Today we're doing a feed swap with another great podcast we think you'll enjoy. One by Willie examines the life and art of one of the most important figures in American musical history. No kidding. Willie Nelson. Each episode, music writer John Spong talks with one notable Willie fan about one Willie song they love. then runs down the kinds of rabbit holes that open up whenever the subject is Willie Nelson.
By notable, we mean everybody from Casey Musgraves and Lyle Lovett to Booker T. Jones and Daniel Lanois to Whoopi Goldberg, Ethan Hawke, and Pulitzer Prize winning New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright. with the conversations providing highly personal takes on the way Willie and his songs have shaped their lives. Today we share an episode from February with brilliant New Yorker music critic Amanda Petrosich, who focuses on Willie and Merle Haggard's 1983 duet, Reasons to Quit.
Willie Nerds know that song as the other hit off the Paris Landmark, Poncho, and Lefty album, which Amanda reframes as a concept album examining what she calls the Outlaws conundrum. i.e. what's an old renegade to do when the time comes to take it easy, before going deep on why she believes sad songs can help us when life seems too much to bear. One by Willie will be returning with new episodes later this summer. But in the meantime, find it wherever you do your podcast listening.
Sound Opinions is supported by Goose Island. Since 1988, Goose Island's been brewing beers in the spirit of Chicago. You can find 312 Weed Ale. Big Juicy Beer Hug, and so many other limited releases at either of Goose's locations in Chicago.
Goose Island Beer Company, Chicago's Beer. The new McCrispy Strip is here. Dip approved by ketchup, tangy barbecue, honey mustard, honey mustard, Sprite, McFlurry, Big Mac sauce, double dipped in buffalo and ranch, more ranch, and creamy chili McCrispy Strip. I'm thrilled to get to do this with you. And so then where we start is, what's so cool about Reasons to Quit? Thank you again for having me, John. This is such a treat.
I picked Reasons to Quit from Poncho and Lefty, which is an album Willie made with Merle Haggard in the early 80s. Also, John, I like that we're discussing a song about kind of faltering sobriety in late December, which might in fact be the boosiest time of year. So this record came out in 1983. Merle was 45, I believe Willie was. 49. I am 44 years old myself right now. So one of the things I love about this song and really this whole album is that it's
It's not about the transition from youth to adulthood. It's about the transition from... adulthood to maybe being a little bit old, which is an equally profound, I think potentially even more profound moment of kind of deep change and reflection. I think it's a moment they don't see reflected in a lot of art. You know, you've lived your life a certain way, it's served you for a time, but it's not serving you anymore, and yet it feels impossible.
to change. There's a quote I love from Merle where he talks about this period, this sort of midlife period, this awkward moment in the arc of an existence. And he said, your body's getting ready to die and your mind doesn't agree.
I think about all the time and I think about that a lot in the context of reasons to quit in particular which is a song about trying to be better and failing at it which is poignant you know this idea that we get locked into these cycles of behavior that are so obviously horrible for us but that knowledge alone isn't isn't enough to stop you know reasons to quit don't outnumber all the reasons why so i just love this song for all for all those reasons
I love that you I mean I know this album better than most other albums I know and I never thought of it as a concept record and really has all these concept records and some you actually have to shoehorn it into the concept to make it to follow but this as these two artists kind of transitioning from being young bucks to old lions. is a wonderful, different way to listen to this record. Yeah, you know, I love that idea. It's like
You know, I have a very domestic life in some ways. I'm a single parent. I have a young child. You know, I keep the counters clean. I change the sheets. But there's a part of me that really relates to the idea of sort of bucking against that. And I think that's such a narrative thread on this record. There's a very...
kind of dark and incorrect part of me that thinks, you know, we have neutered and defanged ourselves in the service of civilization. And I love that Willie and Merle on this album are really really really pushing against that uh you know they're sort of fighting it with everything they have left and in particular on this song um Let me, uh, will you listen to it with me? Yeah, please. Cool, yeah.
