Willie Nelson seems to have gotten mortality out of his system, for now. Following two consecutive albums on which the now-86-year-old confronted the inevitable head-on—sometimes with canny humor, sometimes not, but never in a maudlin way—he’s got other things to sing about this time around. There’s the title track, a promise to a horse whose time of service now approaches the end, and Guy Clark’s “Immigrant Eyes,” a timely tribute to the many who found their way to these shores, “bound by the dream that they shared.” There’s the profound sadness of a loss all too familiar in today’s world: “In these days of change and mass communication, seems like no one’s plugged into the sounds of desperation.” And the cheeky “It’s Hard to Be Humble,” is erected on the words (written by Mac Davis) of a man who needs no reassurance that he’s the tops. Every performance— even the surprising, and surprisingly endearing, cover of Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are”—is given a note-perfect, wholly honest treatment by this American treasure. Nelson never fails to bring warmth and soul to a performance: Each syllable he sings on Ride Me Back Home comes from a lifetime of living to the fullest. “My Favorite Picture of You,” a Clark co-write, might have been rendered flatly is lesser hands, but when Willie Nelson sings, “My favorite picture of you is the one where you’re staring straight into the lens,” you know—without having a clue what the picture is—precisely what he’s seeing.