much they love animals and shit, but most of them know very little about how the natural world really goes down.
Farm kids actually raise animals from birth, feed them, take care of them, enter them in shows, hopefully win some ribbons, and then sell the animals, literally, by the pound, to the likes of Albertsons to end up on your dinner plate. The kids know this is the intent from the moment they receive that cute baby piglet. That’s a pretty hardcore life lesson for a kid. A lesson that most hippies never learn, and that’s why they’re useless and stupid. But I digress.
So, since I was raised on Willie Nelson and the like, his concert last night was an absolute thrill. It’s always a weird sensation when you hear songs that you know word for word, and you know you’ve known the words for 25 years, but you don’t really remember ever specifically listening to those particular songs. I started getting sentimental, thinking about how this music has been with me since birth, and how I was basically witnessing the last of a dying breed. One of the original Outlaws. Willie just turned 72 years old. 72! Most of his old friends are already gone. These may be his last concerts ever. I was hearing a true living legend. Willie has been touring with the same drummer for 39 years. 39 years! That is a musical epoch, especially considering the transient nature of bands these days.
As a result of my sentimental musings, I was actually moved to tears three times: during “Pancho and Lefty,” which he dedicated to Merle Haggard, “Georgia,” and of course, “Always On My Mind,” which Willie sang just as tenderly as he did two decades ago. The slight tremble in his voice only served to make it that much sweeter.
I know what you’re thinking: “Yeah, so you were listening to a dinosaur…An old man reliving his glory days.” Yes, Willie is old. But here’s the thing. Let’s say all music is a type of car. The electronic music most of us listen to now is kinda like a shiny black Jetta, with cool colored LED panels on the dash, and a full-on sound system. (What, you didn’t know Freddie drove house music?) 60’s psychedelia would be a hand-painted Beetle (old school beetle, not the new plastic things). What I was hearing last night was a classic, clunky, blue Ford truck. A jalopy.
Sure, her paint is faded, the doors are loose on their hinges, and the transmission’s slipping like hell, but she’s taken you safely this far, her engine’s still running strong at 300,000 miles, and you’ve been with her so long at this point that you can’t help but love her. Willie’s voice is slipping away, the Family band is loose and rough, but it’s the Real Deal, and as such, it’s perfection.
“All the Federales say, they could've had him any day. They only let him go so long, out of kindness I suppose.”
posted by stefbot @ 1:57 PM
6 Comments:
I hear ya, Stefbot. Willie has always been a part of my life. My parents even name their pets after him- we have a dog named Willie and a horse named Willie. Granted the horse had that name when we got him, but still...
When I was a kid my grandmother would play her whole collection of Willie Nelson albums every time we would visit(on vinyl, of course-my first introduction to that warm, scratchy-sweet sound was through the twang of Willie and Waylon and the boys). The whole family would sit around and sing along to every song. I refuse to believe that it was only a southern thing- I hope that families in California and Nebraska were doing the same thing. But I doubt anyone anywhere is anymore.
That post actually made me choke up- mostly because I missed the damn concert. Grrrrr. I won't tell Dad- it would break his heart.
yeah i grew up in chicago, and we listened to it there. mostly cuz my mom's family is from the south. but my dad was a polish immigrant and he loved it every bit as much, and still does. so it's definitely not just a southern thing.
Well it's definitely true that all you have to do is drive 15 miles out of San Francisco to find rural Georgia. Plus, it is called country WESTERN music.
Don't you think new country music should have to choose a new name? Sorry, but Garth Brooks should not belong to the same genre as Willie and Johnny. Like, maybe they could just call the new stuff Crap Music. That would work.
i'll fight you dirty style!
What?! Freddy crashed his house music into an oncoming cab?
now, now, you know that cabbie crashed into fred. that cabbie hated house music. from what i hear though, freddie is now driving adult contemporary. ZING!
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