Love that. So the third verse in the song, which Willie sings, always makes me laugh, where he says, I need to be sober. I need to write some new songs that will rhyme. Like, as long as the songs can still rhyme, you're fine. When you're too high to make the words rhyme, you're really in hot water. I love that that's the bar for these two. Wait, I love it. Really?
sings that line because Hacker, you know, his lines, in the interest of overthinking it, they're a little bit bleaker. I mean, I'm hardly ever sober. My old friends don't come around much anymore. I mean, he's kind of... to your point he's the one that's resigned to it willie who famously is the workaholic who quit drinking and started smoking pot and credits it was saving his life but also keeping him productive
He's the one looking forward. They both ultimately say, but anyhow, there's a real dichotomy there. There's a distinction between the way the two are looking at stuff that fits with who I think they are. Yeah, absolutely. I feel the same way. And this whole record feels to me, it's like a little bit about their... friendship and the way you know that they held each other up and the things that they taught each other
It's quite poignant in that way. And I think that Willie has talked a little bit about his friendship with Merle over the years and the ways that they... had a lot in common in terms of how they grew up, their childhoods, things like that. There seems to be a sort of deep thread of compassion and understanding between the two of them that I think is palpable.
when they sing together. And then they also share this sort of what we were talking about earlier, what we might call the outlaws conundrum, which is when you've committed to an aesthetic of... rebellion and lawlessness and excess and self-determination when the day finally comes that you you know you find yourself craving a little comfort and routine how do you sort of shift into that
Yeah. So you can hear, I think, the warmth between them, even though it's an incredibly dark song in some ways. It's interesting, because if... If I understand, so I think I've read in a number of places that Willie, I mean, Merle says that he and Willie would have met at a poker game in 63, 64, something like that. And then, of course, Merle skyrocketed.
You know, his career really takes off in 66 or so. And Willie's not for another 10 years. But they're friends. They... travel they tour together in europe they do some package shows and stuff like that um when willie becomes such a big deal in the 80s and starts doing all these duet albums he didn't do one with merle for a while and i think you know from talking to people in in willie's orbit a part of that was it's hysteria buddy mine has
Merle was actually just drinking too much through those years. They were the really good friends But you know just like Willie never recorded with George Jones is you know probably the most famous screw-up in country music history You wrote about it in the obit, you know, he had so many great drinking songs in the 70s, but when you think about it, an album called Back to the Barroom, serving 190 proof, you know, songs like I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink, Misery and Gin.
He's writing about his life with those songs and an unhealthy level of drinking seems to have been a significant part of Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the darkness in the song. And maybe some of that sort of tension, you know, as you were saying in the verses, which is when Merle sings some of those lines, you think, oh God. And then when Willie sings it, it seems like a little, you know, a little bit lighter or easier.
I mean, you can see, as you were mentioning, you know, it seems like Weed in particular obviously played a really profound role in Willy's kind of creative work and his sort of awakening in the way that he gets through the day. It seems to have... been a little harder for Merle, I think, managing some of those things. Maybe that's the gentle way to put it. Yeah.
I was thinking about this interview Willie gave after Merle died when he talked about how in the early 80s when they were making this record, that they were both trying to be a little bit healthier. And Willie tells the story about how they used to go jogging. And I think the exact quote he said was,
we'd burn one down and run two miles in cowboy boots. Which you think, I don't know. I don't know how healthy that's going to get you. Maybe that's the only exercise we should all be doing. But I think, you know, I wonder how much that was Willie saying, like, Merle, let's... you know let's go for a run let's try let's eat some carrot sticks I don't know whatever it might have been you know trying to help his friends sort of get a little bit back on track
And that's the thought. Haggard had cleaned up a little bit and they were smoking weed instead of... getting plastered you know and and you know it helped willie with his productivity obviously that's how we got here um and so i think i don't know that that's kind of that's fascinating to me that they did that um Talk about how their voices, for all the other things that they're both known for, to me, especially with Haggard, I almost always started his voice.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's something in Merle's voice, there's something real, for me as a listener, as a fan, there's something really sort of round and solid in the way that he sings. Traditionally quite beautiful. I think the tone of his voice is, it's just beautiful, right? And really has this other thing where it's a little more fragile and there's a little bit of a crack in it. It's a little sort of feathery and tender.
And I think just the way in which those two things come together, I mean, to me, of all the duets, records Willie has made over the years, I think Poncho and Lefty is my favorite. I just, I think there's something about the way their voices kind of compliment and challenge each other. That's incredibly powerful. Merle makes me think a little bit of Ella Fitzgerald.
Only in that it's an objectively, undeniably beautiful voice. Whatever else might be happening, you can't not be impressed with that. And then with Willie's, I like, fragile is such a great word too. There's something... conversational about the way he sings which is a little bit phrasing but also just a little bit the sound of the voice it's a speak singing sometimes almost and a lot of whispering and that makes it That creates this personal connection with me when I'm listening.
