The 500 - #183 - Red Headed Stranger - Willie Nelson

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #183
Album Title: Red Headed Stranger
Artist: Willie Nelson

Genre: Outlaw Country

Recorded: Autumn Sound (Garland, Texas)

Released: May, 1975
My age at release: 9
How familiar was I with it before this week: One song

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #237, dropping 54 places
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain

Album cover for Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger (1975).

As has been documented numerous times in this blog series, I am a huge fan of concept albums -- those records whose individual tracks hold a larger meaning when listened to as a whole. My favourites include 2112 from Rush; The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway from Genesis; Misplaced Childhood from Marillion; and Operation: Mindcrime from Queensryche. A few of my other favourites have even made The 500 list, including The Who's Tommy; David Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust; Elton John's Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy; and Pink Floyd's The Wall.

A selection of concept records from the Progressive Rock genre.

Colour me surprised on learning that concept records had been recorded by country artists. Released in the spring of 1975, Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger was hailed by critics as one of the best from both the outlaw country genre and as a concept record. Rolling Stone Magazine listed it at #26 in its October, 2022, article, The 50 Greatest Concept Albums of All Time. (I covered the outlaw country genre in detail in my 2023 post about Nelson's 1978 record Stardust.)

Album cover for Willie Nelson's Stardust (1978).

Red Headed Stranger tells the story of a preacher, turned fugitive, who is on the run in the American southwest (Texas to Colorado) after killing his wife and her lover. The titular character then wanders aimlessly from town to town in an alcoholic haze of self-loathing, riding a black stallion while toting behind him the pony of his deceased wife. There is plenty of room for metaphoric interpretation based on that image.

A shot from the film adaptation of Red Headed Stranger.  Nelson, as the

titular antihero, riding his stallion while towing his late wife's pony – ,

loaded figuratively and literally with the baggage of his past.

There is a shift at the midpoint of the record. The story could be interpreted as an allegory for "The American Dream". The Stranger continuing his westward quest, seeking a fresh start to his life. He meets a new love in Denver and the music becomes noticeably more upbeat, with some songs written in a buoyant waltz time. The final track is the instrumental Bandera. However, the song that precedes it, Hands On The Wheel, suggests that redemption for The Stranger has been found in the heart of a woman who loves him unconditionally.

"And I looked to the stars,
Tried all of the bars,
And I've nearly gone up in smoke.
Now my hand's on the wheel,
I've something that's real,

And I feel like I'm going home."

Red Headed Stranger absolutely wowed me. I listened to it perhaps a dozen times in the week leading up to this posting. In future, when I talk about my favourite concept records, this album will certainly be among them. There is something stirring and beautiful in the album's simplicity. Much like the wide open vistas so typical in a western movie, Red Headed Stranger is sparse and uncomplicated, with lots of space for contemplation and interpretation -- none of it hurried.

"Some day when we meet up yonder
We'll stroll hand-in-hand again
In a land that knows no parting
Blue eyes crying in the rain."

The 500 - #225 - American Idiot - Green Day

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #225
Album Title: American Idiot
Artist: Green Day
Genre: Punk Rock, Pop Rock, Concept Rock
Recorded: Three Studios in California

Released: September, 2004
My age at release: 39
How familiar was I with it before this week: Very

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #248, dropping 23 places since the 2012 list.
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Jesus of Suburbia

Like many people of my vintage who did not have older siblings, my first record collection belonged to my parents. Nestled among the Nana Mouskouri, Elvis Presley and Mario Lanza records were a small assortment of soundtracks from movies and musicals. Some came from films I had seen -- The Sound Of Music, Oliver and Mary Poppins. Others were from unfamiliar sources -- Saturday Night Fever, Fiddler On The Roof and My Fair Lady.  Regardless, I loved them all and spent many Saturday afternoons doing school work or sorting hockey cards while listening to Chaim Topol as Tevye the Milkman sing If I Were A Rich Man.

Fiddler On The Roof album cover depicting Tevye the Milkman.

It's a bit of pop-psychology on my part, but I think this is where my love of concept albums, particularly those composed in the 1970s, was born. There is no consensus from music critics on the definition, but a "concept album" typically refers to a record that, much like the songs on a soundtrack to a musical, contains individual tracks that hold a larger meaning collectively than they do on their own. Generally, the meaning is communicated through a theme or central narrative.

An assortment of concept records, including a few of my favourites.

