Willie Nelson's Letters to America

by Willie Nelson

  Under the stewardship of my friend Carolyn Mugar, we’ve continued to raise money and awareness at the annual Farm Aid concert, to offer support to family farmers however we can, and to put pressure on people in Washington, DC, to make sure everyone has access to good, healthy food. We’ve raised $60 million to support America’s family farmers, and I sign every check.

  I’d like to brag and say we turned the whole thing around, but at best, we’ve only slowed the decline. That simple truth is hard to see because the big food conglomerates spend big bucks in DC to create policies that benefit them and hurt family farmers and consumers. Because of climate change, farmers now face more unpredictable and dangerous weather than ever. And the mass-produced American diet that comes from the corporate agriculture is literally killing us.

  I believe America is better than that. And I do see some positive signs, with more Americans returning to farming. We’ve helped raise awareness about local and sustainable farming and have been part of a movement toward more farmer’s markets where Americans can buy fresh food that’s grown by people who care about that food and the land it’s grown on.

  Congress needs to understand that billions of dollars of support for giant corporate farms ignores the fact that farmers who live on the land are as important to us as health-care workers, police officers, firefighters, and our members of the military. When your average corporate CEO makes nearly three hundred times the average American income, it’s time to recognize that something is wrong. And when family farmers struggle to make even that average income, the time for action is long overdue.

  Unable to assemble an arena full of music fans during the COVID-19 pandangit, we produced Farm Aid 2020 as an online concert that presented great music and told some compelling stories from America’s family farms.

  When we announced the concert, I said, “The pandemic has shown everyone that our corporate-dominated food system is fragile and unjust. Now more than ever, it should be clear to all of us how much we need family farmers and why it’s so important to listen to them and support efforts—at home, locally and nationally—to keep them on the land.”

  We raised another million dollars to keep the work going and move us toward a long-term solution. I really hope that every one of you, my readers, will consider where your food comes from and how you can help make America stronger by supporting our family farmers and by voting for office-holders who will work for the good of all.

  DEAR FAMILY FARMERS,

  You are the backbone of America. The stock market can make someone rich or bankrupt them, too, but you can’t eat stocks and bonds. I grew up in a farm town. Sister Bobbie and I worked in the fields like other families who needed money in the Great Depression. Later on, in Nashville, I tried being a pig farmer, and I know how hard you have to work and how smart you have to be to keep a family farm alive.

  I still don’t know how you overcome all the challenges. Given a choice, I might play poker till four or five in the morning, the same time you’re making a pot of coffee and starting a workday that will likely continue until dark. In the evenings, there’s paperwork and planning and trying to figure out how to make the money last from season to season. You’ve armed yourselves with computers to monitor the weather and crop forecasts; you’ve harnessed new technology to grow more food with less water and little or no pesticides, and likely every member of your family is a working member of the team.

  Factory farms are a sickness and you, our family farmers, are the cure. Speaking for all Americans who care about the food we eat (and that should truly be all Americans), we love our farmers. And we love your dedication to our well-being. We want you to know that we’re with you. And that our numbers are growing.

  To put a seed in the ground is an act of faith. Keep the faith. And we’ll do our best to help you make it so.

  Willie Nelson

  Cofounder, Farm Aid

  HEARTLAND

  by Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson

  There’s a home place under fire tonight in the Heartland

  And the bankers are takin’ my home and my land from me

  There’s a big achin’ hole in my chest now where my heart was

  And a hole in the sky where God used to be

  There’s a home place under fire tonight in the Heartland

  There’s a well with water so bitter nobody can drink

  Ain’t no way to get high and my mouth

  is so dry that I can’t speak

  Don’t they know that I’m dyin’, Why nobody crying for me?

  My American dream

  fell apart at the seams.

  You tell me what it means,

  you tell me what it means.

  There’s a home place under fire tonight in a Heartland

  And bankers are taking the homes and the land away

  There’s a young boy closing his eyes tonight in a Heartland

  Who will wake up a man with some

  land and a loan he can’t pay

  His American dream

  fell apart at the seams.

  You tell me what it means,

  you tell me what it means.

  There’s a home place under fire

  tonight in the Heartland

  THE ROAD GOES ON FOREVER

  While you’re sitting at home, it’s natural to think about friends you’d like to see and give a hug. High on my list would be my fellow Highwaymen—Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson. They called us a country supergroup, but mainly we were old friends who loved making music together.

  Touring with those guys was the most fun I’ve ever had with my clothes on. The whole thing started with us going to Switzerland to film a Christmas special. At our first photo session, a reporter asked why we were going to Switzerland to do a Christmas show. And Waylon said, “’Cause that’s where the Baby Jesus was born.” I knew then we were in for a great time.

  Our name came from the Jimmy Webb song “The Highwayman.” The song was a perfect fit for the four of us to sing its four verses about a wandering soul who comes back again and again and again, as a highwayman, a sailor, a construction worker on the Hoover Dam, and a captain of a starship.