That's just different from listening to Dean Martin or somebody like that as much as I enjoy that. Or even Haggard. I feel like he's talking to me in a different kind of way. Yeah, no, I completely agree, John. It's really interesting. combination of things and feelings and sounds there's that you know Merlin really released another record together
I think it was in 2015. Django and Jimmy, have you listened to that album? There's a cover on there of Dylan's Don't Think Twice. A song that's been covered a lot, really tough to beat the original performance of that song. But it just kills me. And I think it's that exact same thing we're talking about. It's that sort of strange tension between the two of them and the way that they deliver a line.
that when merle sings on that uh on that cover i gave her all my heart but she wanted my soul i just think man that's the outlaw that's that's it you know but they both and Willie's appearance on that song is a little more sort of contrite and a little more generous but you know Merle had that I think that sort of toughness and almost a little bit of a distance that Yeah, I mean it works. I think they work together so well.
You like Pancho Lefty the album and you know it well. Does it sound like it's from the 80s to you? That's such an interesting question. No. I think, to me, it feels like a 70s record, even though it's 83, right? What about you? You hear that early 80s? I mean, there is a kind of a glean to it. professionalism there's that but it but it but it actually gets to something
Well, so it's produced by Chips Moment. Do you know much about Chips? Can you tell me about Chips? I know him in relation to Willie, but not the... Some of the... Broadly, who's Chips Moment? Well, I wish I knew more. I wish I could tell you more. I know he was a beloved and quite popular session guitar. And I know we worked with Willie on some of his more famous tracks, but he's really best known for...
being a producer at Stax and then later for opening American Sound, I believe was the name of his studio. A beloved and tremendous studio that produced an almost uncanny number of incredible songs. But really, you know, a guy who I think had a singular ear, an intimidating ear, you know, who could kind of tell you immediately what was going right and what was going wrong in a performance. So it is... Very cool that he, did he produce all of Poncho and Lefty or is it just a couple songs on there?
the whole thing and yeah and it's it's just wonderful thing because he didn't have to do anything with willie to get into the hall of fame right you know it's from he did from from elvis You know, and Son of a Preacher Man is recorded in his studio, and he puts together those Memphis boys with Reggie Young and Gene Chrisman and Bobby Emmons and all these just, you know, badasses. And so, but he also wrote Luke and Bach Tech.
And he recorded... Oh, the Wayland song. Yeah. Yeah. He wrote old... He produced old Wayland for Wayland. And so that's when Willie... I think that's when Willie comes into his orbit and gets to know him. And so that...
77 or 78 and then so a few years later willie buys his golf course out in the country and decides to turn the clubhouse into his studio and so he brings Chip to design the studio and so the famous pergnalis recording studio were so much you know where julio iglesias flew in um that's that's what chips did with willie and when they're and when they're finishing up building out the studio I start to record. And they record a wider shade of pale.
and they recorded a song chips wrote do right woman do right man which is you know just magic killer and then they put it on hold because merle's come into town oh but one other thing in there i do love supposedly i did hear that they They had tried to cut Wider Shade of Pale with Waylon earlier on a duet thing. And I don't know if they got the track down and it didn't work or if they just didn't get it, but the famous quote from Waylon was, what the hell is a Vestal Virgin?
Great question, frankly. Yeah, I'm not altogether sure. Leave it to Wayland to ask, right? Don't put the words in my mouth. But then, so Merle's coming to town to cut this record, and that's how they get to Poncho and Lefty. And it's all those Memphis boys, and it's Chip. who become Willie's studio band through the 80s, and it ends up leading to Always On My Mind, which was a monster for Willie, and City of New Orleans.
Reggie Young was such a huge part of what Willie accomplished in the 80s, you know? And again, another guy that was already a Hall of Famer before they even hooked up. It's interesting to me that these songs, which do have a poppy glean to me... Also have these absolute street crap dude putting them together yeah yeah yeah of course i think that's a great way of putting it there's a lot of you know the smoothness the sort of national sound on this record but there is
There's a bit of Memphis in there too. If we were to think of those two things as a sort of yin and a yang, you know, or binary. Something that's like a little looser, a little scrappier, a little dirtier versus that sort of very clean, very smooth, very lovely thing that was happening in Nashville. I think you do hear both of those elements in this.
But just in general, it's funny listening to you talk about that, John. I love hearing about these sort of moments of interconnection and this sort of broad and complicated artistic and creative community that these guys were all involved in you know the ways in which they all changed each other's lives and changed each other's work um
It's really wonderful. I worry sometimes that we are losing that a little bit as you know as the way we make music and kind of consume music you know becomes sort of a little bit more digital a little less rooted in place and community that that you know i mean whatever not to sound like everyone's great-grandmother complaining about how things used to be so much cooler.
