Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard “Pancho and Lefty” / “Opportunity to Cry”

I know this song from the Townes Van Zandt version, who wrote it—it’s a good song. A while back I was listening to a lot of Townes Van Zandt, who was a great songwriter and singer, but at some point, for some reason, I had to take a break… I have no idea why. Maybe some feeling of inescapable sadness from his songs. It’s my problem. I’ll come back to him. I don’t want to be a person who is just trying to escape all the time. Anyway, this is a version sung by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. Every time I hear Willie Nelson, I try to figure out just what makes his voice so distinctive and lovely. And Merle Haggard—I went through a phase with him a few decades back. So I was expecting something here, but I just can’t get past the production—it sounds like everyone is on TV, with makeup and manicured nails. Maybe it’s just the sound of 1982. I’d much prefer a version recorded in a truck-stop bathroom or a tent, somewhere, or a shed, or in the backseat on a trip. That’s just my preference. The B-side is better, not sure why. The funny thing is—the magic 8-ball happened to pick out this record at almost the same time I started reading Bob Dylan’s new book (The Philosophy if Modern Song), and I just came to a chapter on this recording—so I stopped reading and wrote this. Now I’ll go back and see what Bob’s take is… sure to be entirely different than mine. Maybe he’ll convince me.

So, ol’ Bob gives us as bit of the history of Townes Van Zandt. How ultimately, Hank Williams was his guy—I can hear that. I didn’t know that he died on New Year’s Day, like Hank. Dylan then has some kind words about Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. Then, mostly, he kind of interprets the lyrics of the song, and goes on and on. Which got me to listen to the song in a new light—based on the words, more, I mean. I’ve always liked Townes’ version, of course, the beautiful melody, and the sadness. It’s a nutty song… like a dual narrative, with Pancho meeting his fate in Mexico, and Lefty ending up in, of all places, Cleveland. Where I’ve spent a few years—and could very well have “ended up.”

Out of curiosity, I checked out the album (by the same name) that this song is from,, which includes the B-side, “Opportunity to Cry.” The album also includes Merle Haggard’s “Reasons to Quit”—followed by “No Reason to Quit.” I gotta say, that’s some inspired sequencing. Those songs sound great. I don’t know why the sound of the title track put me off when I first spun it, so I give it another try. It’s a great song, sure, but this production—it starts off sounding like a bloated Hollywood movie from the Eighties, when everything got expensive but looked cheap. I’m sorry I can’t get past that. All recorded songs are essentially the perfect evocation of a time and place, more than anything. Sure, there’s poetry, and performances, and emotion, love, big hearts, passion, ideas, philosophy, history, all of it. But when it comes down to it, it’s still you getting invited into a room. And this is just a room—in spite of the good people and grand intentions—this is a room I don’t want to spend time in.

Dr Pepper “A Slice of Lemon”

Times may be weird, with grifters and clowns runnin’ the show—but grifters and clowns always been runnin’ the show—and I like to argue that as weird as times are, they were even weirder in 1966. Unfortunately, I was only six years old at the time and didn’t have the perspective at that age to appreciate it. It just seemed normal to me. Likewise, for a kid growing up now, to see every single person staring at a small rectangular device at all times—simply seems normal. God help us.

Anyway, here’s a slice of 1966 weirdness, brought to you by Dr Pepper, “The soft drink Ray Speen would drink, if he drank that shit.” (Unpaid plug—as is, every seven years when I go down the Dr Pepper ingredients rabbit-hole.) Instead of “Various” or “Columba Special Products,” I’m calling Dr Pepper the artist here, since they put up good money for this time capsule, and it doesn’t even say “Dr Pepper” anywhere on the front, back, or side cover, or the label! You would never know, if it weren’t for the intro track, by Dick Clark. The cover just confused me, because it says the title in big black letters, but there’s a very-light-yellow sliced lemon instead of the “o” so it ends up looking like: A SLICE OF LEM (followed by an N). LEM, in the late-Sixties, meant “Lunar Excursion Module.” Also, someone wrote their name on the cover, and their name was “Pumpkin.” After all that, I barely noticed the photo of three, young, blonde people (2 gals, 1 dude) in ski resort casual wear, in front of a fire, all with lascivious grins, and drinking a brown beverage in glass mugs—I assumed it was Keoke Coffee. There are liner notes on the back cover but it looks like someone threw up on it and cleaned it too vigorously (not vigorously enough), so I can’t read most of it—but it appears to be inane ad copy about each of the ten artists and songs.

