Willie Nelson – Last Man Standing (Legacy)

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Willie Nelson releases his 67th!! studio album today. Last Man Standing features 11 new songs co-written by the 84 year old Nelson and producer Buddy Cannon. Alison Kraus and longtime harmonica player Mickey Raphael are along for the ride. The 13th Floor’s Diana Phillips gives it a spin…

The first thing I notice about this album is that Willie Nelson, officially and self-professedly old, absolutely does not sound old. Unlike Johnny Cash, Ray Price, and Merle Haggard, the latter of whom he mentions a few times in this album as going before him, his voice still sounds like burnt velvet, and his sense of wit is as sharp as ever. He takes on Jesus, Noah, Halitosis, and Death Itself. And he wins, every time.

Willie Nelson’s new album, Last Man Standing, coincides with his 85th birthday (April 29th). Any of us that are fans have heard about his failing health, and I don’t know about you, but this album release has been a thankful relief, as Willie Nelson has often been the source of sense in a seemingly senseless place. He lays it out in this album with the type of lyrics that make us all feel like a close friend…“the world has gone out of it’s mind, except for me and you.”

It seems he is going through a period in his life wherein it feels like friends are dropping like flies. This album really encompasses that, the loneliness coming through as his empty hands get busy putting poignant words to often uplifting tunes. I love the juxtaposition of the lyrics of loss with “It’s not something you get over; it’s something you get through,” heavily weighted for anyone who has experienced losing loved ones, with the following song’s exuberance. “Ready to roll and ready to roar. It’s 5:00 and I’m out that door. I’m hot and dusty and I’m tired and wore, but it’s Friday night and I’m ready to roar.”

Nelson really is the everyman, doing the everyday, and holds his hurt up to the world with an expression of dauntlessness and timidness that we know to expect from him. He does not let us down.

This album reminds me a bit of his autobiography, Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die. In this age of dropping cleverness in tiny meme-like bits, we sometimes do not recognize the genius of the likes of Willie Nelson, who could (and still does!) keep that shit going throughout 16 bars, or an album, or a book.

His age lends himself to really digging deep into the mortality of himself and those he loves and respects, something we all must do eventually. He bravely refuses to procrastinate on that, giving us emotions we may not be ready for, within the soothing and loving voice we all know, and somehow makes us giggle a bit while he’s at it.

I wonder if he knows how loved he is as he expresses this deep loneliness of survival. The basis of the album seems to be an understandable unsureness as to whether it’s a positive thing to be the Last Man Standing.  As he wrote, “Sometimes it’s heaven and sometimes it’s hell, and sometimes I don’t even know.”

Diana Phillips

The 13th Floor
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