But, you know, but those connections, I think, are so crucial for all of us, for anyone who does creative work, sort of meeting people who inspire you and help you and, I don't know, help you sort of understand what you're doing in a new way. Yeah, every time I hear about that or I think about, you know, all those connections, it's just, it's very moving. Well, it's awesome because to me, one of the great lessons, if not the lesson of all this Willie work...
is that it's about relationships and real relationships. His recording career doesn't work until Bobby's in the band, his sister. It's all real. And so one of my favorites, the other great guitarist on this record is Grady Martin. You know, and Grady is this historic, immortal Nashville session guy. You know, on El Paso. That's Grady Martin.
You know, the cleanest, most wonderful, tasteful picture. Supposedly, I've seen it two different ways, but I think he did the guitar on Pretty Woman. The big riff on Pretty Woman. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That seems right. But he, um...
So when Willie's making Honeysuckle Rose in 1980, Slim Pickens, the rodeo bull rider slash character actor, is going to play as the lead guitar player, longtime lead guitar player in his band. And so when they're on stage together... slim pick has done how to play a guitar solo like that so they brought grady in as a stunt double And they use a close-up of Grady's hands on the guitar, and they cut back to Slim, making his BB King face or whatever.
I love that. But then Grady, he was in semi-retirement then. He just never left the band. He's like the greatest guitar player ever, and he thought it would be fun. to go on the road with Willie for the next 20 years and be in the studio with him and he's Haggard's favorite guitarist ever and so So that's these guys coming together, yeah! Yeah, that's so cool. That's so cool. I mean, because you think I've got...
When one thinks of Grady Martin, it's like the 60s stuff, the Patsy Cline stuff, but the fact that he had that, it makes me really happy actually to hear that he was Merle's favorite guitarist. The other thing I wanted to ask in all that, because you did, we talked a little bit about the glean.
It's interesting to me, and it gets at something that you talked to Willie about when you did the great Q&A with him at the start of the lockdown. The conventional wisdom, the myth, the legend, is that in the 60s, RCA and Nashville and Chet were mean to Willie, you know, they made him do stuff that he didn't want to do and that's why he didn't have any success and they tried to make him pop and he had to go.
you know make it simpler and dirtier and all that stuff when he hits at the end of the 70s he leans hard into country music that will sell And that will get on the radio. And it's, again, always on my mind. To all the girls I've loved before, which is not Chips, but City of New Orleans, this record, there is a shine to it. It's interesting to me that it makes me think that the idea about the 60s is not necessarily exactly the way it happened.
That's so interesting. You know, there was a moment in my life where I, Willie's recording of You Were Always On My Mind, was maybe my least favorite song in the world. I had a moment as a sort of young, bratty, stupid, like punk rock kid where I just thought this is the height of schmaltz and sentimentality and this is so corny and it's unlistenable and, you know, reminds me of being...
in a drugstore buying cough drops and I just, you know, I just, I couldn't bear it, you know? And it's funny because now as I've gotten older and maybe sort of lived a little, calmed down a bit, now I find it to be a very very loving and sincere and vulnerable performance but absolutely there was a moment where I found that amount of
I don't even know what the word is for it. Corniness. I guess it's an incredibly corny recording. I just couldn't, I simply could not bear it. I mean, what's your relationship to that song? I'm a kid in Texas, so it's on the radio everywhere. And actually, there were two things it did. One, since Willie's music was everywhere. forming an opinion about specific songs was more of an evolution. I did recognize it as an Elvis cut the first time I heard it, which I thought was weird.
And I liked it. But then I remember seeing him singing it on the David Letterman show. specifically and i thought oh wait he just became he's not just our dude is he this is this is he's he means something much bigger to everybody because it's kind of like not long after that he's in we are the world
And the only other country artist is Kenny Rogers. And it's like, who makes so much more sense in that room, right? And until you think about it, not like Willie's one of the guys in the room that nailed his tape. on the first day he had to sing it a couple of times for the people around him but but that's how good he is and so there was something about this song at first i was like and i am a big ballad guy anyhow i'm fine with a big power ballad but um
It unlocked some things for me. It made me start thinking about him differently. That's a big part of my relationship with his music. Yeah, well, of course, we all have those moments, too, I think, when we're younger and an artist that really felt like... ours, you know, from the place we're from or sort of from our generation, whatever it might be, when you kind of realize the vastness of their reach and how many other people also think of this person as theirs.
It can be a little heartbreaking. So I'm sure that Letterman moment, the We Are the World moment, you thought, wait a second, he's mine. What's he doing out there? I have that experience with many, many artists over the years. Yeah, I mean, Willie and Merle both had these.
pretty significant commercial moments in the early 80s, which again is interesting to come back to Reasons to Quit and the sort of thematic arc of that song. That's an interesting thing to have happen in your mid-40s as an artist. you know, a funny moment to be sort of commercially surging in a new way. But yeah, you're right. I think the glean and the sort of poppiness, they both kind of accepted it, I think, into their music at the same time.
