ALBUM REVIEW: On ‘Last Leaf on the Tree’ Willie Nelson Contemplates Still Standing
Henry Carrigan
Posted On October 30, 2024
On his latest album, Last Leaf on the Tree, country music legend Willie Nelson reflects on mortality and love as he interprets songs by Tom Waits, Neil Young, Sunny War, Keith Richards, and Beck, among others. Produced by his son Micah, Last Leaf is Nelson’s 153rd album and his 76th solo studio album. It’s often spare and melancholy, but with his gritty vocals and steady guitar work, Nelson nevertheless finds moments of hope in the midst of longing.
A swirling psychedelic sound introduces the title track, Waits and Kathleen Brennan’s sobering meditation on standing alone in the world. With quivering voice and sure-handed guitar strums, Nelson evokes the fear and trembling of standing on life’s precipice, even as so many of his friends have passed over it, while resisting the grip of death and promising immortality through the power of music: “I’m the last leaf on the tree/the autumn took the rest/but they won’t take me/…I’ll be here through eternity/if they cut down this tree/I’ll show up in a song.”
Bright Spanish guitar notes open Nelson’s take on Sunny War’s “If It Wasn’t Broken,” which gently weaves Tejano rhythms with shuffling soul; it’s an ode to the risks and the opportunities a broken heart brings. Nelson’s sonically spacious version of Beck’s “Lost Cause” conveys the ache and resignation of a broken relationship, while on his loping, free jazz version of Nina Simone’s “Come Ye,” Nelson sounds like a street preacher calling together all those “who would have hope/who would have peace/who would have love.”
In his waltzing version of Warren Zevon and Jorge Calderon’s “Keep Me in Your Heart,” blending in musical phrases from Dylan’s “If You’re Going to the North Country Fair,” Nelson makes a simple request that those who love him remember him, at least for a while. His version of Neil Young’s “Are You Ready for the Country?” may be one of the most laid back songs on the album, even as it scampers along a rambling country rhythm. The sprightly-strummed “The Color of Sound,” which Willie and Micah co-wrote, asks philosophically and playfully, “If silence is golden, what color is sound?” And layers of Daniel Lanois’ pedal steel usher in Nelson’s version of his 1967 song “Ghost,” a reflection on fading love and the silence that rushes in to fill the absence.
On Last Leaf on the Tree, Willie Nelson is still doing what he’s always done best: interpreting the songs of others and writing his own memorable melodies.
Willie Nelson’s Last Leaf on the Tree releases Nov. 1 on Sony Legacy.
