Willie Nelson's Letters to America Read online

  Like I said, you can never have too many friends. Even if you do win the lottery.

  DEAR ZEKE,

  How is it there in domino heaven? If you can take a break from winning the angels’ wings, I’m wondering if there are any good jokes up there? Here’s one you might try on the halo crowd:

  Three guys are caught in a flood. They climb on a roof and all pray for God to save them. A boat comes along and one of the guys jumps to safety in the boat. The waters are getting higher, and the other two are praying again, when another boat comes and the second guy jumps in. “There’s room for one more,” he yells. But the third guy waves them away and says, “God will provide.”

  As the waters rise higher, a helicopter comes over and lowers a ladder, but he waves them off, too, and says, “God will provide.” But then the waters come over the house, and he drowns.

  The guy arrives at the Pearly Gates. He sees God and calls out, “Oh Lord, why did you forsake me?”

  And God says, “I sent two boats and a helicopter!”

  That’s a good one. I hope for all our sakes that God has a sense of humor.

  Sending love from Texas, the next best place to heaven,

  Willie

  BOOGER RED GETS GOING

  When you listen to me braggin’ about my home state, you might think I was reluctant to ever leave it. But the truth is, I was always eager to wander. I’d hop a freight train to see where it’d take me. If it didn’t go far, I’d hop another to take me back home.

  One of my bigger travel misadventures started after a tree-trimming job with Zeke in Tyler, Texas. My job was on the ground, but one of the trimmers needed a rope, so I climbed up to give it to him. Next thing I knew, I fell forty feet from a tree and hit the ground hard. I looked up at Zeke, who probably thought I was dead, and said, “I don’t believe trees is my line of work.”

  That tree company had been paying me eighty cents an hour. The funny thing is, years later, the same company paid me $100,000 to play a concert for them. So I guess it all worked out.

  After high school, I was classified 1-A for the draft and soon joined the Air Force, which was willing to take me and my injured back from the tree fall. At basic training, they sheared my shaggy hair like a sheep, and I figured I’d soon be off to the Korean War.

  They shipped me first to Biloxi, Mississippi, where I was assigned the important duty of moving heavy boxes. That brought back my back injury and landed me in the hospital for a couple of months. Finally, the Air Force gave me a choice—back surgery or a discharge. Believe me, there was no way I was letting them operate on my back. So nine months after I enlisted, I was discharged and sent home to Abbott.

  Soon I had a new band and was madly in love with the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, Martha Jewel Matthews. We soon married. I was nineteen, and she was sixteen. We were both a little spoiled and used to getting our way. I played music in rowdy nightclubs, and she was a waitress. We were both hotheaded and prone to jealousy. What could go wrong?

  To add fuel to the fire, Martha was a Cherokee Indian, and I was part Indian on my mother’s side and part cowboy on my stubborn side. Me and Martha had plenty of nights of the cowboys versus the Indians, but we had a lot of good times too. We’d have had fewer problems if we’d learned the most important rule of marriage, which is to listen to each other. In marriage and in life, listening to the other person and giving an honest response is key. They may not like what they hear, but at least you’re not both living a lie.

  The good times were exciting for both of us. I was playing music and working as a radio disc jockey in Hillsboro, then San Antonio, and then Fort Worth at a great station, KCNC.

  Every DJ needed a good sign-on, and I started every broadcast with, “This here is your old cotton-picking, snuff-dipping, tobacco-chewing, stump-jumping, gravy-sopping, coffeepot-dodging, dumpling-eating, frog-gigging hillbilly from Hill County, Willie Nelson.”

  Fort Worth was like the Wild West—not just the stock-yards and herds of cows that came right through town, but also the wild nightlife on the Jacksboro Highway. When you played a gig, most of the guys in the band were packing heat, and so were most of the audience. I was the front man for a trio that played an all-night joint called Gray’s Bar, which had a mostly Mexican and Black audience that loved our blues and jazz sounds, but which also had chicken wire strung across the front of the stage to protect the band from thrown beer bottles.

  Clubs at night, then radio by the day. I was a working fool, and I still wasn’t earning enough for a family to live on. So we packed it up and wandered to California, then to Oregon, where we had a couple of good years living with my mom. I had a great DJ stint at KVAN in Vancouver, Washington. Those were fun years. One day I signed on by saying, “This is Willie Nelson, serving the greater Dallas–Fort Worth area.” We had a bunch of phone calls saying, “Where do you think you are?” But at least I knew they were listening.

  I loved being a DJ and getting paid to play the songs I wanted to play and wanted to hear. I also could use my air-time to promote my shows at night. I never got any of that famous 1950s radio payola money to play particular records, but that don’t mean I wouldn’t have taken it.