We'll return with more One by Willie right after this quick break. Sound Opinions is supported by Goose Island Beer Company. Since 1988, Goose Island's been brewing beers in and inspired by Chicago. They got 312 Weed Ale, Hazy Beer Hug, and many more one-off beers at the Fulton Street Tap Room or their new Salt Shed Pub.
the perfect place to go before a show at the Salt Shed. Me and Andrew were there on opening night, Greg. It was really exciting. You had Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tick fever. I'm sorry about that. Anyway, every time we go to one of these goose joints, there's another new one to try.
And we love them all. I'm a fan. In addition to making great products and event spaces, Goose Island has always been a supporter of music culture in Chicago and nationwide. I mean, if you see that Goose Island logo at a venue or a restaurant, you know you're in good hands. Yeah, we are proud to be associated with Goose Island. Goose Island Beer Company, Chicago's beer. And sound opinions is. And now, more One by Willy. You said you have another version of Reasons to Quit?
Yeah, so this is a cover of Reasons to Quit by a guy named Phosphorescent, which is the alias of a singer and songwriter named Matthew Hook. I hope I'm saying his name right. Who's from Alabama. I believe he's based in Nashville now. But I sort of... became familiar with his music when he was bumming around Brooklyn a while back. But in 2009, he released an album called To Willie, which is all Willie Nelson covers, and it opens with Reasons to Quit, and I think there's
We were talking about the difference between the way Merle and Willie sing some of those lines. There's a real kind of brittleness and almost anxiety, I think, in the way that phosphorescent delivers these lines that to me sort of gets to the kind of grimness of the song and also the beauty of the song. Maybe we could listen.
It's really lovely, isn't it? That was awesome. I mean, a song that good, anybody could sing it. It's going to sound amazing. But I think there is a real kind of fragility in that performance. And, you know, we're talking a lot about the professionalism of Poncho and Lefty and the way in which that was recorded and these extraordinarily expert.
musicians who played on it and i think now we're hearing maybe like a slightly uh messier and i say that word with a lot of love and admiration slightly messier recording of it but but it nonetheless I really love that version. That whole record is great. Yeah, I was struck by the fragility, the vulnerability in his voice, but also there's a confidence that comes off too.
the way he changes their phrasing um like where he dropped outnumber don't outnumber all the reasons why and the first chorus it was it's it's nervy i mean but also he knows the song and he really loves the song it was it was true to what they did but his and and and and also it's weird there was something kind of Is there something in the production that made it feel like maybe he was high in that moment? Woozy is exactly the right word for it. You're exactly right.
Yeah, yes. You know, and it's funny because the song, I mean, the more we talk about it, the more I think. I've always thought of it as. Yeah, there's a lot of sadness in it, right? There's a lot of saying... There's an admission of defeat. There's an admission of failure that's really... rare. I think especially from guys like Merle and Willie who were pretty tough you know I mean they were pretty tough and they were intimidating and they were at the top of their game and it was
To see them both sort of grappling with this question of aging and how do I do this? How do I sort of change from one phase of life to another without completely giving up on or betraying who I am? I think that's a really tough question and it's a really interesting question.
Yeah, it's funny, too, because, you know, Phosphorus was quite a bit younger when he recorded that song than Willie and Merle were, and I think maybe it is a song that needs to be sung by somebody who sort of... been through it and trying to figure out what happens next you know exactly exactly but i do love that version i love the wooziness of it as you said and i don't know the vulnerability of it How'd you become a Willie fan? You grew up in the...
Hudson Valley area, you know, obviously you're an omnivore. I mean anyone that's Reggie knows that but but how specifically do you come to Willie or rather does he come to you? Right. Well, really comes for us all, I suppose. But you're right. It's not particularly in or of my culture. I grew up in upstate New York in the Hudson Valley. you know, just on the banks of the river there. I grew up not far from where Pete Seeger lived, and there was this sort of folky kind of...
It was just a different side of the 60s and the 70s and that music. I was born in 1980, so by the time I came around, those guys were a little bit less active. But it was a big, like, you know, people listen to Bob Dylan and they listen to Pete Seeger and they listen to Joan Baez. So it was, you know, sort of that side of things. I came to Willie a little bit late. I was probably in my mid to late 20s.
When I entered very quickly, I just sort of like I fell through a trapdoor in the ground. I got very, very, very, very, very into Waylon Jennings. And so Waylon was sort of my entryway. And to Willie, speaking of, you know, sort of beloved and famous outlaws. But that was it for me. And then from there, you know, I... I'm trying to think of what my first favorite Willie Nelson record was. God, I'm not sure. It's a great question. What was it for you? Oh my. You know, it might have been this one.
