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Music

Watch Country Icons Willie Nelson and Loretta Lynn Duet on "Lay Me Down"

The two old-time country icons take the stage together for the first time in 30 years to bring this dusky meditation on the great hereafter to life.

Photo courtesy of Sony

Loretta Lynn's chart-busting new album, Full Circle, has been out for a few weeks now, and I'm still all twitterpated from our interview, wherein we sat down together and talked about all manner of things, from her backwoods upbringing and fierce business acumen to her preferred way to pluck a chicken. It's a beautiful album, and one of its standout tracks, "Lay Me Down," is a sweet, melancholy duet between Lynn and her old pal (and legend in his own right), Willie Nelson. In a new video, the two old-time country icons take the stage together for the first time in 30 years to bring this dusky meditation on mortality and the great hereafter to life.

"Lay Me Down" itself is a lovely acoustic number. Willie and Loretta have long been known for their duets with other people, but this song is enough to make you wish they'd hurry up and cut an album together. Their two voices blend beautifully, with his reedy Texas warble layering with her twangy Kentucky drawl, and the visual aspect is unbeatable: the Redheaded Stranger's braids have gone gray, the mountain girl's still arrayed in one of her trademark lacey confections, and there's a very real warmth in these old friends' faces as they trade lines, eyes sparking, voices rising in harmony.

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Seeing these two legends in their twilight years, their faces lined but fingers steady, singing soft and strong about death, isn't something you'll soon forget. Apologies in advance if you find a tear or two in your coffee.

They're just so cute together. I love them so much, and wish them all the peace in the world—just don't take them away from us yet, Lord. Not yet.

Kim Kelly is still a backwoods girl on Twitter.