Willie Nelson

When Teddy Roosevelt claimed loneliness a quintessential ingredient of our national
character, he hit the psychic bull's-eye, ringing up images of pragmatic pioneers,
existential outlaws and a long line of heroes who dreamt of the purity of their youth even
as they drew their guns to eliminate it. "There are no second acts in American lives,"
someone once said, and a cursory glance at our gods--the cowboy/desperado, t... More >

This tale of a murdering preacher wild in his abandonment has inspired much loose talk about violence and Western myth. Ed Ward argues that the Stranger is a fantasy of vengeance rejected on side two, but all I hear is that he's redeemed by another woman there--if she leaves him, he'll kill her too. Some of the individual pieces are quite nice, but the gestalt is the concept album at its most counterproductive--the lyrics render the nostalgic instrumental parts unnecessarily ironic and lose additional charm in narrative context. (Grade: B-)