  We’d all known each other for a long time, but we’d also been a bunch of lone wolves, and it was tremendous to be onstage with those guys and our great band. We went around the world together—Europe, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan.

  When we played Tokyo, we all thought, What does Tokyo know about our music? But the show was standing-room only, and when we took the stage, we looked out and saw a huge flag out in the audience that said “Tokyo, Texas.” And we knew it was gonna be a great night.

  From that first song all the way through our third album, where we sang “The Road Goes on Forever,” Robert Earl Keen’s song about a bank robbery gone wrong, we really felt like highwaymen. But when we toured, it was a family affair. We took our kids and wives with us around the globe. We had 278 pieces of luggage! And I only had one!

  I thought it was fun watching Kris and Waylon argue about politics. They argued, but I knew they loved each other too. Like the great Guy Clark song we recorded, we really were “Desperados Waiting for a Train.” Me and Kris are in no hurry to board that train, but one of these years or decades, all four of us are gonna be together. You can think of us as really being “Riders in the Sky,” but I think we’ll just be proving the premise of a beautiful song.

  I’d write the guys a letter, but the truth is, “The Highwayman” song was a letter we sang to each other every night. So I’m just gonna sing it one more time for them, while I think about that flag in Tokyo, with Cash closing it out like the voice of God.

  THE HIGHWAYMAN

  by Jimmy Webb (as sung by Willie, Kris, Waylon, and Cash)

  (Willie)

  I was a highwayman

  Along the coach roads I did ride

  With sword and pistol by my side

  Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade

 
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade

  The bastards hung me in the spring of ’25

  But I am still alive

  (Kris)

  I was a sailor

  I was born upon the tide

  And with the sea I did abide

  I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico

  I went aloft to furl the mainsail in a blow

  And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed

  But I am living still

  (Waylon)

  I was a dam builder

  Across the river deep and wide

  Where steel and water did collide

  A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado

  I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below

  They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound

  But I am still around

  I’ll always be around and around

  and around and around and around

  (Johnny)

  I’ll fly a starship

  Across the universe divide

  And when I reach the other side

  I’ll find a place to rest my spirit if I can

  Perhaps I may become a highwayman again

  Or I may simply be a single drop of rain

  But I will remain

  And I’ll be back again and again

  and again and again and again

  WHISKEY RIVER

  Let’s talk whiskey. Or we can sing whiskey. I’d rather sing about it than drink it. Same thing for cigarettes, ’cause the two of them teamed up to kill me and damn near succeeded.

  Someone asked me recently, “What was the smartest thing you ever did?” I didn’t even have to think about it. It was quitting cigarettes and whiskey. Then they asked me, “What was the dumbest thing you ever did?” Didn’t have to think about that either: cigarettes and whiskey.

  When I was young, it seemed like everyone my age smoked and drank. When you start playing music gigs, you think you look cool playing guitar with a cigarette hanging from your lower lip. I’ve got a photo of Django Reinhardt doing it, and I idolized Django.

  It’s the easiest thing in the world to start smoking. Same thing for drinking. But it’s not so easy to stop. I’ve seen better guys than me try to quit drinking and fail, and they’re all dead. That includes too many people I love. God bless them every one. Same thing with cigarettes. I know how hard it was for me to quit, and I know lots of them tried their best.

  If it hadn’t been for pot, I’m not sure I’d be alive today. Whiskey and nicotine were my troublemaking pals. A cigarette made me want a drink, and a drink made me want a cigarette. We had some fun together, but I wasn’t always a fun drunk. The hangovers definitely weren’t fun.

  After thirty years, I began to see they weren’t such great friends after all. I didn’t feel good without them. And I didn’t feel good with them. To make it worse, the cigarettes had my lungs and my singing voice all tied up in knots. One year I had four bouts of pneumonia. In 1981, I was running on Maui on a hot day, then I jumped in the ocean, and my lung collapsed. I was lucky to make it back to the beach.

  Maybe I was trying to show that I could start all over, but I cut off my long braids and laid them back on my shoulders on my hospital bed. When my manager Mark came to see me, I told him the medicine they gave me had some bad side effects and handed him the braids. He nearly fainted.

  I knew then it was time to delete and fast-forward. When I got out of the hospital, I opened up my pack of Chesterfields and threw all twenty cigarettes away. Then I rolled up twenty joints, and a new Willie was born. I’ve never smoked a cigarette since and haven’t sampled much whiskey either. I guess I just don’t need them.

  Unfortunately, there’ve been a few officers of the law who didn’t think I needed marijuana. I got myself into occasional trouble, but troubles are inevitable, and it’s up to us to get ourselves out of hot water. Sometimes you have to get creative. I had to sing “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” at the courthouse in Sierra Blanca, Texas. I played golf with my longtime pal Sheriff Jack shortly after getting out of his jail, where I spent a few hours because some deputy thought I’d make him famous. Worst of all, I missed my dear friend Ann Richard’s funeral when the bus got pulled over and searched. That one hurt.