Because I'm 15 years older than you, I think. and uh so i'm in high school i'm starting high school in 1980 and there's all the stuff you're supposed to love redheaded stranger you know and then as you go down stardust um Honeysuckle Rose was kind of filmed in and around where I lived you know and so we were paying attention to that and then here comes on the road again and Angel flying too close to the ground which were the two singles off that soundtrack and
And those are massive, you know, they're standards. And so that's kind of the way in. And so at least for like the next 10 to 15 years, enjoying Willie music was a going forward thing for me as new stuff came out. And so this record killed me when it came out. But I was actually more of a haggard guy then. It was when I got older, and I think, to sound completely goofy, as my days grew more refined.
I was able to go back and listen to the earlier Willie and get it in a way I wouldn't have. Like the first time I listened to Redheaded Stranger, was like the first time I listened to Pet Sounds. I knew I was supposed to pick it, and it sailed way the hell over my head. I did not get it at all. Yeah, same. That's so funny. We had sort of parallel journeys in that way, I suppose, even though we were living in places where Willie occupied a sort of different percentage of the cultural imagination.
I also feel like I didn't really get it. I didn't really get Willie Nelson until I was maybe 40 years old. There's something kind of clicked. I had to catch up. Like he was just. always a few feet ahead of me. I mean, he's that kind of artist and then you sort of have a moment where it clicks.
redheaded stranger was one for me too where i thought oh my god you know and then suddenly it's like he's the greatest american artist of all time you know it just kind of clicks into place very quickly have you have you interviewed willie before john i should know this It's been a long time ago. I haven't since doing all of this Willie work, but I did talk to him. It was about 10 or 15 years ago and it was
It was great because a friend of his showed up. And talk about it all being about relationships. There was this old Lone Star beer representative who I had interviewed earlier in the week for this story. And when we were getting off the phone, he said, when are you going to talk to Will? And I said, uh, Wednesday? And he said, oh, cool, I'll be there. And I was like, no, Jerry, that doesn't look cool. But then luckily he was, because Willie...
You're not going to ask him. I don't know what your experience is like. I've never been able to ask him a question he hasn't been asked 150 times at a minimum. And by everything I know, he doesn't really like looking back on all that stuff anyhow. And so Jerry carried the weight of the conversation and prompted memories out of Willie I would have never gotten on my own. But that's the thing, it quit being an interview.
And started being these two buddies talking and me eavesdropping. You know, I got real lucky that way. Ah, that's perfect. That is really perfect. And seems to sort of say something, too. I mean, we were talking about this already, but I don't know how he's the most comfortable or sort of how his mind works the best. It is that idea, right? Like it's a bunch of people in a room sort of joking around and collaborating.
you know, making fun of each other a bit and encouraging each other a bit and that seems to be where things sort of bloom in this world uh so yeah so triangulating the thing probably was quite comfortable for him you know to not have it be a sort of one-on-one thing to have the attention be a little bit diffused because i think he does have a lot of humility and and you know um is is reluctant always to kind of give himself too much credit for anything and
Yeah, I imagine being a product of these highly collaborative environments has probably shaped him in that way. Can I pivot a little bit? Sure. I wonder, so many of the people who have been on the show have talked about If you were just talking about how reasons to quit, if you think about it, it really is a lot sadder than it presents, you know, on its face. How and why... Do sad songs.
work. A lot of the guests on the show have talked about it. Billy Strings said recently, said songs both are the blues and the cure for the blues. And then Miranda Lambert went a little deeper, not deeper, but she said it a little bit more. She said, they make you not feel alone or so alone in it.
And then there was the, you know, Mother Jones recently called you a hero for the year for 2024 as it wound down. And in the interview, you put it even more succinctly, I thought. You said, It really helps to hold our darkest and most lonesome feelings with other people, especially in ways that maybe aren't, and this is the part I really love, overly prescriptive or results oriented.
Yeah. Thank you. That's very kind of you. Yes, I think that's the... It sounds so dopey to say. It's the beauty of music, right? I mean, it's that it's not... It's not asking anything of you other than to just sort of hold a thing with someone for three minutes, to sort of be in this feeling and share it and feel it.
