Together At Last - Ryan Adams and Willie Nelson!

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I'd already gone to bed when my flatmate got home. I'd not seen him for a bit so I popped downstairs to say hi and watch a bit of telly. David Letterman was on, with special guest Willie Nelson. All good so far.

Suddenly, after the "amusing" segment featuring a bloke and a girl who could swap underwear without removing their (admittedly pretty baggy) trousers - to the tune of "The Flight Of The Bumblebee", natch - and a fat man who could flick M&Ms into his mouth using a spoon lodged into his tummy-button, Letterman announced the night's musical diversion.

Oh bollocks, it's professional miseryguts Ryan Adams (the humourless git who got someone thrown out of one of his gigs for yelling "Play 'Summer Of '69'!" the other week) duetting with Nelson. The opening chords sound very familiar. Then the lyrics: "Well they tell me of a pie up in the sky..." Noooooooo!

The fuckers. The absolute fuckers. I'm shouting at the telly, oblivious to the fact my other flatmate's been in bed 2 hours already. As if Jamiroquai ripping "The Harder They Come" a new arsehole a few years ago wasn't enough of an indignity, here we have a septuagenarian bearded prune of a country singer and a bafflingly popular faux-deep doughy indieboy beating seven shades of shit out of lovely Jimmy C.

I don't get it. I just don't get it.

― Charlie (Charlie), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 01:42 (twenty-three years ago)

I ask you - why do people do these things? And if they insist on doing them as "tributes", as I'm sure these two miscreants' bleating defence would be, then why do they have to do them so *badly*? It pains me, really.

― Charlie (Charlie), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 01:43 (twenty-three years ago)

a septuagenarian bearded prune of a country singer

Say what you want about the kid, but lay off Willie, dude.

― wl (wl), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 02:04 (twenty-three years ago)

Jeez, I wonder what you'd think if you heard the Wayne Kramer/Johnny Thunders version.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 02:43 (twenty-three years ago)

Say what you want about the kid, but lay off Willie, dude

Why? I know basically nothing about his music, I couldn't even mame a song if you had a gun to my head - all I saw was an old man not even being bothered to make any effort with a great song. I'll lay on as much as I please, cheers!

― Charlie (Charlie), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 02:50 (twenty-three years ago)

I know basically nothing about his music

Cheers, indeed. The above is especially why you should lay off. Willie is grebt, and it was just a fruggin' commershial for Chrissakes. The guy's got weed to buy and the IRS to pay off.

― wl (wl), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 03:06 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't know shit about the original, but I liked Willie and Ryan's version of it. Neener neener neener.

― bnw (bnw), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 03:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Jeez, I wonder what you'd think if you heard the Wayne Kramer/Johnny Thunders version.

It sucks! I love it, though.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 03:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Cheers, indeed. The above is especially why you should lay off.

Not at all. I was kinda hoping somebody might explain why I should give a shit about WN. And, for that matter, RA. And why I should allow either of them to kill one of my favourite songs without commenting thereon.

Willie is grebt, and it was just a fruggin' commershial for Chrissakes. The guy's got weed to buy and the IRS to pay off.

No, it was a live performance on TV. It wasn't advertising anything except "we don't like this song enough to make an effort to do it justice".

― Charlie (Charlie), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 03:48 (twenty-three years ago)

So what song are you saying they did?? Anyway, Willie always looks like he's not making an effort; that's his style.

― Sean (Sean), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 04:03 (twenty-three years ago)

No, it was a live performance on TV. It wasn't advertising anything except "we don't like this song enough to make an effort to do it justice".

OK, my bad, I thought you were talking about a Gap ad. I'm not trying to argue anyway, it's just that dissing someone with like fifty years worth of good to all-time great music behind him based on one mediocre TV performance = dud. I just know that Willie's stuff is dearer to my heart than what I've heard of Jimmy Cliff. But I hate Jamaicans.

― wl (wl), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 04:24 (twenty-three years ago)

Willie Nelson fucking rocks- one of the prettiest voices of all time, and his music in the 70's is just divine- so loose, so swingin'.