  But a funny thing happened on the way to the hoosegow. Every time we got busted, something good came out of it. Across our nation, there was more awareness and then resistance to long and unjust jail sentences. Not everyone gets to sing their way out of possessing a few joints.

  Over the years, Black Americans have been four times more likely to get busted than their White neighbors. White or Black, those sentences destroy lives and families, and it costs a lot of tax dollars to lock people up for nonviolent crimes. Support grew for legalizing what much of the country was doing already. When the federal government didn’t take action, individual states began decriminalization and legalization on their own.

  I believe that within a decade, medicinal and recreational marijuana will be legal in all fifty states. We’ll have a minimum age limit; youngsters don’t need to smoke up their lungs or their brains. But on the high end of the age scale, there’ll be no limit, because the aches and pains of age are better addressed with cannabis than painkillers. And the tax revenues will be a boon to all fifty state governments.

  I didn’t set out to be the unofficial spokesperson for marijuana and sensible marijuana laws. I didn’t expect to be called the world’s most legendary stoner. Nor did I expect to be the corporate CTO—chief tasting officer—of Willie’s Reserve marijuana and Willie’s Remedy CBD products (all of it grown by independent family farmers). But here I am. People ask me which of our products is my favorite, and I say, “It’s like sex—they’re all good!”

  I’ve bought a lot of pot, and now I’m selling it. But I’m not telling anyone to smoke it. That’s each person’s choice. For me, it works. I can be a little high-strung. Sometimes I say the reason I smoke pot is so I don’t kill someone.

  I’ve been smoking weed so long, I’ve become the canary in a coal mine to look at its long-term effects. I think it’s obvious that any smoke in your lungs is gonna have an impact—not a good thing for a singer with a lot of songs left to sing. That said, I’ve never known anyone to get killed by pot, but if a bale of it fell on your head, that might be a different story.

  One morning not long ago, I woke up and was surprised to read that I’d quit smoking pot. It was pretty funny—people were acting like the world was coming to an end. So let’s be clear: I haven’t given up marijuana, but I don’t smoke a lot of joints like I used to.

  Luckily, there are alternatives to smoking, like vaporizers. Plus, my sweet Annie is the queen of edibles. Annie is the boss of Willie’s Reserve and Willie’s Remedy. I really am the taste tester, and I think it’s time for me to get to work. That’s all for now. See ya in my dreams.

  DEAR CANNABIS,

  What can I say? You saved me, and we both know it. I met you way back in 1954, when a fellow Fort Worth musician asked if I wanted to “blow some tea.” I knew he meant marijuana, but I’d heard stories about what you might do to me. So I turned you down, but my pal gave me a slender joint and told me to smoke it sometime. I gave you a try, but I smoked you like a cigarette and didn’t hold you in my lungs. It took a few times for me to figure it out, but when I did, I had a feeling we’d eventually be friends.

  Lots of folks said we were doing wrong, but I know love when I see it. And I don’t believe the seeds and flowers that were given to us from a creator are any more illegal than the hops that are used to make beer or the grapes that make wine.

  We’ve had quite a run, and they like to make jokes about me and you. They say we tour the county in a cannabus!

  People say, “When you smoke pot you get high, but when you smoke Willie’s pot, you get Willie high!”

  An astronaut came on the bus, and we were talking and laughing, and he said I was the only person he’d met that�
��d been higher than him.

  My pals write songs about getting too high with me. Toby Keith sings, “I’ll never smoke weed with Willie again.” And if we’re on the same bill, he might be smoking weed with me again right after the show.

  Comedians make jokes about you and short-term memory, but I can’t remember any of them. I must be high. If I let a few thoughts slip from my mind, the good news is that the first ones I let go of are the negative thoughts. As I’ve always said, “Don’t think no negative thoughts.”

  Cannabis, I suspect you were a little heartbroken when word went around that we broke up. But I think you knew. Just like Annie and me, you and I are a couple to the end.

  Sometimes people ask me how much of you I’ve smoked, but there’s no answer. We’ve been pals so long, we’re just smoking each other, getting each other high, and opening ourselves to the possibilities of now. I finally got around to writing a love song about the two of us. I love to sing it, and the audiences love to sing it with me. So everyone, all together: “Roll me up and smoke me when I die!”

  High on a hill,

  Willie

  ROLL ME UP AND SMOKE ME WHEN I DIE

  by Willie Nelson and Buddy Cannon

  Roll me up and smoke me when I die

  And if anyone don’t like it, just look ’em in the eye

  I didn’t come here, and I ain’t leavin’

  So don’t sit around and cry

  Just roll me up and smoke me when I die