You're not trying to solve your problems, right? Like it's not running on a sad song and screaming into your pillow or, you know, whatever it is you may do in that moment. It's not going to fix it, but it's a moment, I think. When I was working on a book maybe a decade ago about collectors of extremely rare 78 RPM records, these sort of pre-war, very obscure...
blues songs that were recorded, of which there's maybe one or two kind of extant copies of this thing left in the world. Highly, highly rare recordings. And 78s are sort of a messy format, and listening to a 78 even on a really well-calibrated and high-tech turntable, it still sounds you know like an emanation from underground or something it's sort of messy it's hard to connect with sonically it's garbled uh you know the records have been scratched up they're 100 years old whatever
But there was this thing when I was spending a lot of time with that music, which in some ways felt very far away. It was made by performers about whom we knew very little decades and decades and decades ago. I couldn't totally hear their voice. I didn't know what they looked like. So there was a lot of distance there sort of intellectually between myself and the thing, but I was here nonetheless in these performances.
sort of deep yearning for communion, you know, for a sense of togetherness with another person. And it would kind of remind me that this thing that's very essential to our humanity, the ways in which we love and we lose and we hurt and we feel joy and ecstasy and wonder and hope.
you know just how sort of stupidly universal all those feelings are because i could hear you know i could hear it in these vocals and it um it really moved me i think it made me feel like the world was actually quite small and that we were sort of all in this thing together and it sounds like i'm about to start singing we are the world and doing the willy parts i'll actually do the dylan part the parts are more suited to my voice uh but
Yeah, you know, I think sad music can do that. I think it's just a hand to hold in your darkest moment, and it's not going to solve your problems. It's not going to fix anything. It's just like a little squeeze when you need it. a person you don't know coming from somewhere else who's simply saying like yeah i have felt that shit too and it
It hurts, you know, and sometimes that's all you need. I think you just need a little solidarity. Because when you're really in the weeds with grief or any kind of loss or, you know, feeling of, I don't know, loneliness or isolation. I think that's what you need. You just need to know you're not alone with it. You need to know it's a very normal and human thing to feel and that other people have felt it too.
Yeah, because otherwise you look around and you see everyone living their sort of beautiful, easy lives, and I think it's quite... possible to get sort of resentful and angry and whatever and I think sad songs stop us from doing that they say like hey this is you know we've all we've all been here sorry it's a very long rambly answer no it's perfect because it well I mean it's two things it's one
It's community. It's not being alone part, but community is a great word for it. But it's also that... There's not a fix, and there doesn't need to be a fix, you know? And so, like, my dad was an Episcopal priest, but also, like, in Austin, like, a pretty well-known grief and crisis. counselor and he was known as the guy in town when somebody lost a kid.
They went to my dad, you know, but one of the things that he did with that work was he taught seminary students how to get ready to be, how to deal that, how to be a pastoral caregiver. And he was unorthodox in how he did it when they would go and they would work on oncology units and they would work in ICU units and they would do this every day during the summer and they'd meet with him the next morning to talk about it.
And he had these great rules of thumbs like you can't wear your collar into that room. Then you stick out. Then you are an authority figure. Then they're looking to you for an answer. You're not going in there with an answer. Don't offer a fix. Just be there with them. Do not tell them about anything in your past. This is a, he would never put it this way in class because this isn't the way you learn. But it was like, don't talk about your own experience with something like that.
A conversation that a chaplain has in that moment can never be about the chaplain in any capacity. There's no fix. Be there with it. And the songs do that. Yeah, yeah. Completely. That's such a beautiful story and I will remember that. I think that's... Yeah, yes, of course, you can't fix it. And I think grief too.
You know, you have to just feel it. It feels bad. You have to feel it anyway. And music can kind of, I think, help you sort of stay with it and actualize that and sort of bear down on it rather than pushing it aside.
You know, I think all of that is incredibly important. I was thinking about it, and it's like, especially after you said the bit about not being prescriptive or results-oriented, you know, not looking for a fix. It's like, Brene Brown and I talked about this. It's like Amazing Grace doesn't necessarily heal.
itself you know but it helps you get through and it's a willy song actually it's not something you get over it's something you get through that's a song you wrote five ten years ago but also um The songs, they're not a ladder to help you climb out of the murk. They're like a life preserver. I don't want to get too cheesy about it, but they're a life preserver. They will keep you afloat in the murk, and you might be able to shut your eyes for a little bit.
and remember another time or something easier, but in any event you're with other people. Yeah, absolutely. And they'll help you feel. I mean, it's a shortcut to feeling. And I think that. Again, I'm sorry to be corny myself, but I think that's the most important thing we can do when we're struggling is to really let ourselves sort of feel...
Feel that. Feel the hard parts. And I think music accelerates that and it can kind of help us. It's like a shortcut to kind of getting there and really doing the work, feeling the thing. And it's cool because you have back to reasons to quit. They identify the... They prescribed the cure in the time I left a song. You know, it's quiet. If they did quit, who would know this song? If they quit, if at the end of this song, you're right, let's go for a job. It would be a horrible song.