The first time I listened to this record (without looking to see who was on it) I thought it must be the case that someone had slipped the wrong record in the cover—that’s how jarringly bizarre the whole thing comes off. Quiz question for later: which one of the musical artists represented here did I, at one time, see live? Anyway, the track that makes the most sense is the intro, by Dick Clark, where he tells us it’s specially produced for Dr Pepper during ski season, and then tells us how to make HOT Dr Pepper: pour some in a saucepan and heat it, then pour it over a slice of lemon. It sounds good, actually, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing that. What we did do in 1966, though, was pour Vernors Ginger Ale in a glass over half & half—delicious!

Even though the local AM radio played a pretty bizarre selection of shit in 1966 (our station, in Sandusky, Ohio, was WLEC), I’m not sure it was ever this all-over-the-place. But maybe it was, and I just blocked out half of it. Anyway, this was in the air. What follows then are songs by The Dave Clark Five, then The Brothers Four (at this point, you’re wondering if they are trying to connect each track by some linguistic device)—and it’s got to be the worst of all the lame versions of “Mr. Tambourine Man” out there. Next, a Percy Faith orchestral version of “Yesterday”—which is the only Beatles song I ever played, and the only song I ever learned, as a teen, to play on the piano with both left and right hand parts (which now is simply a sad reminder of me failing at piano). The New Christy Minstrels sing “Downtown,” always a great song, and then Tony Bennett gives us “The Good Life.”

Side 2 delves into jazz—The Dave Brubeck Quartet with “Little Girl Blue,” not bad. Then we have Andre Previn doing “Bluesette”—another attempt at a connection? Doris Day belts out “Fly Me to the Moon”—and so the only logical song to follow that is Bob Dylan belting out “Maggie’s Farm.” Why not. Ha! Why not. You really have to wonder if Dylan has this record in his collection. He must. Now I’m curious if he talks about it in that new book of his. Simon and Garfunkel singing “Leaves That Are Green” is a bit of a letdown, but at least, then, you’re okay to drive. And so… I hope you enjoyed this fitting intro to Farraginous February 2023—hard to believe it’s only 57 years later! The answer to the quiz question is: Tony Bennett.

Rod Stewart “Every Picture Tells a Story”

If YouTube keeps my personal stats on their big ’puter, and I’m sure they do, they could tell you the only video I’ve watched more than ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” is a live version of The Faces doing “Stay with Me” (the one in which some moron applies some unforgivable video effects to some of it). And that is (my opinion) that band at its best, and Rod Stewart at his best. Well, not quite—because Rod Stewart is at his best here, this record (well, if he’s made a better record, tell me about it). I consider myself a big Rod Stewart fan, even though I probably haven’t heard 90% of what he’s recorded—but just based on some Faces stuff and this record (and that “Hot Legs” video, come on). And this is one of my favorite rock records—of the many, many rock records I’ve heard. It’s also a record you can readily find, cheap, at used record stores and thrift stores—I guess they printed a lot, and for some reason the same people who buy up every, last, old “Dark Side of the Moon” LP don’t buy up this one, even though it’s equally as classic and twice as listenable.

The album cover is terrible, and if you, say, just ran across it for the first time, you might think it’s one of those cheapo retrospectives they sell at gas stations. I first heard it sometime in the Seventies—though not that close to 1971, when it came out. I suppose I’d heard the hit song “Maggie May” previously, but I didn’t know what to expect by the album—and this was a case of the first song just changing my molecules forever. I still get the same goosebumps anytime I listen to it now. And it’s not like the record, as a whole, even comes close to my favorite few songs, but it’s all at least pretty good. The Temptations hit, “(You Know) I’m Losing You” sounds a bit out of place, actually—I believe it’s essentially The Faces on that song—it’s a more rocked out version than the original—not as good. You can find The Faces playing it from the same session as “Stay with Me” (might have been a TV show). I mean, it’s okay, but it doesn’t fit that well. The Bob Dylan song, “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” is another weak link. The rest of the record is all pretty much awesome.

