Willie Nelson's Letters to America

INTRODUCTION

DEAR READERS,

Thanks for picking up a copy of my new book, a collection of fond memories, personal letters, good songs, and bad jokes. These are stories that start back when I was a kid in Abbott, Texas, and reach forward to the current pandemic, which has us locked up at home singing our own versions of Hello Walls.

It’s been a long time since I wrote, Shotgun Willie sits around in his underwear, but it don’t seem like all that much has changed. Just ask my wife, Annie. The song of the year for married couples ought to be How Can I Miss You When You Never Go Anywhere?

One good thing about the lockdown is this eighty-seven-year-old guitar picker has had time to write out a few of the stories that made me who I am, and to think about what I’d like to say to people I love, and to some I loved who aren’t with us anymore. I’ve also written to people I’ve admired or who’ve inspired me along the way.

I’ve always been a letter writer. I spent a lot of my life on the road, so I sent notes to family to say things I couldn’t say in person. When I was young, I was taught to write thank-you letters. I could spend the rest of my life writing thank-you notes to friends, family, and my heroes, but I’d still end up leaving out someone I love. So I’ll say it now. Thank you. Every one of you. If you’re wondering if I mean you, the answer is, Yes, I do.

There is nothing more important than family and friends, so this book is dedicated to all of you. I know you accept me as I am. For those who don’t know me as well, if some of my thoughts don’t hit a home run with you, you should at least know that they come from my heart. Differences are to be expected in life, especially in difficult times. Despite our differences, this is a time when remembering our common bonds and dreams has the power to bring us all back together again.

I’ve done a fair amount of rough and rocky traveling, so I guess this is the good, the bad, and the funny. Like those jokes I mentioned, life is better when we don’t take it too seriously.

Speaking of which . . .

What do you call a guitar player without a girlfriend?

Homeless.

If you don’t think that’s funny, you probably don’t know many guitar players.

Okay, where was I? Oh yeah . . . letters! We all know the art of letter scribbling ain’t what it used to be. And grammar ain’t either. Back when you had to write or type something with your own hand, mail it halfway across the country, then wait for a reply, there was reason to invest a lot of thought into your letters. If you were good at it, those letters were like carefully crafted songs. That art has been replaced by the instant exchanges of texting, and even though I’m a champion thumb-typer, there are some things that don’t fit in the length of a tweet.

My songwriting and producer pal Buddy Cannon and I often write songs by text, sending verses and choruses back and forth like teenagers making plans for Saturday night. That may sound crazy, but don’t knock success unless you’ve tried it. It’s a system that’s worked for us for years, and the lyrics to a few of those songs are in this book. I’m also including lyrics for some of my classic songs and a few stories about how I wrote, sold, or recorded them.

I’m working on a new song now, but so far I only have two lines:

If you don’t leave me alone

I’ll find someone who will

I don’t know where that one’s headed. But I’ll keep you posted.

I once wrote a song called Who’ll Buy My Memories? And I guess I’m about to find that out. So, without any more jabber-jaw, here are my songs, my stories, and my letters to America. And a few bad jokes.

WHO’LL BUY MY MEMORIES?

by Willie Nelson

A past that’s sprinkled with the blues

A few old dreams that I can’t use

Who’ll buy my mem’ries

Of things that used to be

There were the smiles before the tears

And with the smiles some better years

Who’ll buy my mem’ries

Of things that used to be

When I remember how things were

My memories all leave with her

I’d like to start my life anew

But memories just make me blue

A cottage small just built for two

A garden wall with violets blue

Who’ll buy my mem’ries

Of things that used to be

DEAR AMERICA,

This is your old friend, Willie, sending a note to see how you’re doing and to say I’m doing fine. I’ve long believed in the positive idea of being fine and being committed to a goal of always moving forward. If I’m backing up, it’s just to get a running start. Those are words you can live by.

But when times get tough for family and friends—and I like to think of everyone around the world as my family and friends—I sometimes look back on songs I’ve written that might contain some wisdom or maybe a laugh that still applies today. I once wrote a country song called Three Days, about the three toughest days of heartbreak—yesterday, today, and tomorrow. So I guess I’m thinking now about lessons I learned yesterday that would apply today and tomorrow.

When the going gets tough and the tough need a little inspiration to get going, I think about another of my songs.

Lord, please give me a sign

For these are difficult times

These really are difficult times. As for me, I’m getting bored to all hell sitting at home and wishing I was on the road making music with my friends. But my problems are small potatoes compared to many millions of people who don’t know where their next paycheck is coming from or how they’re gonna feed their families.

I was born during your Great Depression of the 1930s, so I had some early experience with hard times. My sister, Bobbie, and I were raised by our grandparents. After my granddaddy died, times were even tougher. For Thanksgiving dinner one year, we split a can of soup! Some may not think of those as the good old days, but my grandmother, who we called Mama, was always there for us. It took love and faith and music to carry us through.