In 1979, as I was starting to develop my teenage taste in music, I discovered two records that supercharged my passion for the concept album and made me a fan for life of the respective creators. The first was 2112, a 1977 release from the Canadian progressive-rock trio Rush. Side one features a 20-minute, seven-part rock suite about a dystopian, collectivist future ruled by a cabal of virulent priests who outlawed individualism and creativity. It was the kind of content my 14-year-old brain craved.

Album cover for 2112 by Rush.

The other record was The Wall from British progressive-rock group Pink Floyd (#87 on The 500). At the time, this two-record epic meditation on war, loss, addiction, isolation, celebrity and fascism was almost too much for me to comprehend. In fact, I spent many hours throughout high school trying to understand all its subtleties. In retrospect, that time might have been better spent on my studies but I regret nothing.

Album cover for Pink Floyd's The Wall.

Throughout the ‘80s and early ‘90s, concept albums remained an important part of my audio diet. Others released before 1980 could be found in used record bins, such as The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (Genesis, 1975), Thick As A Brick (Jethro Tull, 1972) or Tommy (The Who, 1969, at #96 on The 500). More were released as I hit my 20s, including Misplaced Childhood (Marillion, 1985) and Operation: Mindcrime (Queensryche, 1988). The complex musicianship and clever, political, emotional and socially charged lyrical content synced with my disaffected, socially-critical early-twenties mindset.

Album cover for Operation: Mindcrime, Queensryche.

Then, around 1990 and in my mid-20s my interest in concept albums waned. My appetite for themes of rebellion, unrequited romance, tragedy and social commentary, so robust in my youth, began to shift as my taste in music broadened and perspective matured. By 2004, when Green Day's American Idiot was released, I believed the concept album was a relic of the past. Moreover, with the release of the iPod and a variety of other digital music players, it seemed the "album" itself was dead as a standard packaging of tracks.

2nd Generation Nano iPod playing Jesus Of Suburbia,
from Green Day's American Idiot (2004)

Indeed, in 2004-05, I was teaching Grade 8 students, many of whom owned one of the small, digital music players on the market. Their focus was on individual songs rather than albums. These 13-year-old music fans regarded vinyl records and compact discs as prehistoric media of their parents' generation. Then along came American Idiot, the seventh studio record from California pop-punk trio Green Day, and changed everything for them...and me.

Green Day are (l-r) Mike Dirnt, Billie-Joe Armstrong & Tre Cool. 

Seemingly overnight, the fashion in my classroom shifted. Sure, there were many still sporting a hip-hop look, with closely cropped Eminem-styled haircuts, oversized baggy pants that hung below their boxer short waistbands and flat-brimmed baseball hats turned comically sideways on their heads. However, some (particularly the girls) began sporting skinny jeans, untucked black button-down shirts, beanie hats, studded chokers, red ties and Converse sneakers. And, of course, Green Day concert T-shirts -- especially after May, 2005, when the band performed at the John Labatt Centre in my hometown of London, Ontario.

Green Day Fashion for teens (circa 2005)

Rest assured, this then-39-year-old teacher did not adopt the punk-rock ensemble...mid-life crisis aside. However, like many of my students, I obtained a copy of the entire record, not just a few tracks, and for the first time in more than 15 years, I was emotionally invested in a concept record. In 2005, I even bought the CD and DVD, Bullet In A Bible,  featuring a live performance from their American Idiot U.K. tour.

The punk-rock opera features a narrative set in the shadow of 9/11, the Iraq War and the presidency of George W. Bush. The protagonist is a disillusioned teenage slacker, dubbed the Jesus of Suburbia. This anti-hero describes himself as "a son of rage and love", surviving on a "steady diet of soda pop and Ritalin", looking for meaning in a world where he feels he cannot trust the media or government.

In many ways, the themes on the record line-up nicely with those concept records I loved in my teens/early twenties -- 2112, The Wall, Misplaced Childhood, The Lamb and Operation:Mindcrime. However, listening to American Idiot when I was 39 failed to inspire the same revolutionary, nihilistic energy of my youth. The angry, romantic outsider that I used to be had been replaced by a calm, professional adult staring down his 40s. Regardless, I embraced the record and enjoyed seeing my young students connect  with its message of moral, political and social outrage. Most of all, I enjoyed watching them head toward their high-school years, inspired by art the same way I had been two decades earlier. That time when fascination with Fiddler On The Roof turned passe I discovered that music and lyrics could be complex narratives, shaping and lasting a lifetime.