Willie and Barbara

at least one more round

Hello again. While I was snoozing on the job, someone swooped in and grabbed the bluebirdsing domain name from me. And the external hard-drive flew the coop and left me without the digitized songbook to draw from. But with a little help from some friends (notably the now 40 Cardonia) I've got most of the tunes back, and now there's a tavern in the sky (a hat-tip to Michael Hurley, who would never sleep on the job). So let's serve up a few!

Back in 1974 on Phases and Stages Willie tried to tell everybody to pick up the tempo - just a little. But while he may have been wanting to take it on home, the song just wanted to slowly find its own way to the door.
Give him a few years and he puts the ramshackle shuffle on it when doing a starring role in Honeysuckle Rose, but even with Dyan Cannon and Amy Irving to get home to he's still he's not barnstorming it like he does on, say, "Whiskey River" or "Good Hearted Woman."

Willie Nelson - Pick up the Tempo

And then we have the Jerry Jeff Walker, Lloyd Maines, and Co. kicking down some doors to get home version.

"We were doing country, but it was pretty aggressive country." - Lloyd Maines

Maines is talking about the music he was making with his brothers, Steve, Kenny, and Donnie in the late 70s/early 80s as The Maines Brothers, but his words do a pretty good job of describing the Rock & Roll thrown down he and Walker put on "Tempo."

rednecks, hippies, and misfits

The USofA is busy screwing up all over the globe. Thank God we've got Willie calling us back to what matters. Happy 4th of July everybody!

“It’s people drinking beer, smoking pot, and finding out that they have things in common and don’t really hate each other,” Willie says.

"Rednecks, hippies, misfits—we’re all the same. Gay or straight? So what? It doesn’t matter to me. We have to be concerned about other people, regardless.”

Willie Nelson and Family - Good Hearted Woman [emusic]
Jefferson Airplane - Volunteers [emusic]
MC5 - Kick Out The Jams [emusic]

so just leave time alone

Along with John Prine’s “Paradise,” probably the song which I start almost unconsciously singing more than any other is Ed and Patsy Bruce’s “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.” Way back when I was a trouble-making 8 year old, my pops used to sit in the living room on Sunday mornings and strum his guitar along to Waylon Jennings’ and Willie Nelson’s duet version of “Mammas” from their double-platinum 1978 release Waylon & Willie. (My roommate Jenna just told me that when she was growing-up her mom would cut a friend’s hair and when he went to wash his hair out he would sing “Mammas” in a pitch-perfect Kermit the Frog voice: now that’s a mash-up I can get behind.) But when I return to W&W, I find myself listening to Nelson's “Pick-Up the Tempo” more than any other tune. Willie’s concept album Phases and Stages features a rather slower take on the tune, but the real template for the duet version is Waylon’s performance of it on This Time from 1974. The rendition on W&W simply overdubs Willie’s voice onto that version. However, even if it is an overdub, I still like it better than either of the other two. And my pop's had it right all along: it's a sweet Sunday morning album.

Waylon and Willie - Pick Up the Tempo [buy]

And here’s that other very singable “Paradise."