Phosphorescent’s To Willie

Daily “I-don’t-know-nearly-enough-about-music-or-life” confession: I’ve spent no time with the music of Willie Nelson. Apart from a dim knowledge of the “classic status” of the album Red-Headed Stranger and the vague belief that the dude MUST have written a string of unimpeachable classics in his life or I wouldn’t see him all over award shows all the damn time, I have next to no personal familiarity with the man’s music. So when I saw that Phosphorescent, whose 2007 album of drug-fogged campfire hymns Pride remains an enduring favorite of mine, was releasing an album of Willie Nelson covers, I wasn’t exactly sure what I would think.

I was TOTALLY unprepared, though, for the lonely, lingering ache of this record. Honestly, and I’m sure I’m the only one in this particular crowd who was unaware of this, but I had just NO idea that even a portion of Willie’s catalogue was this deeply melancholy. It’s an out-of-the-pores kind of sadness, of the unglamorous, nagging, and all-too-relatable variety. I know that Willie had an upbeat, goofy-cornpone side, but I was hugely and criminally ignorant that the man wrote anything as devastating as “The Last Thing I Needed (First Thing Morning).” I’m sure some of this has to do with the tremulous quaver in Matthew Houck’s open, yearning tenor, but the way he just skirts sounding piteous when he sings “then I laid down beside you/cuz I wanted your lovin/cuz your love makes my life complete,” the hint of a tremble in his voice, the abject vulnerability, is one of the most “oh-shit-I-just-caught-a-lump-in-my-throat-what-the-fuck’s-going-on” moments I’ve had with a song in awhile.

The spidery fragility of Houck’s singing voice, and the drowsy feel the band has for a pulse, does a lot to set this tone. At this point, I think Phosphorescent are hiding in plain sight for me: I reach for them time and again, almost reflexively. Music nerds are often likely to (or maybe this is just me?) name as their favorite band the one they find their thoughts most consumed by when they are not listening: taken to an extreme, this can lead to records in the critical canon that almost no one has made it through (everyone will cite a different record, but my two personal examples of this are Trout Mask Replica and Zen Arcade). By contrast, I never really find myself “thinking” about Phosphorescent: they don’t really demand to be puzzled over, just enjoyed. I just kinda love them. Anyone else love them as well?

P.S. All of his columns are of course required reading, but I particularly enjoyed Lenny Kaye’s recent take on Phosphorescent, along with other newer country-influenced acts like Laura Cantrell and Jason Isbell.

P.P.S. Here’s the record.