One of my favorite songs, Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe” is last, and it’s my favorite version of that song—which pretty much everyone (including me) has played—I found a list on the internet that sites nearly a hundred cover versions. “Maggie May” might be one you’re sick of, but in the context of this record, and on vinyl, and loud, you can really revisit that song. The Arthur Crudup song “That’s Alright Mama” is as high energy as anything on the record, and “Seems Like a Long Time,” by Theodore Anderson, is the most poignant song here—I’ve never heard any other version of it, but I can’t imagine it being better than this. I said poignant, goddamnit. And then that first song, the title song, “Every Picture Tells a Story”—it’s the best.

One thing that makes all these songs special is a kind of spare production—it’s clean and sparse, and relies on some individual instruments, and the singing. I’ve always liked Rod Stewart’s singing, but nowhere as much as here. A lot of the record, and certainly these first three songs, sound mostly acoustic—acoustic guitar, piano, and some really fine drums and bass. I don’t know who’s playing on what—lots of musicians are listed—but they’re all great. It’s just one of the more high-energy, subtle, underplayed but over-the-top records you’re ever gonna hear. Also, given the nature of the recording, this is one of those records that if you hear it on vinyl, and on a really fine system—well, I just can’t imagine. It’s one of those cases of, if I haven’t heard it in a while, and then someone pulls it out, on a superior sound system—that’s something that could put me right on the floor, reduced to a puddle of expletives and insufficient metaphor.

Bob Dylan “New Morning”

I’m not exactly sure where this record fits in the BD timeline—it seems to be one of his Nashville records, produced by Bob Johnston, there’s studio musicians, and David Bromberg plays on it, and Al Kooper, and there’s a lot of piano. This is a great record; I kind of wish it was the first Dylan record I ever heard and then based my whole BD experience on the foundation of that experience. Somehow I’ve never heard much of it—though “If Dogs Run Free” somewhere came to me in a weirdness care package. I think it’s pretty likely that this record was released well after BD’s replacement with the new Dylan, but some of the songs here are from the original Dylan vault. That said, the new one is pulling off some pretty good replication of the old one, to the extent that I don’t even feel confident offering my track by track guess on who is singing. Somehow I never heard the song “The Man in Me” until I heard it in the movie, The Big Lebowski—and it’s a great song, and really important to that movie.

Bob Dylan “Nashville Skyline”

There is the theory that there have been two Bob Dylan’s, the Robert Zimmerman who made the music up through Blonde on Blonde, and then the one who “became” Bob Dylan after he was killed in the motorcycle accident (likely no motorcycle accident, but a more mundane or sordid death, and the motorcycle accident was an invented story for the time away, to recover, but there was no recovery, just death). The second Dylan is a guy, probably a talented but unsuccessful Nashville musician (who sings a lot like Jim Nabors) who looked like Dylan (a guy who “fit the jacket”—as in the Greg Brady fitting the jacket Brady Bunch episode) and could play, and saw this as a weird gig he’d be able to step away from eventually with some cash—but later realized it was actually the Devil’s Opportunity of the Century, and there was no escape until the escape of death, ultimately.

Which is a long way around of saying this record sounds like nothing that Dylan had done before, while sounding exactly like what he had done before—which is of course, keeping in line with what he (both of him) has always done. (Actually, the multiple Dylans in Todd Haynes’ movie, I’m Not There (2007) is a much better conspiracy theory, kind of like the Shakespeare being-a-collective theory—and I realize that movie is not a theory, it’s an innovative and brilliant approach to Dylan—but often from art arises not just metaphorical but actual truth.) Anyway, I think I heard this way back when I was in high school and I didn’t like it—the Jim Nabors voice freaked me out, and I didn’t like country and western, yet, at that time—but now, this is one of my favorite BD records, and “Lay Lady Lay,” a song I once couldn’t stand, is one of my favorites, as well as “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You.”

