-review by Bill Glahn-
Music industry attorney, Joel Katz, tells a story in Willie Nelson’s 1988 autobiography: “I have in ten years only seen Willie get mad at me one time. Real mad. I…. brought an estate plan to show him how he could earn and keep more money for himself and for his family. Willie erupted.” According to Katz, Nelson stomped out of the room, only to return, much calmer, fifteen minutes later. “You’ve got to understand my philosophy of life, Joel,” Nelson explained. “I want the people around me to be happy, but I look at life as a roller coaster. When I’m up, I’m up, and when I’m down, I’m down, and I hope when it’s all over, the money runs out just about the same time that I’m through with my life.”
More than 3 decades later, Nelson is still making albums at a clip of better than 1 per year and touring extensively. Not that there haven’t been some setbacks. When Nelson cancelled some dates earlier this year with a bout of the flu, some fans speculated that the end of the road was near. But if you’ve been following Nelson for any length of time, you’d know that Willie’s gonna do what Willie’s gonna do. That includes his relationship with mortality. He is, after all, “Gods Problem Child.”
That doesn’t mean Nelson isn’t thinking about the inevitable. On the album’s opening (title) track, he addresses something that occurs with increasing frequency in later years – the passing of friends. He lists a few by name and laments, “it cuts like a wore out knife.” But Nelson turns it into some dark humor, “I don’t wanna be the last man standing, on second thought maybe I do.”
Death is a more frequent topic on Last Man Standing than previous albums. But this is no pity party. Nelson’s always been a master at turning a phrase. And there’s some doozies on his latest. Who else but Willie could use “halitosis” in a lyric and get away with it? “Halitosis is a word I never could spell, but bad breath is better than no breath at all.” What makes Last Man Standing such a joy are the number of laugh-out-loud moments sprinkled throughout. God says, “Willie, we need you up here. Bill Hicks hasn’t come up with a new joke in years.” Willie says, “Heaven is closed and hell’s overcrowded, so I think I’ll just stay where I am.”
But don’t get the idea that Last Man Standing is top-to-bottom songs about mortality and death. There’s enough first-rate love-gone-wrong weepers mixed in to keep the jukeboxes playing for at least a few more years. The good news here, is that Nelson has gotten the “songbook” phase out of his system for several albums in a row and he’s writing new classics at a pace that defies logic or statistics. He’s proving to be a little bit Mark Twain and a little bit Benjamin Button. And a whole lotta Willie. And his estate planning? Well, there’s also a deluxe edition (3 extra songs) available at that gathering place for his oldest fans, Cracker Barrel.
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