Willie (18 page)

In October 1960, Larry and I went to the DJ convention in Nashville. In the lobby of the Jackson Hotel Ralph Emory was set up with his radio show for the entertainers that had new records or wanted to come up and be interviewed by Ralph Emory. But you had a time, like George Jones was at 3:00, Faron Young was at 1:00, everybody had a certain time to be up there. You had to wait till that time come, because Ralph was interviewing everybody. Larry's time was at 2:30 in the morning, and we had messed around, we had walked all over Nashville, we got back, it was late, God, we were tired when we got back to the Jackson Hotel. A lot of people were mingling in the lobby. Ralph Emory was sitting over to the very far right. We was standing in line talking to some musicians and Larry said, “Pat, that's Willie over there. That man laying on the floor, that's Willie.” I said, “How can you tell it's Willie?” He was curled up in a little ball, had his back to us. He had his arm over his face. When I got close enough
where I could see who the man was laying on the floor, I fell right on top of him. Willie turned over and he looked at me. I said, “What in the world are you doing?” I said, “Willie, what are you doing laying on this floor?” He said, “I'm trying to sleep.” I asked Willie how he got to Nashville. He said he walked. He had this record he wanted Ralph Emory to play. And Ralph wouldn't put him on. I said, “Well, just wait around. Larry goes on at 2:30. You go on up as soon as Larry goes up.” So sure enough, we waited and Willie stood up there with us but Ralph wouldn't interview Willie. Ralph just turned Willie down flat, wouldn't let him play the record he had with him, “Night Life.”

In 1985 we was visiting with Willie in Austin. We got to talking about the fun times we'd had and laughing about some of the incidents that had happened and Willie looked at me and said, “Pat, how long's it been since I played your club?” I said, “Well, a good while, probably the last time was 1969.” That was the night he first met Connie. Willie came to Cut ‘N' Shoot the following Friday and did me a show. I don't guess I've had anything make me feel so good. And Willie never took a nickel for the show.

Bennie Binion is a legendary Texas outlaw character who was one of the founders of Las Vegas as a gambling resort. He was arrested for murder—“It was self-defense. He shot me, so I shot back. He missed. I didn't.” He owns the Horseshoe casino and hotel in Las Vegas
.

Mae Axton is a noted songwriter—she wrote “Heartbreak Hotel” for Elvis—and mother of singer-actor Hoyt Axton
.

Charlie Williams is a country music veteran DJ, songwriter, manager, and producer—and former business partner of Willie's
.

Paul English is Willie's drummer, business partner, and close friend of twenty-two years
.

Patsy Butler is a close friend whose bandleader husband Larry gave up half his own salary to hire Willie at the Esquire Club in Houston
.

PART FOUR

You're callin' us heathens with zero respect for the law.

But we're only songwriters, just writin' our songs that's all.

We write what we live and we live what we write. Is that wrong?

Well, if you think it is, Mr. Music Executive, why don't you write your own song.

An' don't listen to mine

It might run you crazy

It might make you dwell on your feelings a moment too long.

We're makin' you rich

An' you're already lazy.

Just lay on your ass and get richer, and

Write your own song.

Mr. Purified Country, don't you know what the whole thing's about?

Is your head up your ass, so far that you can't pull it out?

The world's gettin' smaller and everyone in it belongs.

And if you can't see that, Mr. Glorified Country

Why don't you write your own song?

An' don't listen to mine

It might run you crazy

It might make you dwell on your feelings a moment too long.

We're making you rich

An' you were already lazy.

Just lay on your ass and get richer, and

Write your own song.

So just lay on your ass and get richer, and

Write your own song.

Bundini Brown, who used to be in Muhammad Ali's corner during his heavyweight championship years, believes powerful thoughts and sounds are always passing through us in radio waves, and what we must do is learn to listen. Bundini's classic line, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” popped into his head through radio waves, he says. He recognized it as inspired advice for Ali to adopt as his philosophy in the ring. Bundini believes God is in the radio waves that our conscious minds too often choose to tune out. I agree with him about all of that, as you know by now, but for the purpose of talking about songwriting we will stick to the part about inspiration.

Countless poets, authors, and composers have reported with a feeling of awe that when their best work came it seemed as if some force beyond their control was dictating what they wrote. I don't know if Shakespeare ever said as much, but I am sure he felt it. Closer to home, one of my favorite writers, Hank Williams, used to say, “I pick up the pen and God moves it.”

