Willie Nelson's Letters to America Read online

  by Willie Nelson and Turk Pipkin

  I had a crazy dream the other night

  Like when the Devil went down to Georgia

  With his fiddle and his pipe.

  But this time Willie went up to heaven

  And asked Jesus to put things right.

  The world is so screwed up, Willie said.

  Christ, we need your golden light.

  And Jesus said, Hey Willie!

  What are you doing here?

  You’re not due for another twenty years.

  Go back home before Saint Peter writes you down

  And just keep singing in every city and town.

  But we didn’t listen, at a very high cost.

  We forgot to love our neighbors

  And all your labors were lost.

  We took the Lord’s name in vain.

  So I came to fetch you back, Willie cried.

  Please save us from the hate we have inside.

  Chorus:

  What if there’s a second coming

  But Jesus is afraid to show?

  Or what if he does show up

  And we’re too dumb to know?

  Now Jesus’s Dad piped up

  He puts on quite a show.

  And all the angels in heaven listened

  As the Lord spoke soft and low.

  It’s the day the world quit turning.

  The day when time stood still

  We tried to keep our distance

  And we had more than time to kill.

  Go back down, my Son, and help them all.

  Let Christ be there to catch them when they fall.

  But Jesus said, Dad I’m a little scared.

  They don’t like me down there.

  Remember how they settled the score

  When I was there before?

  I paid the highest cost

  And they nailed me to a cross.

  Why don’t YOU go this time?

  And give creation your rhythms and rhymes?

  But God said, Son, it’s crazy down there

  Are you out of your friggin mind?

  What if there’s a second coming

  But Jesus is afraid to show?

  Or what if he does show up

  And we’re too dumb to know?

  Go on home, Willie, they both said.

  And don’t forget the words you can spread

  About the Golden Rule, brotherly love

  And kindness to strangers.

  People whose hearts are right

  Are the true world changers.

  Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus, Willie said.

  Can I ask you one more question?

  Are those golden fields of marijuana just ahead?

  If they are, I have a suggestion.

  Yes, my son, Jesus replied

  The pastures of heaven are a heavenly grace.

  But if you want a match to smoke it

  You’ll have to try the other place.

  Ha ha ha, Jesus laughed and laughed.

  I’m just kidding, he said to Willie

  But you should see your face.

  LIVE EVERY DAY

  On the whole, we’re not very good at dealing with death. We don’t want to think about it, so for the most part, we don’t. Until we have to. Until we lose someone we love. I believe that most people are good people, and it’s good people who feel pain the most. In other words, most of us.

  Not long ago, a grieving woman told me how hard the loss of her husband had been. “I don’t know how to get over it,” she said.

  Other than with an embrace, I didn’t know how to respond. But as we hugged, God gave me an answer. “It’s not something you get over,” I told her. “It’s something you get through.”

  She considered that, then nodded in agreement, and I think we both felt better. Buddy Cannon later helped me turn that line into a song.

  Life goes on and on

  And when it’s gone

  It lives in someone new

  It’s not somethin’ you get over

  But it’s somethin’ you get through

  I joke about living another twenty years, but let’s face it: we’re all gonna die. I may be next, or you may be. Who knows? There’s not a lot we can do about it (but if you hear of a long-term cure to death, by all means let me know).

  I’m guessing that every one of you has had the same experience I’ve had, which is to read the morning news and learn that Willie Nelson has died. It seems to be a recurring theme. Quoting Mark Twain, I’d like to say that the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

  Those rumors can be scary or hurtful to my family, and that part bothers me. But there is an upside: people have heard so many negative rumors, I figure that when I show up somewhere, everyone will be really glad to see me.

  The question is not: Which one of us is going to die tomorrow? The question is: What am I going to do today? Remember my song “Three Days,” which helped kicked off this book? There are only three days—yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And there’s only one of those we can do anything about. So let’s go earn our day. Let’s do our best to enjoy life on this side of the dirt.

  I don’t know what will work for you, but these are things I tell myself: Don’t forget to live every day. Remember the Golden Rule, and treat everyone how you want to be treated. Don’t forget to breathe deep and get the oxygen flowing to your muscles and your brain. Don’t forget to do the things you love. Don’t forget to do something for the people you love.

  Treat everyone like you want to be treated and

  See how that changes your life

  Yesterday’s dead and tomorrow is blind

  And the future is way out of sight

  So live every day like it was your last one

  And one day you’ll be right

  Doing my best to live every day helps me to focus on good things to come. There’s a huge new audience of young people who’ve found my music. It makes me feel great to know these old songs are clicking with a whole new crowd. And they know all the words! When I hear a thousand kids singing along to “Bloody Mary Morning,” I think, Y’all weren’t even born when that one was written.