Bob Dylan “Street Legal”

I’ve never heard this record before and I’m guessing, but not sure, that when it came out in 1978—the year I graduated from high school and was avidly reading Rolling Stone magazine—it got a less than favorable review—or maybe I was just over Dylan by that time, temporarily—or maybe his previous album was too weird and inscrutable—who knows. Anyway, the first thing that’s striking to me is that in the live performance, black and white, photo on the back, he looks just like Freddie Mercury—did people, when this record was released, talk or write excessively about about how he looks just like Freddie Mercury? It looks like a picture from the Renaldo and Clara/”Rolling Thunder Revue” era, but wasn’t that years earlier? Anyway, it’s just a bit of a mystery. On the front cover there’s a picture of him standing in a doorway wearing some really awful jeans and a black leather vest, looking left, down the street like he’s waiting for someone, or a bus.

“Baby Stop Crying” is a nice song, pretty soulful (though the sax break does sound a little St. Elmo’s Fire (my shorthand for lameness). I just noticed the photos on the inside sleeve, two out-of-focus, B&W photos of Bob and a dark skinned man (really wish I had the Big I to look this up) at what looks like a really great tea shop. Bob’s wearing that polkadot shirt you see in a lot of photos (I’m assuming he had more than one, but who knows). It almost looks like a much earlier photo. Can you date Dylan pics by his shirts?

Bob Dylan “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits”

If you subscribe to the theory that BD died after Blonde on Blonde (1966) and was replaced with “Dylan 2,” then this record makes a lot more sense—the cover is a big, dark, head silhouette (which decades later would become a “thing”)—which makes you think of nothing so much as a statue, a monument to a legend, dead and gone, and the white lettering and song titles right over his head announce nothing so much as “this is a product.” The photo (BD in concert, blowing on that dreaded harmonica) looks oddly contemporary—even more so if you imagine he’s looking closely at a smartphone, which is how I’d suspect kids these days would interpret it.

This is possibly the most unlistenable Dylan record for me, as it starts with the dreaded “Rainy Day Women” and is pretty much made up of the songs that have been played to death—which I don’t even think are close to his best songs. About the only one here I can still stand to listen to is “Like a Rolling Stone,” and then only on Nostalgia Thursday, and then preferably with a frivolous drink. If I had the internet right now I’d look up how many times in articles over the years someone has said, “I wish at an early age someone had stuck that harmonica right up his ass,” or “He really puts the ‘harm’ in harmonica.” I suppose it’s supposed to sound like a train whistle, but personally, any time someone tries to make a rock song sound like a train, I’m yawning like the Grand Canyon, and even a mention of a train has me nodding off. And I love trains.

Bob Dylan “Bringing It All Back Home”

I would have been too young to appreciate this record when it came out, I suppose, though I kind of wish my parents were Dylan fans and I would have heard all this. Or maybe not. This has to be a lot of people’s favorite Dylan record, it’s got some of his best songs and maybe a better overall early rock’n’roll sound than any of them. I’ve always just kind of ignored it, I don’t know why. Just read the liner notes on back, written by Bob with minimal caps and punctuation—surreal and cryptic but pretty good. The cover photo is BD and a woman in a red dress holding a cigarette, sitting with a bunch of records and magazines in front of a fireplace. BD is holding a grey kitten. They’re all staring right at the photographer with remarkably similar expressions. I wonder whatever happened to that cat. Or that woman. Or that fireplace.

I wouldn’t want to have to say what my favorite Dylan songs are (or maybe I would like to, and I should make one of those favorite 100 songs lists—but I’ll have to listen to them all, some rainy day)—but “Maggie’s Farm” has to be one of my favorites. Is this the record that marked Dylan’s shift to electric rock’n’roll and rejection of the folk scene? It does have “Mr. Tambourine Man” on it, but then ends with “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” Who is playing on this record, anyway? There is no listing of musicians.

