Willi Carlisle blends the absurd and the sentimental on ‘Winged Victory’

Scott Simon | June 28, 2025

Willi Carlisle Press Photo by Whit Stone.jpg

The songs on Willi Carlisle’s new album are full of cowboys, dreamers, weirdos and misfits. There’s also a donkey, after whom the album is named.

On Winged Victory, the Kansas native employs more than half a dozen instruments, addresses issues of class and pulls from both childhood memories as well as Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

The 11 tracks on the album are a mix of originals and cover songs — drawing from traditional, uncredited folk songs (“We Have Fed You All for 1000 Years”) to modern classics from the likes of Richard Thompson (“Beeswing”) and American folk singer Mark Ross (“Old Bill Pickett”). Delicate moments can quickly turn toward stream-of-consciousness surrealism.

Carlisle’s varied vocal style — which he says “verges from singing like a drag queen at a vaudeville show” to “a delicate whisper” — plays a key role. “I learned to sing by being in choirs in Kansas and in rural Illinois and also by calling square dances,” Carlisle explains. “So, I’ve got a big voice and a little one.” And he uses both, to full effect, on Winged Victory.

On the donkey named “Winged Victory”

Carlisle was at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C., with a bunch of friends who were representing the Ozarks, playing traditional tunes with “old folks and traditional artists and weavers and cooks,” he says.

“I was being a true bad folklorist,” Carlisle says. “I was drunk on moonshine, but also was taking copious notes.” The group was talking about animals with funny names and one of his notes said: “A donkey named Winged Victory?” He’ll never know if that donkey is real or imagined.

“And I just thought it was so funny,” laughs Carlisle, “that I had to write a song about it.”

On delivering a message through his songs

“I believe that a folk singer should be a dreamer with a long memory,” Carlisle says.

Labor struggles and the working class have long been themes in Carlisle’s repertoire. The first song on his new album is “We Have Fed You All for 1000 Years.” Originally written by an “unknown proletariat,” it’s a traditional song from the labor movement that dates back to the beginning of the 20th Century.

“It’s the first folk song I really fell in love with,” says Carlisle. “It comes from … a time when workers wanted to coexist with other wild leftist movements that were happening around the globe. When Zapatistas and miners might be sharing the same pamphlets.”

He was a teenager when he first heard the tune, sung by anarchist folk singer Utah Phillips. And it stuck with him.

“It kind of started me down a pathway of learning about these working class folk songs,” Carlisle says. “And in a world of big cowboy hats and bad politics, learning about people that were about kindness, unification and equity.”

On his range of instruments

Carlisle plays — and tours with — a number of instruments: guitar, fiddle, harmonica, banjo, accordion, concertina, bouzouki and rhythm bones. So how does he choose?

“I try to let the instrument do the work,” Carlisle says. “There’s no money past the fifth fret.”

By which he means, he tries to keep it simple at all times.

“I have kind of come to believe that simple is hard, simple is good,” he says. “I play a lot of instruments but I would never claim to be an expert in any of them.”

On “Wildflowers Growin,'” Carlisle let the bouzouki take the lead. “In this case, I was using one of my quietest voices,” he explains, “and so a sweet, double course lute — it sounds like a big mandolin — was the right choice.”

On giving a nod to Shakespeare

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the title character, upon learning of his wife’s death, says: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Carlisle says he always thought about that line. “What if it’s signifying nothing and it’s great? What if it means nothing and that’s wonderful?”

He wrote “Sound and Fury” as a four-part bluegrass gospel-style song.

“If you’re going to try to make something new out of something old,” Carlisle explains, “why not use the old good stuff, right?”

His philosophy? Take the best parts of bluegrass, slap some Shakespeare on it and have fun being an idiot about it all. “Try to find joy in what sometimes feels stodgy,” Willi Carlisle says. “Even if it’s beautiful.”

Transcript:

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Willi Carlisle says the songs in his new album are full of cowboys, dreamers, misfits and weirdos. There’s also a donkey.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WINGED VICTORY”)

WILLI CARLISLE: (Singing) I walk alone. I’m rarely lonely. The open road’s my one and only. The nightly cold comes on so fast. True love truly doesn’t last.

SIMON: “Winged Victory” is the title of Willi Carlisle’s fourth album – also, maybe the name of that donkey. He’s known for blending country with traditional folk music and weaving between the absurd and the sentimental. He also plays about half a dozen instruments. Willi Carlisle joins us now from Kansas City. Thanks so much for being with us.

CARLISLE: Thanks so much for having me. It’s an honor to be here.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WINGED VICTORY”)

CARLISLE: (Singing) Whеn I met a mule named Beauty in the state of old Missouri, and a donkey named Winged Victory in the state of Arkansas.

SIMON: Tell us about Winged Victory. Donkey? Personal friend?

CARLISLE: You know, donkey, personal friend and maybe just a dream that I had. I was at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival with a bunch of friends, playing a bunch of Ozark traditional tunes. I was being a true, bad folklorist, in that I was drunk on moonshine, but also was taking copious notes. And somehow, in my notes, ended up, donkey named Winged Victory, question mark. And I just thought it was so funny later that I had to write a song about.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WINGED VICTORY”)

CARLISLE: (Singing) But I sang to the dementia ward, and the old folks all sang back.

SIMON: Are you in what you call your full chest voice on this album?

CARLISLE: Absolutely, yeah. It sort of verges from singing like a drag queen at a vaudeville show to what I would call a delicate whisper. I learned to sing by being in choirs in Kansas and then rural Illinois, and then also by calling square dances. So I got a big voice and a little one, and both of them get used, for sure, on this one.

SIMON: This album has both original songs and covers. Tell me, please, about one of the covers, “We Have Fed You All For 1,000 Years.”