Even today, I can hear my grandmother’s voice and her fingers on the piano keys as she played and sang Old Rugged Cross and Woody Guthrie’s great anthem to America, This Land Is Your Land. The hard times made us strong, and the good times made us stronger. Together, they made me who I am.

Now here we are, America, eight decades later, and just like the old song, hard times have come again once more. Once again, we are trying to hold to each other and hold to your great American dream for every person. We’re trying to find what unites us—to remember our shared beliefs in family, in love, and in your democratic ideals, so we can come through as a stronger America. If we don’t find what unites us, we will once again be a house divided. We tried that once in the 1860s, and six hundred thousand Americans died fighting against each other. That should be our reminder that we need to get our shit together and remember the ways we are alike rather than focusing on the ways we’re different.

When our nation was in mourning after 9/11, you gave me the opportunity to do my part for the live concert America: A Tribute to Heroes. That inspiring event had one of the largest audiences in television history. I followed a string of great artists—Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Alicia Keys, and many more. Then I got to lead everyone in an inspiring rendition of your beautiful song, America the Beautiful. As we sang onstage that evening, I felt that I could hear the television audience singing, too, a nationwide chorus raising our voices from sea to shining sea.

To sum it all up, I’d like to amplify across America the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Let freedom ring!

From a hilltop in Texas,

Willie Nelson

I wrote this song when I was in a bar with my friend Zeke Varnon. An old drunk came up and asked for some money. He said, I ain’t had nothin’ to drink in three days: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I gave him some money, laughed, and wrote this song.

THREE DAYS

by Willie Nelson

Three days that I dread to see arrive

Three days that I hate to be alive

Three days filled with tears and sorrow

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow

There are three days I know that I’ll be blue

Three days that I’ll always dream of you

And it does no good to wish these days would end

’Cause the same three days start over again

Three days that I dread to be alive

Three days that I hate to see arrive

Three days filled with tears and sorrow

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow

There are three days I know that I’ll be blue

Three days that I’ll always dream of you

And it does no good to wish these days would end

’Cause the same three days start over again

Three days that I dread to see arrive

Three days that I hate to be alive

Three days filled with tears and sorrow

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow

DEAR MAMA AND DADDY,

I hope you forgive me for taking so long to write. I also hope this letter finds you both in your shining city on a hill, though I suspect the heaven you’ve found is on a prairie with a white-framed house and a porch, a guitar, and a piano. You were my grandparents, but you raised Sister and me, and the names Mama and Daddy were perfect for you.

Sometimes when I slow down and pay close attention, I can feel Daddy placing my hands on the frets of that first guitar he gave me when I was just six. It was only a Stella from the Sears & Roebuck catalog, but to me it was the world. Daddy, you taught me how to play the D, A, and G chords, the building blocks of country music. And look what happened. You were a big man, and I remember your bass voice singing, Where have you been, Billy Boy? I remember you working hard in your blacksmith shop. After the flu and pneumonia took you, those chords and that music have never been far from my side. Neither have you.

And Mama, if I close my eyes, I can still hear you singing, Rock of ages, cleft for me. I’d give about anything to really hear your voice again, and for you to see how me and Sister Bobbie turned out. For Bobbie is a glorious wonder, as beautiful now as she was as a girl, and filled with the spirit of music and love that you gave to us both.

After Daddy died—with me just six and Sister Bobbie only nine—you never let us doubt that there were good things ahead for us. Whenever hard times found me, I remembered the examples you set and the lessons you taught me. I still do.

Truly the Nelson family has been blessed. I’ve had eight wonderful kids and a whole bunch of grandkids and great-grandkids, and I’m proud as buttons of every one. I don’t know if you can see them all, but I see you in all of them. Daddy too. My friend and teacher Reverend Taliaferro used to say there is no such thing as death. When I look at all the Nelson generations that still carry the two of you with them, I know that it’s true.

You taught me a lot, and I’ve tried to pass some of that to my family. Back in Abbott—at home, at school, and when I worked in the fields—I learned the importance of believing we could do anything we wanted to do. If we worked hard enough, you said, we could become whoever we dreamed of being.

I dreamed of being a songwriter and musician, but I also knew that I wanted to be surrounded by family. You instilled that in me, and though my parents were young and didn’t stay together, I came to know their love as well.

Each in their own way, my kids have carried on our family traditions of music and love. As America recently committed to staying at home for the general health of all, I’ve been fortunate to hunker down at my home outside of Austin, with my wife, Annie, and our sons, Lukas and Micah. The boys have their own bands and have toured with me and many others. They miss being on the road just like I do, but in the evenings, when we pull out our guitars, we pass the hours playing and singing our favorite songs. And we all know this extended time together is a blessing.

Sixty years ago, when times were hard for me, I went to see my mother at her new home in Oregon. While I was