MY NEW ALBUM HEROES IS NO. 15 ON THE TOP 100 ALBUMS, AND No. 4 on the country charts in the U.S.! Buddy Cannon and I picked the tunes and, as I said, brought in some great pickers from Nashville to my studio in Austin, where we joined Lukas and Micah and cut the tracks. We also cut some tracks in L.A. with Kris Kristofferson, Lukas, and Micah. I love working with Buddy because he knows all the best pickers to call. He’s also a great writer and one of the best producers ever. He’s not a bad guitar player and singer either.
Micah, Buddy Cannon, Kris Kristofferson,
me, and Butch Carr
My friend Snoop Dogg was gracious enough to sing with me on my new album too. We teamed up on “Roll Me Up” with Kris, Micah, Jamey, and Lukas. Thanks, Snoop!
I had the help of a lot of my heroes on Heroes: Sheryl Crow (one of my favorite singers), Ray Price, and Merle Haggard, another great singer and writer. Merle has written some of the best songs ever, like “Today I Started Loving You Again,” “Ramblin’ Fever,” “Mama Tried,” “Silver Wings,” and so many more. We still pick together any time we can.
Merle, Ray Price, and I did a CD called The Last of the Breed. We all sang on the Cindy Walker CD too. I hope we can do more again soon.
FUNNY HOW TIME SLIPS AWAY
Well, hello there
My, it’s been a long, long time
How am I doing?
Oh, I guess that I’m doing fine
It’s been so long now,
But it seems now, that it was only yesterday
Gee, ain’t it funny, how time slips away.
How’s your new love?
I hope that he’s doin’ fine
I heard you told him,
That you’d love him till the end of time
Now, that’s the same thing that you told me
Seems like just the other day
Gee, ain’t it funny, how time slips away.
I gotta go now
I guess I’ll see you around
Don’t know when though
Never know, when I’ll be back in town
But remember, what I tell you
In time you’re gonna pay
And it’s surprising, how time slips away . . .
YESTERDAY’S WINE
Miracles appear
In the strangest of places
Fancy meeting you here
The last time I saw you
Was just out of Houston
Sit down let me buy you a beer
Your presence is welcome
With me and my friend here
This is a hangout of mine
We come here quite often
And listen to music
Partaking of yesterday’s wine
Yesterday’s wine
I’m yesterday’s wine
Aging with time
Like yesterday’s wine
Yesterday’s wine
We’re yesterday’s wine
Aging with time
Like yesterday’s wine
You give the appearance
Of one widely traveled
I’ll bet you’ve seen
Things in your time
So sit down beside me
And tell me your story
If you think
You’ll like yesterday’s wine
Yesterday’s wine
We’re yesterday’s wine
Aging with time
Like yesterday’s wine
Yesterday’s wine
We’re yesterday’s wine
Aging with time
Like yesterday’s wine
I GOTTA GET DRUNK
Well, I gotta get drunk and I sure do dread it
Cuz I know just what I’m gonna do
I’ll start to spend my money callin’ everybody honey
And I’ll wind up singin’ the blues
I’ll spend my whole paycheck on some old wreck
And brother I can name you a few
Well, I gotta get drunk and I sure do dread it
Cuz I know just what I’m gonna do
Well, I gotta get drunk, I can’t stay sober
There’s a lot of good people in town
Who like to see me holler, see me spend my dollar
And I wouldn’t dream of lettin’ ’em down
There’s a lot of doctors that tell me
That I’d better start slowin’ it down
But there’s more old drunks than there are old doctors
So I guess we’d better have another round
APRIL 15, 1:30 P.M.
I am playing Wii golf on the bus with David, and there is a storm coming. I’m glad the show is inside tonight. It’s one thirty P.M., and so far so good, but it looks like we are still in the path of the bad weather. It’s amazing the number of bad storms we are having. We are definitely in a changing world. I’ve said before that the Earth is a living entity, and it takes care of itself. The Bible says, “If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out.” It is a huge tiger with a thorn in its paw. Earth will take out the thorn and everything else in its way. Earth is always healing itself, mainly because we are always harming it in some way. The water and air on Earth are being adversely affected by our bad habits. We are fucking up our home . . . damn, are we dumb.
2:25 P.M.
Looking out the window of the bus, David says we have fifteen minutes before the storm hits. The weather is still bad. There have been one hundred tornadoes this week, and five people so far didn’t make it to the next day. One tornado destroyed a town and one hundred people have been displaced, from Texas to Wisconsin. Otha Lee Boyd and I were in the middle of a tornado one time. It killed one hundred sixty people. I have the utmost respect for tornadoes. If I were a music fan in this area, and I asked myself where I wanted to be on a night like this, my answer would be home. I wouldn’t blame them at all if that’s what they decided. I think the worst is over, though. I hope so. But we are all in this sinking ship together.
Ahoy, matey!
Whew, no problem, we dodged another bullet! Thank you very much, weatherman or weatherwoman, whichever. You who do weather.
Bill Cosby is on TV now. He is a great guy and a great friend. One time he asked, “What do you need?” when I needed millions, and I knew he was serious. Thanks, Bill!