  There’s a line from a Guy Clark song about having seen the Mona Lisa. Like Guy, my life has taken me on some interesting rides. I haven’t seen the Mona Lisa—guess I was in a hurry when we played Paris—but I’ve slept in the Lincoln Bedroom, and I’ve sung in the Rose Garden and at Madison Square Garden. I’ve sung for saints and sinners in churches and in honky-tonks. I’ve ridden wild horses and fallen in love with a mule (named Wilhelmina—she was a beauty). I’ve known the love of wonderful women, and I finally found the one I’d been looking for all along.

  I’ve bet a thousand dollars cash when I didn’t have ten. I survived a shoot-out or three and walked away from a plane crash and a bus crash too. Once again, I was lucky, but I also had a good pilot and a great bus driver. I outlasted too many cigarettes and too much whiskey. I wrote a few thousand songs and sang a few thousand more. I’ve loved my friends, and I’ve loved all the strangers who became my friends when I played. I’ve tried to give away some of that love—through hugs, through money, and through the power of my voice, but I learned, as I told my kids, you can’t give it away because whatever you put into the world with love comes back a thousand times over.

  I did a lot, and I learned a little. And I ain’t done yet.

  STILL NOT DEAD

  by Willie Nelson and Buddy Cannon

  I woke up still not dead again today

  The internet said I had passed away

  But if I die and I wasn’t dead to stay

  And I woke up still not dead again today

  Well, I woke up still not dead again today

  The gardener did not find me that way

  You can’t believe a word that people say

  And I woke up still not dead again today

  I run up and down the road and makin’ music as I go

 
They say my pace would kill a normal man

  But I’ve never been accused of bein’ normal anyway

  And I woke up still not dead again today

  I woke up still not dead again today

  The news said I was gone to my dismay

  Don’t bury me, I’ve got a show to play

  And I woke up still not dead again today

  I run up and down the road and makin’ music as I go

  They say my pace would kill a normal man

  But I’ve never been accused of bein’ normal anyway

  And I woke up still not dead again today

  Last night I had a dream that I died twice yesterday

  And I woke up still not dead again today

  DEAR TIME,

  I didn’t come here, and I ain’t leaving. Besides, you’re not so old, and neither am I. Just before this stupid pandumbic, I met the great Norman Lear, who is closing in on one hundred and still going strong. We compared notes about our annual birthday counts and both agreed that age is just a number.

  As I sing with Toby Keith on my album First Rose of Spring, “Ask yourself how old you’d be if you didn’t know the day you were born.”

  My only concern with you, dear Time, is how I want to use you to my advantage. An ideal life is one that’s filled with love and laughter.

  Speaking of which, did you hear the one about the old man who goes to the pharmacy and asks for some Viagra?

  “You’re pretty old,” the pharmacist says. “How much Viagra do you want?”

  The old guy says, “Just enough so I don’t roll out of bed.”

  I have more deep thoughts about the nature of time, rolling around in my brain, but writing them down and sorting them out would diminish the time I have left. So I’m gonna keep it brief and go enjoy some time with Annie instead. With the passing of the years in mind, I’ve decided to write a little poem just for you, Father Time.

  When I was young, I thought I could find perfection

  But the older I get, the more I’ll settle for an erection.

  Best regards,

  Dr. Booger Red

  COME ON TIME

  by Willie Nelson and Buddy Cannon

  Time is my friend, my friend

  The more I reject it, the more that it kicks in

  Just enough to keep me on my toes

  I say, come on time, I’ve beat you before

  Come on time, what have you got for me this time?

  I’ll take your words of wisdom and I’ll try to make ’em rhyme

  Hey, it’s just me and you again, come on time

  Time, you’re not fooling me

  You’re something I can’t kill

  You’re flying like a mighty wind

  You’re never standing still

  Time, as you’ve passed me by

  Why did you leave these lines on my face?

  You sure have put me in my place

  Come on time, come on time

  It looks like you’re winning the race

  Time, you’re not fooling me

  You’re something I can’t kill

  You’re flying like a mighty wind

  You’re never standing still

  Time, as you’ve passed me by

  Why did you leave these lines on my face?

  You sure have put me in my place

  Come on time, come on time

  It looks like you’re winning the race

  BRING IT ALL HOME

  Okay, friends, we’ve come a long way from when I was a boy in Abbott. We’ve shared our time together with a lot of love and a few laughs, and I think I hear my bus warming up down the hill.

  When I woke up today, I said to myself, “Good morning, you good-looking devil. You woke up still not dead again today.” So that makes it a good morning already. It’s not very early, and that’s okay. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

  With the day ahead of me, I may go down and check on our pigs. All these years after the Ridgetop farm, I’m a pig farmer once again. This time, Annie and I have partnered with two experts in regenerative farming, Tina and Orion Weldon from TerraPurezza, who are helping us restore soil conditions on the ranch by using pigs, who break up the caliche and rock and fertilize for us. Pigs can make a lot of fertilizer. As my daughter Amy and Arlo Guthrie’s daughter Cathy sing in their edgy folk duo, Folk Uke, “Shit makes the flowers grow.”

