Tag: Willie Nelson

Van Morrison: Til I Gain Control Again

Van Morrison Pay the Devil In addition to all of his other musical accomplishments, the Northern-Ireland-born Van Morrison is one of the greatest living interpreters of American music, be it blues, jazz, or R&B. One of his best albums in recent years is Pay the Devil (2006), where the entire CD is devoted to country music. And a standout track on the album is Rodney Crowell’s “Til I Gain Control Again,” which first appeared on Crowell’s 1981 self-titled album.

“Til I Gain Control Again” is a beautiful song about love and heartbreak, where the singer realizes that it is too late to plead for reconciliation but is not yet able to let go. So the singer’s request is not for promises or for a future, but merely “I only hope that you can hold me now /Til I can gain control again.” Crowell has explained that the line, “There are some turns where I will spin,” means that the despair will happen again (“I’ll always pass this way again”). There may not be a sadder song about love’s end.

Crowell wrote the song not long after he first arrived in Nashville, and has explained he wrote it in sort of a “three-day trance” where it was like the song came to him from another dimension. He also noted that one of the reasons he wrote the song was to get the attention of another great songwriter, Townes Van Zandt. An article from the New York Observer has a good interview with Crowell, where the article’s author concludes that “Til I Gain Control Again” is “one of those songs that are strong enough to change your life.”

Crowell’s version is fantastic, and there are several excellent covers by other great artists. Emmylou Harris was the first to record the song, which appeared on her 1975 album, Elite Hotel. Other artists who have covered the song include Waylon Jennings, Raul Malo, Albert Lee, and Willie Nelson.

Interestingly, in an interview on Texas Monthly‘s One By Willie podcast, Crowell explained how his favorite version is a studio recording by Willie Nelson where Crowell sang background. Unfortunately, that version is not widely available, appearing only on an out-of-print album sold as a bonus when people ordered by mail Nelson’s IRS Tapes. Instead, Nelson has released several live versions of the “Til I Gain Control Again.”

This live version below has both Willie and Emmylou. Check it out.

Crystal Gayle had the biggest hit with “Til I Gain Control Again,” taking it to number one in 1982. If you want something different, This Mortal Coil does an interesting sort of Goth Emo version.

It is hard to pick a favorite version, but Van Morrison’s voice and interpretation give a soulful spin on “Til I Gain Control Again.” Although most of the artists who have recorded the song come from the country genre, Morrison does something a little different with the song, taking a brilliant song with so many excellent covers and making it his own.

What is your favorite version of “Til I Gain Control Again”? Leave a comment.

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    American Tune

    American Flag

    Happy Fourth of July weekend for our readers in the U.S. In a recent post, we considered Willie Nelson’s recording of “Graceland” on his album, Across the Borderline (1993). That CD also featured another classic song written by Paul Simon, “American Tune.” The beautiful music in the song, though, was not original to Simon.

    The music we know from “American Tune” appears in the chorale from “St. Matthew Passion,” BWV 244, written by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) about the crucifixion of Christ. You may hear “American Tune” in that composition in No. 21 (Chorale – “Acknowledge Me My Keeper”), No. 23 (Chorale – “Near Thee I Would Be Staying,” and No. 53 (Chorale – “Wha’ever may vex or grieve thee”). But Bach did not create the theme.

    Bach’s composition reworked “Mein Gmüth ist mir verwirret,” composed by Hans Hassler (1564-1612), a German composer who wrote the tune around a century before Bach was born. Hassler’s song was a secular love song known in English as “My Heart is Distracted by a Gentle Maid.” Hymnist Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676) also borrowed Hassler’s tune in one of his compositions. We might call Hassler the “Father of Recycling.” Through Gerhardt and Bach, Hassler’s love song became a religious hymn (“O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,/ Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown.”). Here’s the Bach version:

    Paul Simon took the beautiful music and transformed it with new meaning in “American Tune,” which appeared on There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (1973), released as Simon’s second album after his breakup with Art Garfunkel and as America was tangled in Viet Nam and Watergate. As columnist Anne Hill explained, the song “captures perfectly all the complexity of an idealism that died but still lives; the bitter disappointment and deeper hope which are intertwined in the soul of this country.” The lyrics are vague enough to allow for various interpretations, but the music conveys the melancholy of the song while still maintaining the beauty.

