Loretta Lynn releases video for ‘Lay Me Down,’ her Willie Nelson duet

News of Loretta Lynn’s first new album in over a decade was cause for celebration. Now one of its most significant tracks, Lynn’s duet with Willie Nelson “Lay Me Down,” has a tender but stark new video.

The song is gentle-tempered but forthright acknowledgment of mortality for the two artists, each irreplaceable heroes of American music. The video for “Lay Me Down,” directed by David McClister, follows them each alone backstage, dressed regally in their usual stage wear but rendered small by the vastness of the venue.

When they finally take the stage to an empty auditorium, it’s a small rejoinder to the inevitability of death, two of country’s finest voices doing their best to make peace with the end. It’s the first time they’ve shared a stage since Farm Aid in 1985.

The song appears on Lynn’s new album “Full Circle,” her first since the Jack White-produced “Van Lear Rose” in 2004.

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