  Regenerative farming is a growing movement that can restore depleted farm and ranch lands across America and around the world, and I’m proud to be part of that movement. Also, I’ve eaten enough bacon and eggs in my time that it’s only right that I produce more of my own.

  While I’m contemplating breakfast, you may be thinking the drummer’s been dragging too long, so what do you say we pick up the tempo just a little, and bring it on home?

  My final letters have been on my mind for quite some time. One is to all the songs I love, one is sent on high, one is to my younger self, and at last, there is a letter to the one I love so much and to whom I have always been true.

  DEAR WILLIE NELSON’S SONGBOOK,

  I first wrote you down and bound you up when I was ten years old. You were a slender thing, but you held all that I’d created, plus the promise of more to come. Over the years and decades, you’ve grown more portly, and if I assembled you properly, you’d stand ten feet tall! That said, I don’t think there’s much fat on your bones.

  The last few years, I’ve been lucky to have Buddy Cannon helping me find some of those songs. Sometimes it seems like Buddy and I are sharing one mind—the mind of music. Once I have a starting verse and a melody, I might text it to Buddy, and he adds a bridge and some words of his own. A few texts or emails later, and we have a song.

  I don’t want you to think that I’ve finished my work with you here on earth. Buddy and I added nine new songs to you for my Band of Brothers album, and the hits just keep coming!

  As far as I’m concerned, there’s always one more song, and one more idea or story floating above me, waiting to see if I’m paying attention and can match that story with some melody that’s rolling through my mind.

  I’ve got one more song to write, and I’ve got one more bridge to burn. I’ve got one more endless night. One more lesson to be learned.

  See. There’s another.

  Willie

  This is the cover and the song list from my first songbook, which I wrote when I was ten years old.

  Songbook photographs courtesy of The Wittliff Collections at Texas State University.

  ONE MORE SONG TO WRITE

  by Buddy Cannon and Willie Nelson

  I got one more song to write

  And I’ve got one more bridge to burn

  I’ve got one more endless night

  One more lesson to be learned

  One more hill to climb

  And it’s somewhere in my mind

  I’ll know it when it’s right

  I’ve got one more song to write

  I got one more horse to ride

  And no more secrets left to hide

  No more staring at the sun

  Just to watch them ponies run

  No more bounty to divide

  There ain’t no secrets left to hide

  My life’s an open book

  Turn the page and have a look

  I got one more song to write

  I’ve got one more bridge to burn

  I’ve got one more endless night

  One more lesson to be learned

  One more hill to climb

  And it’s somewhere in my mind

  But I’ll know it when it’s right

  I’ve got one more song to write

  I got one more song to write

  I got one more bridge to burn

  I’ve got one more endless night

  One more lesson to be learned

  One more hill to climb

  And it’s somewhere in my mind

  I’ll know
it when it’s right

  I’ve got one more song to write

  GOD IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD

  No matter your religion, you likely have your own idea of what God is. Some think of God as that Big Guy in the sky who makes all the decisions for us. Some say God is a woman. Some say God is dead. Some say God never was.

  My view is simple: I believe that God is love. Period. End of story. For love runs through everyone and everything. Every one of us loves the flowers, and the flowers love the rain. If you love the ocean, you know the ocean lives and loves to caress the shore.

  Love is the thing we all have in common. We ache for love. We hope for love. We love and like to be loved. That’s God.

  Take these words of wisdom with you

  everywhere you go

  Tell all the religions in the world

  and through them the truth shall flow

  But God is love, and love is God

  that’s all you need to know

  That’s a verse from a new song of mine called “God Is Love.” When I act with love, I feel that I’m on God’s team. What can it hurt to give that a try?

  Now, if you’re locked onto the idea of the Big Guy in the sky who’s listening to our every word, I’d like to be supportive and say I do believe God answers all prayers. But sometimes the answer is no.

  Whatever your view of God, here’s a note that I hope makes sense to you.

  DEAR GOD,

  Oh, dear God, I still hope you have a sense of humor. When it’s hard to express how bad something is, we tend to say, “Dear God!” But we don’t mean it that way. We can’t blame you for our failings. None of us are perfect, but we’re trying, Lord. Sometimes it may not look that way, but we are trying.

  The universe in which we’re born is infinitely large, and each of us is so small. We search for meaning when the meaning is all around us, in every moment of our day. We search for you, Lord; we always have. We try to give you a form that we can understand.

  You’ve always been with me, in all your many forms. I started in a Methodist church but found myself at ease with every religion I’ve tried to understand. I can’t tell you now whether I’m a Baptist or a Buddhist. Considering my foot-wear, maybe I’m just a Bootist, a boot-wearing man who believes we were put here for a reason and that by doing our best, we may find the light we seek. If not, our souls are eternal, and perhaps next time around, we’ll do better.