    But it’s all right, it’s all right;
    You can’t be forever blessed.
    Still, tomorrow’s going to be another working day;
    And I’m trying to get some rest;
    That’s all I’m trying to get some rest.

    Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel performed Simon’s song, “American Tune,” at their famous free concert in Central Park on September 19, 1981. The performance appears on the CD, Concert in Central Park. Here is Simon solo.

    Here is Willie Nelson and Simon performing “American Tune” from Nelson’s CD, Across the Borderline. On the album version, Paul Simon produced the recording and backed up Nelson. Check it out below (YouTube also has a live version of the song performed by Nelson and Simon.)

    Eva Cassidy does a beautiful version of the song too. Among others, Peter, Paul and Mary recorded a folk song, “Because All Men Are Brothers,” which was written by Tom Glazer and is based upon the same Bach music. The song’s lyrics include: “My brother’s fears are my fears, yellow, white, or brown; / My brother’s tears are my tears, the whole wide world around.”

    Thus, Hassler’s tune written in 1601 has functioned as a song of brotherhood, a love song, a hymn of faith, and an American tune about dreams surviving a time of lost innocence. That’s a pretty good record, and a nice theme for Independence Day.

    Photo of flag and barn via woodleywonderworks.

    What do you think “American Tune” means? Which version of the music do you prefer? Leave a comment.

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    Graceland: Happy Birthday Willie Nelson!

    Graceland We celebrate the birthday of Willie Nelson’s, who was born during the final minutes of April 29, 1933 (so that his birthday is sometimes reported as April 30) in Abbott, Texas. One of my favorite Willie Nelson CDs is Across the Borderline,  which was produced by Don Was. The CD was released in 1993, during a traumatic period in Nelson’s life, a few years after his troubles with the IRS had come to a head. AllMusic rates the album highly and refers to it as an album surveying two decades of popular music by a wide variety of music writers. There are a number of guests on the CD, including Bob Dylan singing with Nelson on “Heartland,” a song the two legends wrote together. Despite the variety, though, there is a cohesion in the CD as the theme of loss weaves throughout the songs.

    Every song on the album is excellent, but standouts include the cover of two Paul Simon songs, “American Tune” and “Graceland.” I cannot find an article about the background behind “Graceland” (so don’t quote me), but I recall Paul Simon saying in an interview that he had always wanted Nelson to sing “Graceland” ever since he wrote it. Simon, who ended up playing guitar and producing the Nelson version, had to persuade Nelson to record “Graceland.” Nelson finally agreed as he eventually saw the meaning underlying the song.

    While I love Paul Simon’s version, Nelson’s voice really works well on the song, as he develops the aching notes of loss and sadness throughout the tune. When I hear Simon’s version, I think of the lyrics about the human trampoline bouncing into Graceland. But in Nelson’s version, I learned to see the loss in lines such as, “She comes back to tell me she’s gone/ As if I didn’t know that. . . As if I’d never noticed / The way she brushed her hair from her forehead.”

    Throughout the album Across the Borderline and its themes surrounding life’s pain and wreckage, there are moments of hope. The album ends with “Still is Still Moving to Me,” a Nelson original that invokes Eastern and taoist beliefs in keeping on and accepting. Similarly, the song “Graceland” ends with hope out of the loss: “Maybe I’ve a reason to believe / We all will be received / In Graceland.”

    The recording of the song on Across the Borderline is one of those rare moments when two musical geniuses are able to take what was already an outstanding song and make it powerfully relevant to a new singer. On the album, Nelson does all the singing, but in this version below, the two come together for a live performance to sing “Graceland” together. It is a a nice way to celebrate Nelson’s birthday today.

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