Willie Nelson Releasing ‘Last Leaf on the Tree’ Covers LP With Tracks Written By Neil Young, Beck, Tom Waits, Flaming Lips & More

Willie Nelson will release his 153rd album, Last Leaf on the Tree, on Nov. 1. The Legacy Recordings LP features a mix of the country icon’s interpretations of songs by Tom Waits, Keith Richards, Beck, the Flaming Lips, Neil Young, and Nina Simone, among others, as well as a handful of tracks written by the singer and his son, Micah Nelson, who also produced the album.

The first single from the collection is a cover of Tom Waits’ “Last Leaf,” a melancholy meditation from Waits’ 2011 Bad As Me album about the autumn of life that speaks to the 91-year-old country icon’s legendarily indefatigable spirit and boundless energy well into his six decade as a performer. “I’m the last leaf on the tree/ The autumn took the rest/ But they won’t take me/ I’m the last leaf on the tree,” Nelson sings in a hushed voice over his signature nylon string guitar strumming in the song that confronts the vicissitudes of aging.

The collection, Nelson’s 76th solo studio album, marks the first time Micah — who performs and produces under the name Particle Kid — has produced one of his dad’s albums, though they have appeared together on family LPs such as 2017’s Willie and the Boys and 2021’s The Willie Nelson Family.

“It’s an approach that I really love and have used a lot over the years — just throwing the clay down and stepping back, then maybe adding a little more, and then maybe shaving down here, and kind of building the tracks that way,” said Micah, 34, who said he used a “sculptor’s approach” to working on the album on which he played more than a dozen instruments, including guitar, piano and “sticks and branches, logs and dead leaves” according to a press release.

Micah also created the album’s cover illustration and made the animation for the “Last Leaf” video, as well as illustrating the album cover and creating the animation for the “Last Leaf” video along with his wife, Alexandra Dascalu Nelson; in addition to digital, CD and LP versions, Nelson’s webstore will also sell an exclusive, limited-edition version with a lithograph created by Micah.

The choice of “Last Leaf” was fitting according to Micah Nelson, as his dad has not shied away from addressing the unstoppable march of time before as well as facing his own mortality via a series of health scares, including on the title track of his 2018 album Last Man Standing, on which he lamented watching “my pals check out.” Micah said, “there are little side-quests, but that became the through-line — facing death with grace.”

That vibe makes sense given such song selections as Warren Zevon’s bittersweet ode to everlasting love “Keep Me In Your Heart,” as well as another haunting Waits song, “House Where Nobody Lives” and the Lips’ joyful meditation on the preciousness of life, “Do You Realize??” Another track that fits the theme of the fading of the light was chosen by Nelson’s longtime harmonica player, Mickey Raphael, jazz giant Nina Simone’s 1967 song “Come Ye.”

In addition to the Nelsons and Raphael, the album also features guest musicians Daniel Lanois on pedal steel, former Doors drummer John Densmore and Senegalese percussionist Magatte Sow.

Listen to Nelson’s “Last Leaf on the Tree” and see the album’s track list below.

Last Leaf on the Tree track list:

1. “Last Leaf” (written by Tom Waits & Kathleen Brennan)

2. “If It Wasn’t Broken” (written by Sydney Lyndella Ward)

3. “Lost Cause” (written by Beck David Hansen)

4. “Come Ye” (written by Nina Simone)

5. “Keep Me In Your Heart” (written by Warren Zevon & Jorge Calderon)

6. “Robbed Blind” (written by Keith Richards)

7. “House Where Nobody Lives” (written by Tom Waits)

8. “Are You Ready For The Country?” (written by Neil Young)

9. “Do You Realize??” (written by Wayne Coyne/Steven Drozd/Michael Ivins/David Fridmann)

10. “Wheels” (written by Micah Nelson)

11. “Broken Arrow” (written by Neil Young)

12. “Color Of Sound” (written by Willie Nelson & Micah Nelson)

13. “The Ghost” (written by Willie Nelson)

This album comes after Willie Nelson's duet with Orville Peck on a cover of Ned Sublette's "Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other." Here's what Peck had to say about the collaboration. - Billboard Canada

This article was originally published by Billboard U.S.