I haven’t quite figured out this walking-on-water stuff. I had a great day of golf today with all the gang. We didn’t play that well, but we had fun and got some fresh air. I needed to get off the bus for a while.
I WOKE UP ONE NIGHT ABOUT TWO IN THE MORNING, IN RIDGETOP, Tennessee. I was reading in the paper where some guy killed his girlfriend, so I wrote:
I JUST CAN’T LET YOU
SAY GOODBYE
I had not planned on seeing you
I was afraid of what I’d do
But pride is strong and here am I
And I just can’t let you say goodbye
Please have no fear you’re in no harm
As long as you’re here in my arms
But you can’t leave so please don’t try
I just can’t let you say goodbye
What force behind your evil mind
Can make your lips speak so unkind
To one who loves as much as I
I just can’t let you say goodbye
The flesh around your throat is pale
Indented by my fingernails
Please don’t scream and please don’t cry
I just can’t let you say goodbye
Your voice is still it speaks no more
You’ll never hurt me anymore
Death is a friend to love and I
’Cause now you’ll never say goodbye
There was a guy in the Junction Bar in San Antonio who loved that song. He would come walking toward the bandstand choking himself, with his hands around his throat, which is how I knew that he wanted me to sing that song.
TUESDAY, APRIL 17
We play St. Louis tonight, then on to Austin. I’m ready to see
my ponies.
I’m back in the cabin, and there’s another great sunset. When Waylon Jennings, Larry Trader, and I first came up here, I knew I had found a spot. This is it, and it don’t get no better than this, end of story.
There is still a little chill in the air. I thought I’d hit the pool . . . wrong. I’m real wimpy about cold water. Hot water, that’s okay. I like hot water. I get myself in it all the time.
A GUY WENT TO THE DOCTOR FOR A CHECKUP. THE DOCTOR SAID, “Well, first of all, sir, you’ll have to stop masturbating.” The guy said, “Why?” The doctor said, “So I can examine you!”
This is a good time for a hit and a hot coffee. I call it hillbilly heroin.
APRIL 18
Dick Clark passed away today from a heart attack. He was really one of the good guys and brought a lot of great music together. He was just eighty-two years old. He did American Bandstand starting back around 1956. He created the show, and they called him America’s oldest teenager.
When I was six years old, maybe before, I was writing poems about things like good love, bad love, and broken hearts before I was old enough to know about those things. I do believe in reincarnation and that I came back to write things down—I just started early. I wrote poems until I learned to play guitar; then I started writing songs, and I have never stopped. I had some times when I wrote more. But like Roger Miller said, sometimes the well goes dry and you have to wait till the well fills up again. Roger was great. Mel Tillis said, “Roger could rhyme shit and claw hammer,” and I think he could.
SISTER BOBBIE
Our education was very important to Mama Nelson. It was when Willie was in first grade that his teacher, Miss Dianne, told her of Willie’s very noticeable writing ability. He had written a poem that had impressed the teacher a lot. Mama was so proud. She could not wait to tell me. It was at this young age that Willie started writing, first poems and then songs. We would perform his new com-positions for the congregation at revival church meetings. It is obvious today that his writing has continued and we are still performing his compositions. Where we first performed in church, then school, we joined others to play music, from his polka band to our first swing band—with our father and my husband, who formed our first honky-tonk band. We were making music, building a fan base, having a lot of fun and enjoyment, and learning more music and playing it better.
Where were we? Oh yes, we are going to Lufkin, Texas.
THURSDAY, APRIL 19
Lufkin went great, and we had a really great crowd. We had good weather, and it was an outside show, so perfect.
4/20, AUSTIN, TEXAS
Today is my statue day, at the corner of Lavaca Street and Willie Nelson Boulevard, and Johnny Cash’s birthday bash in Austin at the W Hotel, in Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater. Did I mention the sculpture is on Willie Nelson Boulevard? The sculptor is a man named Clete Shields from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are presenting the statue today on 4/20 at 4:20. It will be a good day. My son Micah is with me. He will play with me at the Cash birthday show and at the statue presentation. Then maybe he will paint a picture of it all. He is such a great artist, and I can’t draw a circle. It just don’t figure. But I can draw a crowd, I guess, and so hopefully they will be there for me today.
CHRIS ETHRIDGE
Chris Ethridge died today, April 23, 2012, from complications with cancer. Chris played bass in my band. He was a great musician and a good friend. Chris played bass with me when Bee took a job with Waylon. Then Bee came back and we had two bass players, and at one time we had two bass players and two drummers. Everything was great until we all got on different drugs; then it sounded a lot like a cluster fuck and a catfight going on at the same time, but we had fun. Anyway, Chris was sixty-five years old. He will be missed.
