I never stopped writing tunes but was always keen to sing songs by other writers that I thought needed to be sung. One such song by Ned Sublette, was called “Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other.” I loved the lyrics and was proud to sing ’em.
Well, there’s many a strange impulse out on the plains of West Texas
There’s many a young boy who feels things he can’t comprehend
And a small town don’t like it when somebody falls between sexes
No, a small town don’t like it when a cowboy has feelings for men
And I believe to my soul that inside every man there’s the feminine
And inside every lady there’s a deep manly voice loud and clear
Well, a cowboy may brag about things that he’s done with his women
But the ones who brag loudest are the ones that are most likely queer
Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other
Say, what do you think all them saddles and boots was about?
And there’s many a cowboy who don’t understand the way that he feels for his brother
And inside every cowboy there’s a lady that’d love to slip out
And there’s always somebody who says what the others just whisper
And mostly that someone’s the first one to get shot down dead
So when you talk to a cowboy don’t treat him like he was a sister
You can’t fuck with a lady that’s sleepin’ in each cowboy’s head
In recent years another song came out that I didn’t sing but couldn’t help but love. It was written by Bruce Robison, who took the old cliché “What would Jesus do?” and turned it into “What Would Willie Do?” Normally I’d have to argue against any comparison between me and the perfect man, but Bruce wrote the thing as a joke and suddenly I started hearing it all over the radio. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a kick out of it.
I was lost in trouble and strife, I heard a voice and it changed my life
And now it’s a brand-new day, and I ain’t afraid to say
You’re not alone when you’re down and out
And I think you know who I’m talking about
When I don’t know how I’ll get through
I ask myself what would Willie do
What would Willie do, well he’d travel so far with nothing but a song and his old guitar
And a tour bus and some semitrucks, thirty crewmen and a little bit of luck
Well he loves all the people, the ugly and the randy
If you don’t believe me take a look at the family
And they’ll tell you that it’s true
When skies are gray what would Willie do
Well long ago he came unto us, his words were simple but they went right through us
And the whole world sang along, but then they didn’t want to hear his songs
He was gone and we thought we’d lost him
But he grew his hair and he moved to Austin
And all of the people smiled, they came to hear him sing from miles
Like a miracle all those rednecks and hippies
From New York City down to Mississippi
Stood together and raised a brew
When it’s all gone wrong what would Willie do
One of the most beautiful things in my life has been watching how each of my children—Lana, Susie, Billy, Paula, Amy, Lukas, and Micah—has expressed artistic talent.
They’ve all come onstage to sing with me; they’ve all done me proud by realizing their own creative projects.
In recent years, Lukas has formed a band, the Promise of the Real, and Micah put together a group, Insects vs. Robots. Both bands have appeared at my shows around the world.
Whenever I get a chance to make music with my kids, I have to stop and express gratitude for that privilege.
Another late-life privilege has been my association with Buddy Cannon, a great musician/producer/writer in Nashville. Buddy’s become my main go-to writing partner. He’s inspired my own creativity, and working with him, I find myself—in my eighties—composing and recording more than ever. It was Buddy who put together my latest duet project, To All the Girls…, where I’m singing with no fewer than eighteen lovely ladies, including Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Rosanne Cash, Shelby Lynne, Mavis Staples, and my daughter Paula.
Most recent record I cut with Buddy was Band of Brothers, which came out in 2014. In terms of record sales, I would have guessed that by now I’d be irrelevant, an old relic who’s damn lucky to have any label—in this case, I was back on Columbia—release my stuff. So when the album debuted at number one, I had to scratch my head.
“No big mystery,” said Buddy. “It’s a hit because it’s your philosophy. People like the way you think.”
“But I’m thinking that my thinking isn’t all that clear.”
“That’s what they like about it. Neither is theirs.”
Here’s how my thinking went with “Band of Brothers.”
We’re a band of brothers and sisters and whatever
On a mission to break all the rules
And I know you love me ’cause I love you too
But you can’t tell me what to do
I sure don’t know where we’re going
And I’m really not sure where we’ve been
And if I can take you all with me
I’d sure like to go there again
When all the songs have been written
And when all the music is played
When the curtain comes down we’ll be around
To make sure the musicians are paid
’Cause we’re a band of brothers and sisters and whatever
On a mission to break all the rules
And I know you love me ’cause I love you too
But you can’t tell me what to do
It wasn’t just the songs I wrote with Buddy that made Band of Brothers a big hit. I also sang a sly and clever tune by Billy Joe Shaver called “Hard to Be an Outlaw.” I related. I related even more to “The Songwriters,” written by Gordie Sampson and Bill Anderson.