  Oregon was beautiful, but it wasn’t Texas, and we now had two beautiful girls, first Lana, and then her sister, Susie. So we went back to Fort Worth and moved in with my dad, Ira, and his wife, Lorraine. I tried a lot of jobs. I sold Bibles for a while but switched to encyclopedias because I felt guilty about selling the big, expensive Bibles to families that couldn’t afford them.

  Encyclopedias were easier. I’d drive around until I saw a swing set in a backyard. That meant they had kids and needed to open a world of knowledge for them. The company I worked for had perfected a sales technique. If a couple said they couldn’t afford to buy encyclopedias, I’d say, “You can’t afford to not buy them.” Once I explained that this advanced education system cost less than a pack of cigarettes a day, most of ’em were hooked.

  I joined the Metropolitan Baptist Church and was teaching Sunday school there. One day the preacher called me in and said, “Either you quit playing in beer joints or you quit teaching Sunday school.” I protested that the churchgoers were listening to me play in those clubs, but the preacher stood his ground. The choice was pretty easy.

  “I ain’t making no money teaching Sunday school,” I said. “And they’re paying good for my shows at the Nite Owl. End of story.”

  Lana and Susie now had a little brother named Billy, and once again I discovered that my income was well short of my outgo.

  I had yet to set the world on fire, but I had a fire burning inside me, and I was determined to make it as a songwriter and musician. I gave Houston a shot for a while and was making ends meet by teaching guitar lessons at a music school run by my friend Paul Buskirk. Paul was a jazz guitar master. He’d teach me a lesson, then I’d teach it to all the students. I usually was about a week ahead of them.

  I was writing songs all along and felt like I was onto something and getting closer every day. This was a stretch of hustling years, where I suddenly wrote a string of songs like “Family Bible,” “Night Life,” and “Funny How Time Slips Away.” Those songs, and a few more that have stood the test of time, would truly launch my career.

  DEAR TEXAS,

  You and me have been together for a mighty long time. We first teamed up when Doc Sims helped deliver me in Mama and Daddy’s house in Abbott. I learned to sing in your churches, in your fields, and in the late-night honky-tonks of small towns. Sons of Texas, like Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, and Ernest Tubb, with his songs of heartbreak and loss, also helped make me who I am. Wherever I go, I still carry that music with me.

  Wherever I go, I feel your rivers flowing through my heart. And when we’re apart, I miss your wide-open sky. When we’re together, I like to walk in your rain and let your thunder fill my soul. After the rain, I listen to the songs of your mockingbirds, and I sing with them—the music of Texas.

 
; For the past fifty years, no man has ever felt more welcome in his home state than I have in Texas. When fools started disrespecting you by throwing litter along your highways, I got the chance to tell them, “Don’t Mess with Texas.” And it worked, as the litter on our roadsides gave way once again to fields of blooming bluebonnets.

  In Texas, I wrote countless songs and recorded dozens of albums that carried my music far around the world. I’ve never given up my love of playing to audiences wherever they want to hear my show, but it doesn’t take me long to start hankering for home.

  When I’m on the road, I think of getting back to my Hill Country home in Luck, Texas. When I’m in Luck, I saddle a horse and take a ride while I wait for your beautiful sunset. Soon the sky grows dark, and the stars shine bright as I sing you a song. It’s the least I can do.

  Your native son from Hill County,

  Willie Nelson

  TEXAS

  by Willie Nelson

  Listen to my song

  And if you want to sing along

  It’s about where I belong

  Texas

  Sometimes far into the night

  And until the morning light

  I pray with all my might

  To be in Texas

  It’s where I want to be

  The only place for me

  Where my spirit can be free

  Texas

  It’s where I want to be

  The only place for me

  Where my spirit can be free

  Texas

  Listen to my song

  And if you want to sing along

  It’s about where I belong

  Texas

  TO ALL THE YOUNG SONGWRITERS,

  Hello, my young friends. So you want to be a songwriter? Well you’re in luck, ’cause I’ve been writing songs for eighty years or so, and I have a piece of advice I think you should consider: Quit now! Quit while you’re ahead!

  Just think, you may not have had a single rejection yet. Why subject yourself to the negativity and the lack of faith in your talents? Why struggle for what may be years of rejection, doubts, and depression? Seriously, I’ve written thousands of songs, and I’m here to tell you, it don’t get any easier.

  So now that you’ve considered all that, let me ask you square: Are you still writing? ’Cause if you quit that easy, you didn’t deserve your talent in the first place. But if you’re still with me, read on . . .

  For starters, if you want to be a songwriter, listen to the world around you. Listen to the sounds and the thoughts that are passing through you. If it feels right and true to you, it likely will for others. Music is the great communicator. It crosses all boundaries. There is zero difference between people in Texas and people in Japan. We all laugh at the same kind of things. We all cry at the same things. And we all have music wired into our DNA.