ONE STEP BEYOND
I’m just one step before losing you
and I’m just one step ahead of the blues
and I know that there’s been pain and misery
long before this old world ever heard of me
It will hurt me so much to see you go
But we’ll just add one more heartache to the score
And though I still love you as before
I’m just one step beyond caring anymore
I guess that you’re surprised that I could feel this way
after staying home and waiting night and day
for someone who cared so much for me
you’d come home just long enough to laugh at me
I don’t know just when my feelings changed
I just know I could never feel the same
and though I still love you as before
I’m just one step beyond caring anymore
WE HAD A GOOD LAUGH TODAY TALKING ABOUT MY STATUE WITH Michael Hall from Texas Monthly. He was here today doing a piece on me and Trigger. Trigger loved it.
I AM THINKING I WANT TO PUT “YESTERDAY’S WINE” BACK IN MY show. I just heard it on my SiriusXM channel, performed by George Jones and Waylon Jennings. Pretty cool.
THERE’S A NEW MOVIE I’M IN, CALLED WHEN ANGELS SING. ALL THE actors did a great job, I thought. It will be coming out . . . duh, around Christmas! I like it because it’s a real family movie. I think we need more family movies. I may need to work on scoring the music for it, and that will be easy, but I guess I’m looking old. Did I mention that I was in it? Oh well.
THERE SEEMS TO BE A WAR ON WOMEN, AT LEAST IN THE MEDIA. WE won’t win that one . . . period. We can’t let our mockingbird mouths overload our hummingbird asses.
THE ART OF FARTING
MAY 2012
We are on a break and flying back to Maui. It looks like the ocean and the clouds are getting closer. I hope we’re landing. They say landing an airplane is like a controlled crash. I wish they wouldn’t say shit like that.
We are about three hours out now. Annie has her face covered because there’s a little kid coughing openly, really bad, and spreading her germs everywhere. So I just farted and sent it her way. That should kill all the germs on the plane. My farts have been known to kill johnsongrass six feet high. My grandmother slapped a fart out of me one time that whistled like a freight train. It scared both of us really bad. She never hit me again.
That little girl doesn’t even know to say thank you, but I hope someday she might be able to do the same for somebody else. It’s okay, little girl, I’m a pretty nice guy once you get to know me, and if you ever need any more emergency medical help just send me your home address, and I will fart in your general direction. You’re welcome.
MAY 6
I’m on the bus drinking buttermilk—well, actually, it’s an organic, lactose-free kefir that Annie gets for me to drink, because it’s healthier. I have plenty of lactose and I don’t know if I need what I got, so it’s probably good. I’ve never lacked in lactose as far as I know. Lactose could be one of those things that you don’t know you have too much of until you die. It happens I’m sure. Oh well, here goes nothing. It’s really good, but I tried to get Steve Gilchrist, another poker buddy, to taste it. He almost threw it up. Apparently he’s not a kefir guy.
We played poker two days straight after my show at the Backyard, which was great if I do say so myself. It was a sold-out crowd. Jamey Johnson, Paula Nelson, and Amy Nelson played too. Mudslide has been here for a few days helping out. My seventy-ninth birthday is coming up. I hope to get all the kids over for a little party. Annie loves it when all the family is there and she can feed them all, so I’m guessing it will happen.
WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU CROSS A ROOSTER WITH ANOTHER rooster? A very cross rooster!
Speaking of chickens . . . one time I went over to Bee Spears’s house after he had just gotten back from the feed store with some corn for the chickens in his backyard. He dropped the corn and it spilled all over the bedroom floor. We decided that the best way to clean it up was to bring the chickens into the bedroom.
We did and they ate all the corn. It was a brilliant idea. Then we noticed
that one chicken would take a bite of corn and then raise her right leg. She did it every time. So when Bee’s wife came home, she wanted to know what was going on.
Bee told her we had been training chickens. He pointed at the one hen and said, “Watch this.” She said, “Okay,” so he waited till the one chicken ate a kernel of corn. Then Bee said, “Okay, honey, raise your right leg,” and of course the chicken did! We laughed a lot.
I WANT TO BRING UP MY FAVORITE GUITAR PLAYER AGAIN. DJANGO Reinhardt is the best, period. I play “Nuages” and a couple more Django songs every show. I heard one of the Little Willies—Norah Jones’s band—said I played “like Django with one finger.” That’s about the nicest thing anyone has ever said about my playing, because as we all know Django only had two fingers because of the fire and was still the best guitar player that ever lived. Just to think for a minute that I might be half as good as Django makes my head a little bigger, so thank you.
Django
Norah is a sweetheart and a great musician; I love singing with her. Her band the Little Willies is really great. How do you think that makes me feel? I was and always will be floored. Thanks, Norah. I love you.
A GUY WAS IN A COMA FOR YEARS. HE WOKE UP ONE DAY AND smelled his favorite food, chocolate cookies. He crawled out of bed and all the way down the hall to the kitchen. When he got there, sure enough, there they were. He put his hand up to reach one, and his wife slapped him on the hand and said, “No, honey, those are for the funeral!”
PERMANENTLY LONELY
Don’t be concerned it’s time I learned
That those who play with fire get burned
But I’ll be all right in a little while
But you’ll be permanently lonely
Don’t be too quick to pity me
Don’t salve my heart with sympathy
’Cause I’ll be all right in a little while
But you’ll be permanently lonely
The world looks on with wonder and pity at your kind
Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings From the Road Page 10