Author Topic: Willie Nelson's Lost Highway  (Read 104248 times)

Offline bailey1205

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Re: Willie Nelson's Lost Highway
« Reply #130 on: November 10, 2009, 04:36:39 pm »
I was wondering if this particular song was a financial move to placate former fans he might have alienated with BBM.  I don't know his demographics with regard to homophobic vs homosexual and which group generates him the most revenue, but I'd guess it ain't us.

He was a big hit at the Armadillo Headquaters here in Austin in the 70's.
It was where his career finally took off.

He was popular with the young hippie, weed smoking crowd.

I went to one of his concerts there back then, and got high just smelling everyones weed.
 :laugh:

His fans are good old boys, and old hippies.

He lives around here, so he is known around Austin, but you ask a teenages who Willie Nelson is , and they will look at you like.... huh... who?

Offline Clyde-B

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Re: Willie Nelson's Lost Highway
« Reply #131 on: November 10, 2009, 04:41:48 pm »
Pass the brownies, Alice.  Boy these brownies are good!

Offline bailey1205

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Re: Willie Nelson's Lost Highway
« Reply #132 on: November 10, 2009, 05:06:30 pm »
Pass the brownies, Alice.  Boy these brownies are good!

LMAO !!!

Old Willie still likes his weed.  He was pulled over by DPS a few years back around here and
was caught with his little stash.

 :laugh:


Offline milomorris

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Re: Willie Nelson's Lost Highway
« Reply #133 on: November 10, 2009, 05:11:18 pm »
The people I'm talking about aren't any where near that age group.

I think you are giving hip-hop as exaggerated an influence as some people give gay culture.

You're right. Unless we're talking about Gen-X or Y, there isn't much hip-hop influence.
  The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

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Offline milomorris

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Re: Willie Nelson's Lost Highway
« Reply #134 on: November 11, 2009, 08:04:07 am »
From TDS, July 25, 2009:

There doesn't seem to be a Willie Nelson version of "Ain't Goin' Down on Brokeback Mountain" (Written by Wynn Varble, Ben Hayslip and Brandon Kinney) available on Youtube, but here it is sung by the The Saddle Sores.

Or listen to a live version, complete with difficult-to-decipher commentary by Wynn Varble: "It's been described as number two... Hope I don't piss nobody off, it's all in fun. A little cowboy music."



[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRCe4OpehbE[/youtube]

Like I said at first, this is just a joke.

If the violently homophobic message was universally obvious, I would have expected that there would have been quite a bit of outrage expressed over at DCF when this was posted. I couldn't find any.
  The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Offline Ellemeno

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Re: Willie Nelson's Lost Highway
« Reply #135 on: November 11, 2009, 08:11:15 am »
Clarissa, I'd love it if you could provide an example. I've exhausted most of my knowledge and find symbolism and metaphor but not double entendre. Admittedly, I don't listen to new country.


I Googled "word play in country music" and found this.  It describes pretty well what I mean, and focuses in particular on George Jones, who I think is the guy who sang "I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool," so I'm thinking he's not new country.  I don't listen to country often, but when I do, I frequently notice - and enjoy - what this writer describes.

It also mentions Randy Travis, and it seems like the songs of his I've heard have word play in them, like "A Better Class of Losers."  "On the Other Hand" is a perfect example:  "On one hand I could stay and be your loving man/But the reason I must go is on the other hand," (meaning literally on that hand he wears a wedding ring).

(The bolding in the article that follows was made by me.)

http://aloxecorton.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/wordplay-in-the-country-for-amelie/

"Pop singers like the Beatles and Elvis Costello may have visited wordplay from time to time, but country music lives there. A lot of it involves outright puns, like the Bellamy Brothers’ “If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me?” or Lee Ann Womack’s “Am I the Only Thing That You’ve Done Wrong?” There’s Gary Nicholson’s “Behind Bars,” which is about saloons, and Randy Travis’s “On The Other Hand,” which is about wedding rings. And then there are all those titles that involve wordplay of one sort or another, like Dolly Parton’s “It’s All Wrong, but It’s All Right,” and Johnny Paycheck’s “I’m the Only Hell My Mama Ever Raised.”

When I think of songs like these, the singer who comes first to mind is George Jones. I don’t know of he’s done more of them than anybody else — the honors there probably go to Roger Miller or Johnny Paycheck. And a lot of the punning titles that Jones uses are just routine joke songs, like the recent “I Had More Silver Bullets Last Night Than the Lone Ranger” or “She Took My Keys Away, and Now She Won’t Drive me To Drink.” But Jones has also made a specialty of using puns and wordplay in the plaintive ballads that he sings like no one else — “A man can be a drunk sometimes but a drunk can’t be a man,” “At least I’ve learned to stand on my own two knees,” or “With these hundred proof memories, you can’t think and drive.”

For some people of course, this sort of punning just confirms a sense of country music as a linguistic trailer park. Since Tennyson’s time, punning has been deprecated as the basest form of humor, to the point where it’s often regarded as a kind of veiled aggressiveness (…) It’s a fitting device for these ballads, particularly when they’re tackling their favorite theme — the fragility of happiness, love, and family. There’s a joke that sums up the genre very nicely: “What do you get if you play a country song backwards?” — “You get your wife back, you get your dog back, you get your truck back…”

Taken from ‘The way we talk now’ by Geoffrey Nunberg (Houghton Mifflin, 2001)


Offline milomorris

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Re: Willie Nelson's Lost Highway
« Reply #136 on: November 11, 2009, 08:40:22 am »
If the violently homophobic message was universally obvious, I would have expected that there would have been quite a bit of outrage expressed over at DCF when this was posted. I couldn't find any.

Correction: I found 2 negative posts.
  The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Marge_Innavera

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Re: Willie Nelson's Lost Highway
« Reply #137 on: November 11, 2009, 11:16:48 am »
The people I'm talking about aren't any where near that age group.

I think you are giving hip-hop as exaggerated an influence as some people give gay culture.

And it should be unnecessary to point out that this isn't a discussion about hip-hop.

As if the discussion getting diverted into yet another snarkorama about 'androphiles' wasn't bad enough.

Marge_Innavera

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Re: Willie Nelson's Lost Highway
« Reply #138 on: November 11, 2009, 11:21:48 am »
“What do you get if you play a country song backwards?” — “You get your wife back, you get your dog back, you get your truck back…”

That phrase doesn't say nothin' about Mama. Or trains. Or bein' drunk. Or prison.

"I was drunk the day my Mama got out of prison
And I went to pick her up in the rain.
But before I could get there in my pickup truck,
She got run over by a damned ol' train
."

Offline milomorris

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Re: Willie Nelson's Lost Highway
« Reply #139 on: November 11, 2009, 11:31:59 am »
And it should be unnecessary to point out that this isn't a discussion about hip-hop.

As if the discussion getting diverted into yet another snarkorama about 'androphiles' wasn't bad enough.

Hip-hop was used as an example. And I didn't bring up androphilia, someone else did.
  The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.