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WE HAVE FED YOU ALL FOR 1,000 YEARS “)

CARLISLE: (Singing) We have fed you all for a thousand years, and you hail us still unfed.

It’s the first folk song I really fell in love with. It’s an IWW folk song. It comes from the early 20th century – a time when workers wanted to coexist with other wild leftist movements, when Zapatistas and miners might be sharing the same pamphlets, where there were attempts to link the goals of the global working class against global oligarchs and robber barons and trying to make sense of a material history of exploitation through songs. It’s a lofty goal, and as much as any one folk song could, I think that the song manages that goal.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WE HAVE FED YOU ALL FOR 1,000 YEARS “)

CARLISLE: (Singing) Come and reckon our dеad by the forges red and the factories where we spin. Oh, if blood be the price of your cursed wealth, good God, we have paid it in.

I first heard it when I was a teenager, from the great anarchist folk singer Utah Phillips. And it kind of started me down a pathway of learning about these working-class folk songs and, in a world of big cowboy hats and bad politics, learning about people that were about kindness, unification and equity for all people.

(SOUNDBITE OF WILLI CARLISLE SONG, “WE HAVE FED YOU ALL FOR 1,000 YEARS “)

SIMON: You want to create music for and with working-class people, I gather?

CARLISLE: Yeah. I kind of believe that a folk singer should be a dreamer with a long memory. I believe that we need folk singers on street corners and in small clubs. I don’t think we can stop singing the news any more than NPR can stop doing the news. I think that’s been a folk singer’s task for a long time – is to make the news into song, to listen to everyone.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WILDFLOWERS GROWIN'”)

CARLISLE: (Singing) Oh, turn away, young Magdalene. Morning’s on the rise.

SIMON: Our crack research staff has brought me what they discern to be a list of the instruments you play. I’m going to rattle them off.

CARLISLE: (Laughter).

SIMON: Please tell me if I’ve missed something, OK? Guitar, banjo, fiddle, harmonica, accordion, concertina and bouzouki. I think of that as a Greek instrument.

CARLISLE: Yeah. You know, true to this kind of pan-American or even global ideas about folk music, the bouzouki was adopted by Irish folk musicians and then has traveled around the world. So we take the ashes of a garden and we use it to fertilize the next one, you know?

SIMON: We hear the bouzouki in “Wildflowers Growin'”?

CARLISLE: Mm-hmm.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WILDFLOWERS GROWIN'”)

CARLISLE: (Singing) Bad TV and frozen food in a house we can’t afford. The neighbors with bad politics are loner folks, for sure. I want to know a weed from a chestnut tree and a friend from a foe. But nobody knows the names of wildflowers anymore.

SIMON: What made the bouzouki the instrument you wanted in this case? What steers your choices in any of these songs?

CARLISLE: I try to let the instrument do the work. I think it was the great vaudeville banjo player Uncle Dave Macon who said, there’s no money past the fifth fret.

SIMON: (Laughter) I’m going to remember that the next time we – you know, we go on a little bit in our reports.

CARLISLE: Right (laughter). I have kind of come to believe that simple is hard. Simple is good. So I play a lot of instruments, but I would never claim to be an expert at any of them. I love them, especially in folk context, because I get to let them speak very simply and kind of see what they have to say about the words that I’m working with and about the melody that I’m working with. In this case, with “Wildflowers,” I was using one of my quietest voices.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WILDFLOWERS GROWIN'”)

CARLISLE: (Singing) I’ll be there, if you care to watch some wildflowers grow.

So a sweet, double-coursed lute that sounds like a big mandolin was the right choice.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WILDFLOWERS GROWIN'”)

CARLISLE: (Singing) Come on by and waste some time watching wildflowers grow.

SIMON: Tell us about the inspiration for your song “Sound And Fury.”

CARLISLE: (Laughter) Oh, I’m so glad you asked.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SOUND AND FURY”)

CARLISLE: (Singing) Dip my toes in the boiling water. Sip sugar from the udder of an angel. Purse my lips for the sound and fury, signifying nothing. Signing na-na-na-na na-na nothing.

I always thought about that line from “Macbeth,” full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. And I just thought – what if it’s signifying nothing, and it’s great? What if it means nothing, and that is wonderful?

SIMON: And we should explain. In, I mean, Shakespeare, the line is, as I recall, it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

CARLISLE: Right. And so I guess I just thought of myself as the idiot, and what a joy it is to be the idiot.

SIMON: Oh, well, I – Shakespeare will tell you the idiots often say the wisest things, don’t they?

CARLISLE: Right, exactly.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SOUND AND FURY”)

CARLISLE: (Singing) Born a lollygagger, so baby I’m shook. I’m studying the art of the ornery stinker, looking for a good word in a good book. No bad jokes, but a whole lot of thinkers. Well, I told you I was working on a building.

I wrote it having a good time with my bandmates, and immediately thought that it should be a four-part bluegrass, gospel-style song.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SOUND AND FURY”)

CARLISLE: (Singing) Na-na-na, yeah.

If you’re going to try to make something new out of something old, why not use the old, good stuff – right? – a genre that has been notoriously serious about its religiosity, and instead, slap some Shakespeare on it and try to be an idiot about it. Try to find joy in what sometimes feels stodgy, even if it’s beautiful.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SOUND AND FURY”)

CARLISLE: (Singing) Yeah.

SIMON: Willi Carlisle – his new album, “Winged Victory,” out now. Thank you so much for being with us.

CARLISLE: It’s a huge honor. Thanks for having me.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WORK IS WORK”)

CARLISLE: (Singing) A bitter morning. The sun is dope sick, and all the world is tied off for its fix. At the casino, where all the scene girls say they don’t mind turnin’ tricks.