We get to break out of prison
Make love to our best friend’s wife
Have a beer for breakfast in Boston
Drink rum in Jamaica that night
We get to tell all our secrets
In a code that no one understands
We get to shoot all the bad guys
And never get blood on our hands
We’re heroes, we’re schemers, we’re drunks and we’re dreamers
We’re lovers and sometimes we’re fighters
We’re students, we’re teachers, we’re the devil, we’re preachers
We’re true love, but mostly one-nighters
We’re the songwriters
Half the world thinks we’re crazy
And the other half wants to be us
And they’re jealous ’cause we get to hang out
In the back of some big star’s tour bus
We’re old boots and T-shirts and blue jeans
We’re cables and strings and E chords
We only get dressed up in November
When they hand out some writers’ awards
We’re heroes, we’re schemers, we’re drunks and we’re dreamers
We’re lovers and sometimes we’re fighters
We’re the truth, we’re the lies, we’re stupid, we’re wise
We’re true love but mostly one-nighters
We’re the songwriters
We write bridges, we cross them and burn them
Teach lessons but don’t bother to learn ’em
Our mamas all know what we’re doing
Why we stay out all night long
I told mine I was a drug dealer
She said, “Thank God you ain’t writing songs.”
32
ABBOTT
IN THE BACK OF MY BUS, rolling up I-35, heading from Austin back home to Hill County. Got a little time to myself
. A little time to reflect back and see if I can make sense of these eight long decades I’ve spent on planet Earth.
My lungs aren’t what they used to be, so instead of burning joints I try to restrict myself to inhaling vapors. These e-cigarettes, packed with THC, will do the trick. Hell, I even smoked one the other day on the big commercial jet flying out of Maui. No one said a word.
It’s been especially satisfying to see public opinion turn in favor of legalizing pot. The arguments advocating the many good uses of that plant have finally prevailed. For agriculture, for pain relief, for clothing—for the good of the environment and the good of the creative mind—my money’s on pot. To have lived long enough to see it being decriminalized from coast to coast brings me deep satisfaction.
Before I get off the marijuana bandwagon, there’s one last story I need to tell. Happened back in 2006. It was my last—and funniest—run-in with the law. I’d played a benefit concert in Montgomery, Alabama, with Ray Price, celebrating the birthday of Hank Williams. I was on my bus, hurrying to get back to Texas so I could attend the funeral of Governor Ann Richards, a wonderful lady who’d been a good friend. Somewhere in Louisiana we got pulled over.
“Got anything in there?” the officers asked.
“Got lots of stuff,” I said.
The officers came on the bus. Ben Dorcy, who’d been working for me for over a half century and was eighty-three years old, was sound asleep on the couch.
“What’s wrong with him?” one of the officers asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “He’s dead.”
The officer didn’t laugh. He and his cohort did their search and found the stuff they were looking for.
“ ’Fraid we’re gonna have to take you in, Willie,” they said.
“Figured as much. I know you gotta do your job, but busting us is like busting an old-age home.”
They still didn’t laugh. The hassle of the arrest caused me to miss Ann’s funeral. Took us a while, but we got out of the mess—the kind of mess that today, a decade later, is less likely to happen.
Bottom line is that I’ve seen some progress in my time. Not long ago millions of gay folks were hiding in the closet and living in fear. Now they’re free to come out, create their own path, and even marry. That’s a beautiful thing.
I’m not saying things are perfect, but I am saying they’re better than when I was coming up. I still see the need to protest, especially on behalf of the small farmer and especially on behalf of our environment. If we fuck up this planet any more, we fuck up the future of our kids and grandkids. Global warming is serious as sin. I’ll play just about any damn benefit where the money goes to protecting our earth, water, and sky. I still believe in taking strong stands.
Only last month my boys and I joined Neil Young in a rally against the Keystone XL pipeline, which the oil industry is hell-bent on building, a project certain to do far more harm than good. More than ever, our planet Earth is suffering from mindless abuse. That pisses me off something fierce.
“You’re mad as hell about all this environmental neglect,” a friend said to me the other day, “but why aren’t you equally as mad about the state of the music industry?”
The question made me stop and think. Among my peers and younger musicians, I hear lots of groaning. Many of the complaints are justified. Record sales are in the toilet. Technology has made it harder for artists to get our fair share of revenue. In the old days you had to buy a piece of sheet music, a 78 shellac record, a 45 or 33⅓ rpm vinyl record, a cassette, an eight-track, or a compact disc. Now, in the digital age, you don’t have to buy a thing. With streaming subscription services like Spotify, you can listen to anything you want, whenever you want, and on whatever digital device you want. As a result, artists’ and songwriters’ royalties have been drastically downsized.
In short, high tech has made music accessible in ways we could never have imagined. It’s something of a free-for-all.
Does this anger me? Does this alarm me?