If God—or for now let's say creative imagination—is whispering into everybody's ear all the time, why is a Shakespeare or a Hank Williams such a rarity? Why can't everybody write
Hamlet
or “I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love with You”? As Bundini says, the trick is
being able to tune in instead of tuning out. The deeper you can learn to listen to the sounds and thoughts that are always passing through you, and the more you can learn to trust what you are hearing, the more likely you are to write something good.

Of course, there will always be people who will hear or read what you write and say, “What a piece of shit.” Speaking as a songwriter of long experience, I can assure you that you will never encounter a shortage of critics.

The only answer to critics—and this may be the most important quality for you to develop if you desire a career as a writer of any sort—is perseverance.

I don't mean just to outlive your critics. It can't be done. New critics are constantly arriving to shove old critics away from banquet tables where they feast on roasted writers.

By perseverance I mean determination, sincerity, devotion, dedication, tenacity, willpower, self-assertion, firmness of spirit, ruthlessness when necessary, obstinacy, even selfishness.

In other words, “Fuck 'em if they don't know it's good.”

It amuses me the people who set themselves up as critics. Not just the critics in print or on TV but also the critics who have titles at music publishing companies and movie studios. What do they know? They may have the power for a while to pull down their pants and shit all over you. But if you listen to your inner voice and refuse to quit doing your best, in the long run you will be the winner even if you don't turn out to be Shakespeare or Hank Williams. Being true to the heart of your own self puts you way ahead of the game no matter who thinks they're keeping score.

But the assholes can sting you anyhow. Why I should remember this for so long, I don't know, but I opened a show for George Hamilton IV in Canada about twenty years ago, and a critic wrote, “Where on earth did they dig up this freak Willie Nelson, who can't sing and is an illiterate songwriter?”

Maybe I wasn't as sure of my singing twenty years ago as I became later when my voice grew stronger, but being called an “illiterate songwriter” pissed me off profoundly.

Ever since then, I have never really worried about critics, because if this was the mentality of people who criticize other people, then fuck them.

If there is one thing I have known I am good at since I was old enough to catch the first thoughts and sounds that passed through me, it is songwriting.

There are millions of things I can't do, but songwriting I can do.

Melodies are the easiest part for me, because the air is full of melodies. I hear them all the time, around me everywhere, night and day. If I need a melody, I pluck one out of the air.

For example, I was on a plane with Sydney Pollack and Jerry Schatzberg shortly after I signed to do the movie
Honeysuckle Rose
. Sydney was the executive producer and Jerry the director, and they were talking to me about the music. They wanted a song.

“What kind of song?” I said.

Either Sydney or Jerry said, well, some kind of song about people traveling all over the country making music.

I said, “You mean about being on the road again?”

They said yeah, that's it.

I like to show off occasionally. I picked up an envelope, or maybe it was an airsick bag, and wrote:

On the road again
.

I just can't wait to get on the road again
.

The life I love is making music with my friends
.

I just can't wait to get on the road again
.

“How about this?” I said.

It was just one those things. As soon as I wrote “On the road again” the rest of the words simply flowed as if someone else was moving my pen.

Even if I had already thought up the song before I got on the plane, I wouldn't have admitted it to Sydney and Jerry. I liked seeing the surprise in their faces. But the fact is, it had never occurred to me until I said those first four words.

“How about the melody? What does it sound like?” Sydney asked.

I said I didn't know, I would work on the melody later. I didn't give any more thought to the melody until months later, the day before I was going into the studio to cut it. I saw no reason to put a melody to something I wasn't ready to record. I knew I wouldn't have any problem pulling the melody out of the air.

Every song doesn't come that easily. From the middle fifties until the middle seventies, I wrote way over 2,000 songs. I have hundreds of songs stashed here and there. Some I recorded for myself or friends but never released. Others I have never even put on tape, but I could pick up my guitar today and play and sing any of those unrecorded songs if I wanted.

After the middle seventies, I stopped churning them out because I
no longer felt the
need
to keep writing constantly. When my family and I were hungry and the rent was overdue, that was a real need. There is nothing that quite compares with being broke and desperate to make a real writer keep working.

Now I write for two reasons. One is when there is a specific need for a song, as there was for “On the Road Again.” The other is when an idea comes to mind and I know it must be a song because it's too good to throw away.

If I've gone a long time without writing a song, I don't worry about it. I know something will come up. As Roger Miller says, sometimes the well runs dry and you have to wait until it fills up again before you have anything else to say. In my hungry days, the landlord didn't give a shit if the well was dry, he wanted his money. Maybe that's why my well never ran dry in those days.