The 50 best songs by Willie Nelson

Willie Nelson’s songs are an integral part of American music. Whether the native Texaner from Abbott has now written it himself or interpreted the melodies of others with his idiosyncratic vocal style: songs like “Crazy”, “Night Life”, “On the Road Again”, “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and ‘Georgia on My Mind’ are all unique Willie tracks. And remarkably-after seven decades of career-he is still expanding the country canon, with carefree marijuana anthems such as ‘Roll Me Up and Smoke me when’ or his treatise on coping with grief in ‘Something you get through’.

At the age of 92, the Outlaw Country pioneer continued to tour, take up albums and publish new albums. His most recent album, “Oh what a Beautiful World”, is a tribute to the songwriting of Rodney Crowell and underlines Nelson’s talent as a songwriter. He is probably not only the voice of country music, but also the country’s voice-a comforting troubadour and guiding star for a genre and a nation, both of which often agree from the way. But that’s okay. Willie is there to accompany us, even now. And these are his 50 most important songs.

Much of the pleasure on this exuberant Honky-Tonk favorites lies in the musical variation of “Puff Puff Pass”, with which Nelson initiates the song and then steps down to leave the stanzas Snoop Dogg, Kris Kristofferson and Jamey Johnson. The community spirit also shaped the creation of the song, which Nelson wrote together with his long -time colleague Buddy Cannon as well as Rich Alves, John Colgin and Mike Mcquerry. Nelson played the song on April 20, 2012 in Austin, on the same day, on which an eight foot was unveiled by a high bronze statue of the Texas icon. “I will be high for a thousand years,” he joked “Texas Monthly”.

Don’t think too much about the Zen-like title-otherwise your head turns as if you had just smoked a joint with the author. Instead, meditate about the transcendent guitar play, which Nelson practices on his loyal “trigger”, and the mantra-like “La-la-la” refrain that he sings. “Still is Still Moving to Me” is a song that derailed like a train and has developed into an unexpected fixed point in the concerts of the Country Music Hall of Famers, where he is currently embedded between the show opener ‘Whiskey River’ and Toby Keith’s Novelty ‘Beer for My Horses’. And to judge the response that he receives every evening, his prominent place – still – is justified.

Willie and Dolly (together with the former monument artists Kris Kristofferson and Brenda Lee) signed in the mid-1960s with Monument Records in Nashville and paid tribute to the founder of the label, Fred Foster, with their participation in the album “The Winning Hand”. Nelson’s voice harmonizes wonderfully with Dolly’s gentle melody, which she had first recorded in 1967, and underlines the amiable text and the contrasting but perfectly coordinated styles of the two artists. This inspiring collaboration was a highlight of a special television program by Johnny Cash from 1983. The two recently came together for partons LP “A Holly Dolly Christmas” to re-record Nelson’s monument song “Pretty Paper”.

The reggae album “Countryman”, published in 2005, was a heart project for Nelson, but only had the endurance of a cloud of smoke. However, it contained the definitive Willie version of the Jimmy Cliff classic “The Harder They come”. Nelson had already performed the song live, sometimes with Ryan Adams, but he never sounded so relaxed and yet as controlled as in this studio version. The text may propagate rebellion and anger against the authorities, but everything was fine for Willie.

It fits that Willie’s greatest non-duett hit from 1984-one year in which “America” ​​was an explicit topic in songs by artists such as Rem, Bruce Springsteen and Lee Greenwood-was the one who celebrated the nation loudly in the chorus. Nelson’s cover version of Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans”-which the singer-songwriter from Chicago published in 1971 and Arlo Guthrie for the first time in 1972-simplified Goodman’s wool arrangement and emphasizes the singing melody, which makes the whole triumph. The song has its name from a classic Amtrak train line and is also written from the perspective of the train. Nelson’s revision converted the central hookline “Good Morning, America, How Are Ya?” In a reflection of the sunny mood of the country this year: “City of New Orleans” reached number one for the presidency in the week of the overwhelming re -election of Ronald Reagan.

It is one thing to sing in a song about the grief for a lost love: “The end is far from the end” – you know that you will live on. It is very different if these words come from a man in mid -eighty, like Willie, when he published this song – the climax of a concept album about the aging, load man standing, not less. Here this line indicates that everything will end. Nelson expresses this and the song with a quiet repentance, which is also sophisticated and sincerely painful.

After Willie was not represented in the Country Top-40 for twelve years, he returned to the top of the single charts with this later Grammy winner, written by Bernie Taupin and Matt Serletic. To this wistful reflection on a failed romance, Womack delivers the high -flying vocals before leaving Nelson the stage so that he can show himself from his most moving side. The album, from which the song comes, “The Great Divide”, received mixed reviews for its smooth adult pop production, but Nelson’s voice, warm like a breeze from the Pacific, ensures calming reflection.

When the tireless road Warrior challenged his luck a little too much and an illness forced him to cancel some appearances at the beginning of the century. Instead, he wrote this winking song about the illusion of invincibility, which can be found on the “Lost Highway” compilation published in 2009. “Too many painkillers, too much grass, the attempt to be something that I am not,” Sing Nelson in another live favorite who, like ‘Devil in A Sleepin’ Bag “, sings directly on tour. “I ruined my voice and ruined my tour/In the end I only ate soup,” he rhymes. At least he is honest.

Nelson explored his inner blues musician on “Milk Cow Blues” from 2000, an album with duets and jam sessions with Dr. John, BB King and Jonny Lang. Such projects outside of an artist’s comfort zone often seem forced, if not fake. But Nelson enjoyed getting really dirty and exchanging his battered Martin acoustic guitar for a headless electric guitar. It may have been irritating to see him without a “trigger” around his neck – as if you were catching your father with another woman as his mother – but the title song proved that Nelson’s love for the blues was not a temporary mood.

Written by his Texan friend Steve Fromholtz (who sings the background singing, as if he only knew about where to use) and accompanied by the shaky electric guitar, which was omnipresent in the seventies in the Outlaw Country, is an ode to “i’d have to be crazy”, especially on his own (“I have to be to grow me a Beard/ Just to See what the redneck would do ”). But he sounds gentle here, his voice is like a hand on her cheek while slowly dancing on the bottom of the bar.