It seems not even the pandemic can stop Willie Nile’s late-career purple patch - this is his fifth studio album in as many years. Indeed, it appears the COVID crisis provided the backdrop and the spark that helped create this latest collection of the hugely talented, and immensely likable New Yorker’s work.
Willie took a walk through downtown New York, normally some of the busiest streets on the planet, at the start of lock-down. The seemingly post-apocalyptic scenario, of cavernous and empty streets, and huge silent skyscrapers confronting him instantly reminded Willie of the old 1950s Sci-Fi classic movie, and he had his title for the new collection.
Throw in his adept flair for painting a scene in a few succinct words, tie that in with a rocking soundtrack, and the album kicks off with its own mini-movie, complete with victims and bad guys:
There was panic in the cities. There was terror in the towns. There were teardrops fallin’ on every street, the day it all came down. There’s mothers holding babies, wailing on the window sills. There was preachers begging down on their knees, the day the earth stood still. I saw grown men cry, making out their will, the day the earth stood still.
As he travels the empty streets of his beloved New York, he sings of an apocalyptic view of the streets around and considers the future of the world.
But as always in his music, there is a positive ending – or at least hope for the future – based on our own innate ability to care for others. This is street smart, literate rock and roll, served up with a large side of fun. Witness ‘Where There’s A Willie, There’s A Way’, single entendre clearly meant, and with a nod to The Stooges, and The Ramones. ‘Off My Medication’ is another comedic romp set to a pulsating backbeat.
Classic good time rock set off with a slice of Willie’s self-deprecating humour.
But there’s a real passion here too – most noticeable on the crusading ‘Blood On Your Hands’, which calls out those who make a cheap buck on the back of others. Willie has talked about the deaths of 600,000 of his countryfolk who have died during this pandemic. Some, he maintains, have “danced with the devil” to make a profit from others’ misery. But there will be a reckoning, for those with “blood on their hands” when – as he puts it – “the piper gets paid”.
Singing alongside and mixing verses is fellow-minded crusader and country-rock giant Steve Earle, himself no stranger to calling out social issues as he sees them.
Blood on your hands. Blood on your hands. There’s cracks in the walls of your best-laid plans. Blood on your hands. Blood on your feet. There’s bodies piling up down on New York streets.
‘Expect Change’ with its insistent driving musical charge and vocal refrain does exactly what it says on the tin – another call for better times with justice for everyone. ‘The Justice Bell’ is a song to the late civil rights icon and Congressman John Lewis, and one can see there is a line tying the songs together.
Willie’s romantic side is represented by the beautiful ballads, ‘I Will Stand’ and ‘Way Of The Heart’, and they are every bit as affecting as Nile classics like ‘Asking Annie Out’ and ‘Her Love Falls Like Rain’.
Willie Nile has played with – and been feted as an equal by – the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Pete Townsend, and Ringo Starr to name a few. Anyone fortunate enough to witness Willie Nile perform live will know that he delivers an energetic show of street smart rock and roll that never fails to leave his audience with a smile on their faces.