Jamaicans fucking rock too, of course, at least those that make music.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 11:15 (twenty-three years ago)

which is all of 'em, innit?

― Stuart, Wednesday, 6 November 2002 21:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Say what you like kid, but lay off Ryan.

― david h (david h), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 22:02 (twenty-three years ago)

ha ha

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 22:03 (twenty-three years ago)

No, it was a live performance on TV.

I think I did see this in a Gap ad recently.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 22:03 (twenty-three years ago)

The funny thing is... oh, why bother.

― david h (david h), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 22:06 (twenty-three years ago)

the gap ad exists. that and king of the hill make me think that willie nelson might be worth checking out. then i wake up and realize i'm still jess.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 22:15 (twenty-three years ago)

three years pass...

Boy, their new album together is DREADFUL.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Friday, 27 October 2006 18:05 (nineteen years ago)

beyond horrible.

Willie Nelson coasting non-shockah.

― don weiner (don weiner), Friday, 27 October 2006 18:53 (nineteen years ago)

Even when he coasts there's always "the voice", but he sounds pretty hoarse and worn out here (and not in a good Bob Dylan way). He only seems bothered on the originals.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Friday, 27 October 2006 18:56 (nineteen years ago)

i'll chip in here and say that I actually like this album--and I don't even like Ryan Adams! The title track is awesome. Of course, it'd be hard to go wrong with that one. There are some weak spots, but I dig about half of it...So there.

― Tyler W (tylerw), Friday, 27 October 2006 19:07 (nineteen years ago)

The more non-Buckley takes of Hallelujah, the merrier.

― hearditonthexico (rogermexico), Friday, 27 October 2006 20:40 (nineteen years ago)

eh, the hallelujah here doesn't sound so hot...Willie sounds fairly unprepared. Frankly, no one's gonna top the John Cale version, ever.

― Tyler W (tylerw), Friday, 27 October 2006 21:22 (nineteen years ago)

No prob so far (it's like one long live-in-the-studio take, and weaker bits ride overall momentum, like jazz, although it's notjazz, similar to live Dylan's notjazz). I posted initial reaction (and more description) on Rolling Country.

― don (dow), Friday, 27 October 2006 22:22 (nineteen years ago)

The more non-Buckley takes of Hallelujah, the merrier.

why does everyone keep covering that? exhume other leonard cohen songs please.

― the orchid and the wasp (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 28 October 2006 01:03 (nineteen years ago)

I like it because it starts out all holy and then turns into El Cohened obsessive transgression, or getting drunk on the sacrememts, or something (somehow the actual words don't seem that important). But yeah, I'd like to hear Willie sing "Famous Blue Raincoat," and mebbe "Tower Of Song," but Marianne F. did the definitive. It'll prob be "Angels Of Mercy," though. Others?

― don (dow), Saturday, 28 October 2006 01:24 (nineteen years ago)

"don't go home with your hard-on"?

― the orchid and the wasp (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 28 October 2006 03:09 (nineteen years ago)

That's like a line from one of his books, so maybe he will do it (the song, that is).

― don (dow), Saturday, 28 October 2006 03:53 (nineteen years ago)

Now that I've heard his "Hallelujah" and "Bird on a Wire" I feel like I have enough data points to triangulate the Willie version of any other Cohen tune.

Or, Willie Nelson Is The New Bob Dylan, cont.

― hearditonthexico (rogermexico), Saturday, 28 October 2006 04:25 (nineteen years ago)

i keep starting (and never finishing) mix cds lately and all of them have waylon & willie's version of "gold dust woman" somewhere on there.

― the orchid and the wasp (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 28 October 2006 04:55 (nineteen years ago)

I love Willie, but this is a pretty awful album -- what about the "rawk" $1,000 Wedding?

Speaking of late-period-WN, anyone else love "Mendocino County Line" or is it just me?

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Monday, 30 October 2006 21:25 (nineteen years ago)

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