CD Review: Willie Nile’s The Great Yellow Light (2025)

It’s been 45 years since the release of singer/songwriter Willie Nile’s self-titled debut album by Arista Records, and the mere fact that the artist isn’t a household name on par with, say, his buddy Bruce – with whom he is often compared – is a national disgrace. As high-energy, intelligent, and rocking a debut LP as you’d find in the 1980s, Nile followed it up with the equally spirited 1981 album, Golden Dawn. From this point, though, he followed Springsteen’s path with label disputes, lawsuits, and years spent in the wilderness before signing with Columbia Records for 1991’s Places I Have Never Been, another fine album, and one with which Nile arguably found his creative voice and sound.

Places I Have Never Been received little label support and went nowhere, and Nile lapsed into obscurity. Not that he wasn’t performing, writing songs, and such – Nile recorded and performed during the ‘90s with legends like Ringo Starr, Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams, and Ian Hunter, among others. No big-league label would touch him, though, and Nile followed his contemporary Joe Grushecky down the rabbit hole and went ‘indie,’ releasing the critically-acclaimed Beautiful Wreck of the World in 1999. Freed from the chains of major label restrictions, Nile went on a musical bender, resulting in a string of incredible albums, starting with 2006’s Streets of New York and extending through House of A Thousand Guitars (2008), American Ride (2013), and Children of Paradise (2018).

Willie Nile’s The Great Yellow Light

The Great Yellow Light is Nile’s 12th studio album since the turn of the century, and his 21st recording overall, and it’s obvious that the artist has yet to run out of fresh and exciting song ideas but, also, at 76 years old, he still has the energy and ambition of his debut album. Witness album-opener “Wild Wild World,” a bristling rocker with florid lyrics delivered with a fervor artists half Nile’s age can’t muster. The song’s gonzo storytelling is all over the map, but it boils down to the now-quaint (but never outdated) message that the Beatles gave us so many years ago, “all you need is love.” The twangy throwback guitar on the performance reminds of James Burton and really tickles the eardrums. Opening with a livewire guitar lick, “Electrify Me” kicks off with Nile’s earnest plea, rolling into a crackling new perspective on romance that is punkish in its intensity but Dylanesque in its joyous wordplay.

Willie Nile photo courtesy Willie Nile

 

“An Irish Goodbye” is a duet with underrated Irish singer/songwriter Paul Brady, a magnificently epic performance with crackerjack lyrics (“here’s fire in your whiskey, here’s mud in your eye”) and brilliant storytelling delivered with soulful nuance. Brady’s gruffer, accented vocals play off Nile’s wiry tenor quite nicely, and the musical addition of tin whistle and uillean pipes (courtesy of Black 47’s Fred Parcels and Chris Byrne, respectively…) reflect elements of the beloved Pogues. As Lou Reed once told Elliott Murphy, “if you want to hide poetry, put it in a rock ‘n’ roll song because no one will ever look there*,” and the album’s title track – the title a reference to Vincent Van Gogh – offers up brilliant poetic imagery in the service to a gorgeous romantic fantasy with crescendos of instrumentation and breathless vocals.

The self-referential “Tryin’ To Make A Livin’ In the U.S.A.” welds a familiar Nile melody to a hillbilly rocker that re-imagines Nile’s career with tongue-in-cheek lyrics (“there’s nothing wrong with me a hit record wouldn’t cure”) and the undeniable spirit of a man who has forged his own path through the barbed wire-clad minefield of the music business. Nile’s not afraid to offer a bit of trenchant social commentary with his songs, typically delivered with insight, and The Great Yellow Light includes two such “call to arms” in “Wake Up America” and “Washington’s Day.” The former, a duet with Nile’s country equivalent Steve Earle, is a wonderfully wry look at the state of the nation that points out the hypocrisy of hate and bigotry while the latter is a mid-tempo rocker which evokes the founding fathers in a brilliant essay on brotherhood and sacrifice.   

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

There’s not a dud among the ten songs on The Great Yellow Light, which is more than I can say about even the most erstwhile talents on the charts. Nile brings a fervor and heartfelt energy to every song as if his life depended on it. Much like his spiritual brethren – artists like Joe Grushecky, Elliott Murphy, Steve Wynn, and a few others – Nile is a poet in rock ‘n’ roll garb, a guise, a ruse, and a commercial burden that he’s carried across five decades but which has never kept him from shooting for the brass ring while staying true to his muse. I can honestly say that I’ve never heard a bad Willie Nile album, and that the man continues to deliver music as vital and intelligent as that on The Great Yellow Light is a testament to his talent, vision, and artistic ambitions. Grade: A+ (River House Records, released June 20th, 2025)

* Lou Reed quote from Fred De Vries’ wonderful Elliott Murphy interview in Record Time zine issue #3

Buy the album from Amazon: Willie Nile’s The Great Yellow Light

Also on That Devil Music:
Willie Nile - Positively Bob: Willie Nile Sings Bob Dylan review
Willie Nile - Children of Paradise review
Willie Nile - Beautiful Wreck of the World review