I swear, Willie Nelson just gets better with age…
His 98th career studio album (his 73rd solo studio album to go along with his 26 collaborative studio albums) I Don’t Know A Thing About Love is out everywhere today, just a couple months ahead of his 90th birthday, and of course, it’s top-notch.
The new project consists of fresh takes of 10 classic songs penned by the legendary American songwriter Harlan Howard, who was an early inspiration of Willie’s, and quite famously defined a great country song as “three chords and the truth.”
Over a six-decade career, Harlan churned out dozens of hits, and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1973 and, in 1997, was inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
And easily one of my favorites on the album is the title track, which was originally written by Harlan and became the second single from Conway’s 1984 record, By Heart. It also became his 32nd #1 on country radio.
The cleverly written song finds the heartbroken narrator looking up at the moon and asking all sorts of questions about where his love is and what she’s doing.
It’s an absolute knockout of a track from a lyrical standpoint:
“Then I asked him ‘Where is she tonight?
You must see all things with your light.’
He said, ‘Son, I could tell you things that might kill you,
But I don’t get involved in what’s wrong or right.
I don’t know a thing about love,
I just kind of hang here above.
I just watch from the sky,
Will love grow, will it die?
I don’t know a thing about love’”
And Willie brings his own, unique touch to it that proves once again, the country icon and living legend is just a cut above everyone else, and has been for the better part of 65 years now.
“I Don’t Know A Thing About Love”
Don’t just take my word for it, though… do yourself a favor and check it out for yourself.
Here are a few of my other favorites:
“Excuse Me (I Think I’ve Got A Heartache)”
“Life Turned Her That Way”
“She Called Me Baby”
I Don’t Know A Thing About Love tracklist:
1. Tiger By The Tail
2. The Chokin’ Kind
3. Excuse Me (I Think I’ve Got A Heartache)
4. Life Turned Her That Way
5. I Don’t Know A Thing About Love
6. Streets Of Baltimore
7. Busted
8. She Called Me Baby
9. Too Many Rivers
10. Beautiful Annabel Lee
