PATSY YOUR ENTHUSIASM (18)
By:
August 31, 2026
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite… Country Music of the Fifties (1954–1963)! Series edited by Josh Glenn. Qobuz playlist here.
WILLIE NELSON | FUNNY HOW TIME SLIPS AWAY | 1962
Ex lovers run into one another in the street. Pleasantries are exchanged. We hear the singer’s side of the dialogue. Paraphrased: well, hello there. Yes, it’s been a while. How am I? Fine thanks. Gee, how long has it been? That long, huh? And so on. The verse ends with a throwaway line about the all-too-rapid passing of time. It’s not a drama, though, this time passing business. Mildly amusing, if anything. The elaborately half-spoken, half-sung, behind-the-beat vocal is set against a loping ‘rhythm and blues lite’ feel so typical of the early sixties jukebox B-sides. The backing vocals wander around a major seventh progression, and a lazy piano figure drops into the gaps. We’re just floating along here. Maybe the singer is even a little bored with it all.
The exchange continues. The singer asks after the new boyfriend, remarking that he heard somewhere that she has sworn to love him till the end of time. (How would he know that? Creepy.) Oddly enough, she vowed the very same to the singer, not that long ago. Then once again a reference to the passage of time. This time thing is getting tricky. Third verse, more studied offhandedness: Oh well, better be off. Not sure when I’ll be back in town. Oh, and by the way, a little something for you to be going on with. Know this: There will be a settling of accounts. Not now, necessarily, but in time. And hasn’t he been saying all along, time is hurtling forward?
The random but emotionally tumultuous meeting in public was a well-established scenario of country music when Nelson wrote this. Hank Williams had sung of encountering his ex, strolling with her current beau in ‘I Can’t Help It If I’m Still In Love With You’, from 1951. Hands brush as they pass, and the singer is brought undone by desire, jealousy, impotence. A genteel touch of hands also leads off Cindy Walker’s great ‘You Don’t Know Me,’ (1955). Again the singer is floored by private longing and regret. And self-recrimination: they were too shy to ever make a move, and now it’s too late. (You can find Walker on YouTube, fifty years later, breaking up as she tells of writing the song.)
But Willie Nelson’s narrator is having none of that I’ll-just-wander-off-and-suffer-in-silence stuff. He’s sending the bad vibes back to the faithless one. Friendly warning? Bitter curse? The drollery hovers unresolved between chivalry and menace. That menace steadily waxes throughout the song but by close of business is still the minor element. Maybe it’s the latency that makes it so potent.
PATSY YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn. Nadine Hubbs on Marty Robbins’ EL PASO | Elizabeth Nelson on Dave Dudley’s SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD | Lynn Peril on Jean Chapel’s WELCOME TO THE CLUB | David Cantwell on Porter Wagoner’s MY BONFIRE | Will Hermes on Johnny Cash’s RING OF FIRE | Mimi Lipson on Loretta Lynn’s I’M A HONKY TONK GIRL | Charles Hughes on Roger Miller’s YOU DON’T WANT MY LOVE | Eric Weisbard on Lefty Frizzell’s THE LONG BLACK VEIL | Steacy Easton on Jean Shepard’s A SATISFIED MIND | Josh Glenn on Johnny Cash’s THE REBEL — JOHNNY YUMA | Carlo Rotella on Buck Owens’ CLOSE UP THE HONKY TONKS | Annie Nocenti on Patsy Cline’s THREE CIGARETTES IN AN ASHTRAY | Douglas Wolk on Lucky Starr’s I’VE BEEN EVERYWHERE | Will Groff on Ray Price’s NIGHT LIFE | Jonny Auping on Willie Nelson’s CRAZY | Brian Berger on Ernest Tubb’s THE YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS | Jason Grote on Bill Browning and His Echo Valley Boys’ DARK HOLLOW | Peter Doyle on Willie Nelson’s FUNNY HOW TIME SLIPS AWAY | Sam Glenn on Johnny Cash’s BIG RIVER | Mark Richardson on Elvis Presley’s BLUE MOON | Adam McGovern on Elvis Presley’s BLACK STAR / FLAMING STAR | Chris Spurgeon on Ricky Nelson’s BELIEVE WHAT YOU SAY | Stephen Thomas Erlewine on George Jones’ WHITE LIGHTNING | Devin McKinney on George Hamilton IV’s ABILENE | Annie Zaleski on Patsy Cline’s WALKIN’ AFTER MIDNIGHT.
ALSO SEE: DOLLY YOUR ENTHUSIASM (25 of our favorite Country records from 1964–1973) | & more Country at HILOBROW, including short appreciations of Gene Pitney, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Buck Owens, George Jones, June Carter Cash, Charley Pride, and many others.
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