Willie Nelson has written some of the most chilling, bluntly honest portrayals of the anguish of separation and the shock of finding oneself suddenly alone. With [Phases and Stages] Nelson attempts one of the most ambitious country projects ever: a concept album on the subject of breaking up. Ordinarily, concept albums strike me as pretentious bores (someone will call this one "the Sgt. Pepper of C&W," "the shitkicker's Tommy"), but I find Phases and Stages extraordinarily convincing….

["I Still Can't Believe You're Gone"] is without doubt the saddest, most compelling C&W song I've ever heard….

On Phases and Stages, Nelson describes a separation, first from the woman's point of view (side one), then from the man's (side two). Both are true to the milieu in which Nelson works. The woman runs away, finds another, but still wonders; the man loses himself in self-pity and then assumes...