I’d have to say no, and here’s why. I like the idea that it’s easier than ever for fans to get hold of the music they love. It’s good that there’s more music on more media outlets than at any time in the history of the world. Some of those outlets have been especially friendly to me. On Sirius radio, for instance, there’s Willie’s Roadhouse, a channel devoted to classic country that pays special attention to my material. It’s commercial-free, so the music is practically nonstop. And even if the royalty payout isn’t what it was compared to back in the day, I can live with this new reality—but it would be nice for artists to get their fair share.
I can live with it because my approach to making my living hasn’t changed since I started out back in the dark ages. My approach is that the wandering minstrel makes his living from wandering—from playing joints and dives, dance halls and clubs and county fairs. I’ve never counted on income from radio play or record sales—not then and not now. I’ve always assumed that whatever I got would be watered down by the radio stations and the record companies doing the auditing.
Back in the fifties, the system was rigged against artists getting their fair share of airplay money and record sales. Today it’s a different system, but the result is the same. Before that money trickles down to us—the artists and writers—it gets diluted by formulas that defy understanding.
So I go back to basics. I put my faith in one thing and one thing alone: my ability to perform for the people. I see records as advertisements for my shows. The only money I’ve ever counted on is the money I make when you buy a ticket to my show. And if hearing my record on your laptop or your smartphone motivates you to come see me, I’m a happy man.
I’m not saying my thinking is all that sophisticated. There are ways you can analyze how digitalizing music is chopping up the industry into little microchips and fucking the music makers out of the kind of money we made in the past. But that was the past, and this is the present, and present reality has us going back to basics, even further back than the invention of radio, when the essential relationship between the artist and the audience couldn’t have been simpler:
You pay to hear me play.
I still believe in the rightness of that relationship.
When you whittle away all the bullshit, I’ve been living on that righteous relationship since I first left Abbott and rode my bike down to West to join John Rejcek’s polka band. Since then, a million things have changed and yet, when it comes to getting out there one night and the next in the hopes of entertaining people, nothing has changed at all.
I reflect on my life now, and it’s pretty simple. I’m home in Hawaii or Texas for a couple of weeks, reconnecting with family and friends, playing golf, playing cards, relaxing. But after a while I get to thinking about my music and my fans and I’m eager—and happy—to climb back on the plane and the bus and go back out there to entertain those people who, though I may not know their names, are an essential and loving part of my family. The fans are my family.
One little anecdote proves my point.
You might have heard the story on public radio a few years back. It went all over the world and got some of the highest ratings in the history of the show called This American Life. Seems a guy in Austin named Josh listed his phone number under the name “Willie Nelson” as a prank and soon started getting my calls. Seeing my name listed in the phone book, folks from all over began to leave messages for me on his answering machine. Some of these calls were just curiosity seekers; others were people asking me to play for their charities. Many of the messages were very personal and serious.
“Willie,” said one lady, “I live in Abilene and don’t want nothing from you. I’m about to move on outta here and just wanna hear your voice one more time before I die.”
“Willie,” said a man, “my wife’s dying of the same liver disease that killed my mother. And just like my mom, we can’t get a transplant. We’re too far down on the list. Can you help us, Willie? Can you call me back today?”
/>
“Willie,” said a young woman in Montana, “our twelve-year-old boy has a rare form of cancer and is going through a lot of painful treatments. When he was a little baby and wouldn’t stop crying, we’d put on your records and suddenly he’d calm down. All his young life he’s loved your records. Right now, after the pain of his chemotherapy, he started crying like a baby. We know it’s a mighty big favor, Willie, but if you could just sing a short little song to him over the phone, it would make all the difference in the world.”
When I finally found out about these calls—and there were hundreds of them—I got the number and called Josh myself. He was surprised to hear from me.
“I’d like to meet you in person,” I said. “I’d like you to come backstage after my next show in Austin.”
Well, Josh came back and apologized for taking my name. He said he did it as a prank, but that he was really a fan. I didn’t raise my voice—raising my voice is not my style—but I didn’t hide my anger. I was boiling inside.
“Far as I’m concerned,” I said, “this is not an amusing prank. You gave these folks, who are already connected to me through my music, the idea that they could connect to me over the phone. These are sincere folks, proud folks, folks willing to pour out their hearts, folks looking for a little love, kindness, and understanding. Folks who need to be comforted. Folks who need to be heard. Shame on you, son, for fooling them. That’s a cruel thing to do. You’ve let these people down. When it comes to my fans, I’ve never ever let them down. And never will. So you go on your way and let this be a lesson to you. True fans need to tell stories and hear stories that touch their souls—and that’s no joke. Whether those fans live in West Virginia or West, Texas, they’re my family.”
Talking about West, Texas, we’re just about to pass it now. I look out the window of my bus speeding up I-35 and see the exit sign. That means we’re only minutes away from Abbott.
It's a Long Story Page 27
