If humans are to weather the impending Storm of the Machines, then it is essential for us to deploy our Gorilla Dust in the form of unpredictable eclecticism, the beauty of our whims remaining just beyond the controlling clutches of the Algorithm. The only music streaming service that I reluctantly utilize is YouTube Music, and, sadly, I use it far more than I should. Like its’ larger competitor, YouTube feels compelled to try and make sense of what I have listened to from January to December and then sends me some kind of tidy, annual wrap-up of my listening preferences. Well, the Machines could not make any sense of mine, simply threw up its’ virtual hands and declared my musical taste to be “indescribable”. Phew. 

    I will sheepishly admit that I did enjoy seeing a bit of the data behind its’ befuddlement. YouTube claims that I listened to 1,311 artists from 37 countries during 2025. This sounds about right. From French hip-hop (see previous post) to Aussie punk, from 1980s metal to melancholy Euro-Pop, from alt/outlaw country to Hawaiian ukulele, I love it all. If I was forced to draw a common line through it all, my best descriptor would be “lyrical humanism.”  

     If there is one man who could be considered the Patron Saint of Lyrical Humanism, it would be Willie Nelson. I have loved the man and his music for decades now. I have acquired a fair number of his albums over the years, but Willie is directly responsible for releasing over 150 albums over 63 years, not to mention the 100’s of others he has contributed to. Yesterday, I was at a record sale at Still Life in Hilo and I picked up a copy of his 1971 LP Yesterday’s Wine. It was not a difficult decision given that it contains two of my favorite Willie tracks “Yesterday’s Wine” and “Me and Paul”

Listening to it for the first time, my hot take was “wow, this is pure Willie.” It is really a wonderful album that represents the essence of Willie Nelson, that is soulful storytelling. Or “lyrical humanism”, if you will. Apparently, however, this album almost ended Willie Nelson as an artist. At this time in 1971, Willie was going through “some things.” He had just split with his wife, Shirley Collie, after she accidentally discovered he had fathered a daughter with Connie Koepke. He had been using his songwriting royalties to underwrite unsuccessful concert tours. His Tennessee ranch burned down. He was due to record another record for RCA, but had no new material.

Over the course of two days, Willie would write the songs for Yesterday’s Wine drawing inspiration from recent readings of the Bible, Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet and the works of Edgar Cayce. The result is considered one of country music’s first concept albums. It was not particularly well-received at the time. According to Willie, one of RCA’s executives declared, “It’s your f_ckin’ worst album to date” and could not figure out how to promote it. They released a single of “Yesterday’s Wine” with “Me and Paul” on the B-side, the former only making it to #62 on Billboard’s country singles chart. As the L’s began to stack up in the loss column, Willie considered retiring from music, but thankfully he pivoted away from Nashville and embraced the Texas scene where had he moved after losing his Tennessee home. He refused to re-up his deal with RCA Victor and then went on to release Shotgun Willie, Phases and Stages, and Red Headed Stranger, (another concept album and one of my faves) in just under two years for other labels.

Willie himself considers Yesterday’s Wine as one of his best albums. In his 2015 autobiography, Nelson reminisced about this turbulent time in his life: “I looked up and simply began asking questions. Rather than keep those questions to myself, I put them into songs. The songs became my own particular prayers, my own personal reflections. I strung those prayers and reflections together in a loose-fitting suite of songs. Music critics were throwing around the term “concept album”…I guess you could say that this new notion of mine came together as a concept album. Rather than try to write a bunch of hit singles, I simply followed the natural path taken by my mind.”

As the Algorithm forces us into accepting ever more targeted “answers” that are fragmented and often devoid of artistic context, the original intent and impact of their human creators is increasingly threatened. On the film side of things, I often use my experience with The Godfather as an example. I was too young to have seen it when it came out in the theatres. (Interesting to note that it was being filmed at the same time Willie was writing Yesterday’s Wine. It seems 1971 was a good year for art.) I would end up watching the film a couple of times in the 1980’s and early 1990’s either on VHS or cable TV. While I understood its’ acclaim, I didn’t quite get fuss. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s when I finally caught a screening of it at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens that I saw it the way it was meant to be seen – on a giant, widescreen in a dark theatre full of people. It was an entirely different movie and my mind was blown. Similarly, it is something of an artistic revelation to take these two songs I have loved for decades, “Yesterday’s Wine” and “Me and Paul”, and put them back where they belong in the complete space that the artist originally made for them.

Enough listening to me. Go listen to Willie, and, if possible, the entirety of Yesterday’s Wine.