Put on your cowboy boots, let's run down the street. No, it's a song about failure, right? I mean, it's a song about saying, like, I know I need to stop doing this thing that's horrible for me. I know I need to stop, like, dating this ghastly man or doing this, you know, whatever it is.
like I can't because it feels good and I'm whatever I'm not you know I'm not quite I love that I think it's so human and it's so honest and it too is is neither prescriptive nor results oriented lot of reasons to quit but you know what we're we're still doing it yep yep yep what's more honest than that We're like...
Willie still puts out two albums a year. He's at number 153. I know that there's at least two more in the can. What is a Haggard covers album? There's a Haggard covers album that I think will come out in the second half. of 2025. That's amazing. I love that. I love that. I think they, what a friendship. Yeah. He's still creating his legacy. But what is that legacy? What is
Is music different because of country or otherwise? What's the thing? Yeah, yes, of course. And I think in ways so sort of vast and complex, it's almost hard to kind of clarify or isolate them. I think...
Yes, I think American popular music, the American songbook, would be a very, very different thing without Willie Nelson. I think... God, when I try to think about what Willie brought to American popular music... i mean i think the outlaw thing uh which is which is fun to sort of joke around about i think is nonetheless I mean, I think that attitude of rebelliousness and confidence and a sort of playful...
kind of insouciance is um i mean i think we hear that in everything now right i mean that's become sort of so foundational to popular music But I think it's really just his sort of presence and his voice and the way that he delivers the lyric, his phrasing, his tone. There's just nothing like it. He's such a kind of profoundly unique artist. Yeah, it's really hard. It's like, I can't.
It's really hard for me to, it's my job. I am a professional music critic. I'm sorry to report and I'm absolutely failing at answering this question with any kind of... Precision, but... I have a different understanding. You put it in... It hadn't occurred to me. There's a hundred reasons that I think he did whatever about different accomplishments, but I have a vastly different understanding of the American songbook.
because of Stardust in particular, but that's not the only time he did that. He did that over and over. And I know those songs differently now. because of the time he spent as my tour guide was. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right, because when Willie sings a song, when Willie sings a classic song you've heard a million times before, He just sings it differently. I don't know, he inhabits it in a way that feels a little bit extra human. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I get that. Well then, to make it the same question, but much easier or much harder, You're the four-year-old. Miko. Someday she's gonna ask you who Willie Nelson is. I guess it depends on how long it takes her to ask. But how do you sum him up for her? Ah, I love that question. So Nikos, she's three, she'll be four in June. She's a very curious listener and she wants to know, you know, everything about an artist that we're playing.
Oh, God, Willie Nelson. How do I sum him up for her? He's the redheaded stranger. He's a... Продолжение следует... Now, John, now I want to write it all out. I want to write her a letter and give it to her for Christmas, and this is what you need to know about Willie Nelson. Can I do it in one line? I love to intrude, but I'm cool enough to know not to intrude on that.
Well, you know, I think that... You just wrote yourself a note. You're going to do it. You're the fucking best. You are the best. Busted. I'm about to start crying. Busted. Oh, man. Oh, my God.
No, I think I'm going to start crying too. I think... i mean how do you tell someone you just play the songs right you just drop the needle to the vinyl and you say this is willie nelson it's you know there's no other way to communicate that than to just play you know to just let her hear it uh but i think he's He's everything. I don't know. He's the voice of American music. He's the voice of American.
pain and American joy and, you know, all of it. It's sort of all in there in this incredibly kind of generous and humble you know this this way that he expresses himself i i um yeah i think i would just play on the records Ah, time. We're both going to be crying. It's awesome. some tracks queued up to make you cry. I'm not gonna do that.
Alright, Willie fans, that was Amanda Petrusich talking about reasons to quit. A huge thanks to her for coming on the show, and a big thanks to you for tuning in. if you dig the show please subscribe maybe tell a couple friends and visit our page wherever you get your podcasts and give us some stars or type in some comments every little bit of that helps more by Willie as a production. John Spong and PRX in partnership with Texas monthly. Our PRX production team is Jocelyn Gonzalez.
Grant and Pedro Rafael Rosado with production manager Edwin Ochoa. Our Texas Monthly team is engineer Brian Standifer, producer Patrick Michaels, executive producer Megan Klein and we get invaluable research and from Dominic Wellhouse. Please follow us on Instagram. willy all one word find us on blue sky and join our ever-expanding willy conversation at the I'm your host, John Spong.