There is, folded up inside, a huge poster of that classic BD drawing (is it by Milton Glaser?—that’s the name in the upper corner)—it’s his head in profile, with big multicolored hair. The colors are lovely pastel shades. Did this come with this record, or just happen to get stuck in here? It’s never been hung up—there are no holes or tape-damaged corners. I bet I could sell this for some serious bread on eBay, and the people who own this cabin would never notice. (I’d just have to remember to edit this before publishing it.) Does some cafe around here have wifi where I could run my sale? Could I make enough for gas money back to civilization? So many questions, today, and so few satisfactory answers.

Bob Dylan “Self Portrait”

This is a double album that—in the tradition of double albums—announces the celebration of an explosion of creativity that is unable to be contained on the traditional single LP format. Or maybe it’s something else entirely, seeing how it’s Bob Dylan, and who ever knows what he’s thinking? There is a self-portrait painting of him on the cover with no words or frame. The album opens and there’s a list of the songs, on four sides, and also a list of 50 names; on further inspection, this appears not to be a random list from the phonebook, but likely a list of musical collaborators. Quickly glancing through the alphabetical list I see: Charlie Daniels, Al Kooper, David Bromberg, all the members of “The Band,” and many more names I recognize, and many more that I don’t.

I never heard this one before. It sounds like a Bob Dylan record, kind of, or maybe a parody of one, which you arguably could say about any Bob Dylan record. It’s kind of amazing, I’ve been listening to this dude for 50 years and I keep hearing stuff I never heard—kind of like the original Star Trek broadcast. There’s a few covers on this record, including: “I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know,” credited to a C.A. Null, who I don’t know, but I know the song as sung by Skeeter Davis, one of my favorites (she has an album by that title). The lyric goes: “I forgot more than you’ll ever know about him.” Which is a woman singing to another woman, a rival, about a man, I believe, and when you change the gender it doesn’t quite work for some reason—but I also like to think of it as a general proclamation, to anyone, about anything.

It’s interesting—I must have been aware of this record—not when it came out when I was ten—but in later years when I started listening to Dylan records—it would have been in the record store bins, maybe even in cut-out bins like Planet Waves always seemed to be—but I avoided this one like a perennial golden turd in the sun. But listening to it now, on my third or fourth time through, I realize I’ve never heard a lot of this stuff and it’s some of the best Bob Dylan I’ve ever heard. It’s kind of like BD’s “Covers Record”—though a lot of the songs he covers are Dylan songs. (Idea: BD should do an entire record of Cat Power songs.) Here lies the best versions of both “Let It Be Me” and “Blue Moon” I’ve ever heard. A lot of this is BD singing in his “Jim Nabors” voice, which I’ve grown to love. Of course, this is the post-death-Dylan, or “second” Dylan, as the theory goes, and the future (1970 thru 2016) looks bright.

Bob Dylan “Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid”

This is apparently the soundtrack record for the movie Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) which was directed by Sam Peckinpah and written by Rudy Wurlitzer—a movie I’m sure I’ve seen, but don’t remember too well (like, I didn’t even remember that James Coburn was in it, but there are credits on the back album cover. I love James Coburn). There is a scene I remember from a movie—and I’m not sure if it is this one—so maybe someone can help me out. A guy gets shot, and before he dies, his last words are something like, “I wish… wish…” Not sure if those are the words, or this is the movie, but it’s something that made a huge impression on me, that scene, and I hope to clear this up someday.

A lot of this is the usual kind of wanky western soundtrack stuff I can do without, with fiddles and “traditional instruments”—there is even something that sounds like the dreaded “pan-flute.” The first song, “Main Title Theme (Billy)” is the kind of music that sounds like it’s celebrating the grandeur and mythology of “The West”—which just strikes me as so much bullshit. I guess I’m not much of a fan of the western genre, as the lies jump out like all political lies, and I don’t believe there was anything good about the old west, just a lot of slaughter, rape, and pillaging, bullies and blowhards, and disgusting behavior all around. I’m guessing Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man gets about halfway closer than any other western. Anyway, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” is a great, great song, and there’s a couple more here with Dylan singing (“Billy 4” and “Billy 7”) that make this record almost worthwhile.