  It also might be wise to write as many songs as you can. They won’t all be good ones, but you gotta start somewhere, and that’ll improve your odds.

  The great Mae Axton, who cowrote “Heartbreak Hotel” for Elvis Presley, was one of the first stars of country music who saw talent in me and encouraged me to give it my all. One thing she said that I never forgot is that songwriting is serious business. So now I’m telling you, if you want to be a songwriter, you need to give it your all.

  Everything in life holds the promise of inspiration. I’ve done some of my best writing just driving down the highway with a mind that’s open for a melody or even just a phrase. Songs don’t have to be complicated. Maybe one reason I can still remember those songs I wrote when I was ten years old is because I somehow knew to follow what would become a frequent refrain: “Keep it simple, stupid.” You don’t need thirty average verses—you need three great ones.

  One of my dear friends was the legendary Nashville songwriter Harlan Howard, who wrote classics like “I Fall to Pieces,” “I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail,” and “Heartaches by the Number.” I still love my recording with Ray Charles of Harlan’s classic, “Busted.”

  Harlan wrote a thousand songs or more, and his motto was “Three chords and the truth.” If you can remember that, and maybe come up with a line or two that memorable, you may be in bidness.

  But don’t think “the truth” is limited to your truths or that you have to only write what you know. Maybe it’s better to write what you know plus what you see, what you hear, and what just comes to you. Whatever it is, write it down.

  I don’t exactly know where my songs come from, but I’m pretty sure they fall from the sky. Recognizing that, I’ve become adept at catching them. And knowing that they come from some part of my experience, my longing, my joy, my grief, or something even closer to my core, I’ve learned to trust them. If a new song strips me bare, I have to be willing to show that part of me to one and all.

  Songs come to me in my dreams, and sometimes in my daydreams. Searching for a song, I might look at a situation or a place and imagine myself as some person with a story to tell. That can help me find a song that strikes people as being real.

  The songs may come to me rough-formed, but with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Then my abilities as a musician take over, finding the song that I’m hearing and moving things around a little to find the right progressions and tune up the lyrics. I used to think there was no need to even write it down. If I couldn’t remember it, maybe it wasn’t memorable. But then I got a little older and started thinking, Write it down and sort out the memorable part later.

  This is “Songwriter,” and it’s straight to the point.

  Write it down what you found out songwriter

  Don’t let it all slip away

  Speak your mind all the time songwriter

  Someone is listening today

  Write on songwriter

  Write on songwriter

  Write on . . .

  Not long after receiving the creative blessing of Mae Axton, I wrote some of the greatest songs of my life in just a matter of days: “Night Life,” “Funny How Time Slips Away,” “Mr. Record Man,” “Crazy,” “I Gotta Get Drunk,” and “The Party’s Over.”

  So that’s my story. What’s yours?

  Hope to hear you on the radio,

  Willie

  THE SONGWRITERS

  by Willie Nelson

  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 no one understands

  We get to shoot all the bad guys

  But 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

  The other half wants to be us

  And they’re jealous because we get to hang out

  In the back of some big star’s tour bus

  We’re old boots and tee shirts and blue jeans

  We’re cables and strings and E chords

  We only dress 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 ride bridges, we cross ’em and burn ’em

  Teach lessons but don’t bother to learn ’em

  Our mamas don’t 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 writin’ songs

  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’re the songwriters

  DEAR MUSIC EXECUTIVE,

  I already wrote you two letters. One was a note of appreciation to the record man who put a sad song on a jukebox, and one was to the kind of music executives who make creative decisions for artists they’re paying to make their own creative decisions.

  The first letter, a song I wrote and recorded in 1962, was addressed to “Mr. Record Man.” It was a classic Nashville country song, the words of a man with a broken heart. As I’ve always said, it’s the sad songs that make the jukebox play.

  Mister record man I’m looking for a song I heard today

  There was someone blue singing ’bout

  someone who went away

  Just like me his heart was yearning

  for a love that used to be

  It’s a lonely song about a lonely man

  like me

  We sold some records with that one, but the rest of that decade in Nashville didn’t do much for my opinion of certain types of record executives. I made a couple of labels some good money, only to get dropped. I could’ve gotten mad, but I knew that the only thing bean counters respect is beans.

  And that reminds me that it’s time for a joke.

  A musician is in the recording studio and he don’t like all the notes and suggestions, so he throws up his hands and says, “All record executives are assholes.”

  From the back of the studio, a voice calls out, “That’s insulting! You can’t say that to me!” The musician says, “Are you a record executive?” And the guy says, “No, I’m an asshole.”