“My American dream fell apart at the seam,” sing Nelson and Bob Dylan in this elegy to America’s family farmers. A track from Nelson’s 1993 Across the Borderline, the song details in plain language the war between forlorn farmers and unsympathetic bankers, with the latter undeniably the victor. Willie wrote the song with Dylan, who famously inspired Nelson’s annual Farm Aid benefit concerts with his off-hand remark at 1985’s Live Aid that something should be done to help U.S. farmers. The lyrics are unapologetic, brimming with as much indignation as Mellencamp’s “Rain on the Scarecrow,” but it’s the pairing of two of music’s most unconventional voices that makes it a must-hear.
–rollingstone.com