Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

May 9, 1997 - Art Bell

02:13:23

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Willie Nelson

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	From the high desert in the great American southwest, I bid you all good evening or good
	morning as the case may be across all these many, many time zones stretching from the
	Hawaiian and Tahitian island chains with visions of dancing exotic ladies all the way across
	this great nation to the Caribbean and the U.S.
	Virgin Islands, very similar visions there, south into South America, north all the way to Santa Country, actually to the pole, and worldwide on the Internet, That's a lot, huh?
	Good morning, everybody.
	This is Coast to Coast AM.
	I'm Art Bell, and this morning, Willie Nelson is here.
	So that's what's coming up.
	All right, well, this should be interesting.
	He lives, I think, more in his bus than he does in a big house that he's got somewhere, if I remember the 60 Minutes piece right.
	And right now, I think he's in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
	And he's Willie Nelson, and Willie, welcome to the program.
	Thanks, Art.
	How are you doing?
	I'm doing real well.
	My wife, just a few minutes ago, I do the show from home, Willie, and before we went on the air, she said, well, the way you two guys feel about women, you ought to hit it off just fine.
	Anyway, it's great to have you, and I guess what I would like to know, Willie, is about you.
	I've achieved some success, I'm 51 years old now, later in life, and people always think that it comes right away.
	When did it come to you?
	Honestly, when I first made a little money playing music, I felt like that I was successful.
	I've been doing a lot of hard work, like picking cotton, corn, and baling hay for a little money.
	When I first went out and made $8 playing with this bohemian polka band, when I was like nine years old, I figured that I'd hit the big time.
	And I've been a star ever since.
	So, in other words, whenever you were working, as far as you're concerned, you were a star?
	Yeah, I mean, I felt like it.
	People were coming up wanting my autograph, and so even though it might have been just two people in six years... Maybe I might have asked it a different way.
	When did the IRS figure out you were a star?
	Well, let me see.
	It took 14 years.
	When they first decided that maybe they would check in and see how Willie was doing, it took 14 years from that day before they finally decided, well, let's go in and take what we can get.
	But at that point, they said I owed them $32 million.
	Yeah, $32 million.
	$32 million.
	I saw the piece on 60 Minutes a few weeks ago.
	It was good, by the way.
	Did you enjoy doing that?
	Oh yeah, I really did.
	Ed Bradley is a really nice guy.
	We did about three different sessions.
	They came to Farm Aid and they came to a place down in Texas.
	I'm going to tell you the truth, Willie.
	I was never, my early years in radio, and I've been in it like 30 years, you know, spinning records early on, that kind of thing.
	And I was into rock.
	on it i uh... i've got a i'm gonna tell you the truthfully i was
	never of my early years in radio and i i've been in it like thirty years you
	know spinning records early on that kind of thing
	and i was in iraq and uh... i was never a fan of country
	and one time uh...
	in in a little california town uh... in in san barbara there was no other job available
	So I went and took a job as a country jock.
	And I was like a fish out of water.
	You know, I didn't know the music.
	I didn't know anything.
	And when I first got there, I hated it.
	I hated it, because I just didn't know the music.
	But then a funny thing began to happen, you know, as the months went by.
	I slowly And slowly and slowly began to say, you know, this is pretty good.
	And then pretty soon I was really liking some of it.
	And then I was really enjoying it.
	And I thought, oh, God, what's happened to me?
	I've completely changed.
	And and so it's just it's like a matter of exposure.
	After a while, I think it happens with nearly any good music.
	It's like a fine wine, you know, once you acquire the taste.
	Yeah, if you're exposed to it over a period of time.
	That's what happened to me.
	Every day I was exposed to it.
	I finally got to where I was loving country and there was all kinds of songs that I was enjoying.
	I'm kind of curious.
	How did you even find out about me?
	Well, we travel all the time.
	Most of our travels are after the show at night.
	We normally will get on the bus and drive to the next town, which might be four, five, six hundred miles away.
	And Gator, the driver, He listens to you all the time.
	Thank you, Gator.
	He's got you on, you know, and he's even got all your schedules and he looks up where you are and what frequency in this town and that town.
	Sure.
	And so he got us all to listen to you.
	Now we're all big fans.
	I've got an email here I'd like to read.
	It says, Art, it's early Friday morning.
	Sitting in my office listening to Highwaymen, the road goes on forever and deep in reflection, ask Willie about playing at the Ferguson Unit Texas Department of Corrections in 1974 due to a bout with juvenile insanity.
	I remember that myself.
	I found myself there at Christmas time that particular year.
	Willie and his sister, Bobby, played a concert there that made my situation tolerable.
	Many years later, I got the opportunity to thank Bobby, but never did get a chance to thank Willie.
	He got off the stage quick in Mexia, Texas.
	Art Willie has given a lot of his time and money just to brighten up those whose lives are, at least for the moment, somewhat less than positive.
	Thanks, Willie, from Tim.
	Do you remember doing that?
	Yeah, sure do.
	We went down there.
	It was a friend of ours that was serving some time down there, a guy named Sam Coleman.
	We went down there to do a show for him and the other inmates down there.
	Might as well talk about it.
	There's been a lot of women in your life, Willie.
	There's been a few in mine.
	What's your attitude after all this time about women in general?
	As you get older, you start to change your attitudes a little bit.
	How do you feel about it?
	No, I haven't changed my attitude at all.
	Not at all?
	No, that would never happen.
	Then how would you describe it?
	One of admiration.
	I feel exactly the same way.
	The first country person that I really met who I had a great deal of admiration for was Crystal Gale.
	I got to meet Crystal in Las Vegas a few months ago.
	I got some pictures with her and stuff and I'm so proud of that I've got it on the wall here.
	She's a great, beautiful gal.
	She certainly is.
	And so I guess that's the right word.
	I've got a lot of admiration for women, too.
	All right.
	You're doing a lot of work for the American farmers.
	What really is the situation now with the small family farmer?
	I mean, things are really changing, aren't they?
	Well, yeah.
	Let me give you an example of what they once were.
	We used to have over 8 million small family farmers, and this was like 40 years ago.
	Now we're down to less than 2 million small family farmers and we're losing 500 a week.
	We had a couple of thousand black minority landowners and farmers left.
	In a couple of years there won't be any of those left.
	Native Americans are losing land.
	Everybody's losing land.
	There's a big land grab going on.
	That was what it was all about from the beginning, was to get the land.
	A lot of the farmers were talked into, a lot of the young farmers just getting into it, were talked into at one point a few years ago.
	Things were looking great overseas to plant from fence post to fence post, and they were encouraged to come in to the banker, the friendly banker who was going to loan them the money.
	They needed maybe 5,000.
	The banker would give them 20,000, right?
	So then when it come due and they didn't have the money to pay for it, it wasn't the same friendly banker.
	The land now belongs to the bank.
	It's not the way it used to be where they'll give you more time.
	Now they want the land.
	The old friendly banker is gone.
	You know, you think that was a large orchestrated movement?
	Yeah, and it's still going on.
	That's why we're still losing $500 a week.
	That's why the farmer is not making enough money to make his payment.
	That's how you take something away from somebody, is to cut their income where they can't make their payment.
	Alright, we're a big country, and our country seems like it feeds a lot of the rest of the world.
	These big corporate farms achieve some of that.
	There are some people out there who might say, if the small American family farm goes away, Uh, it won't affect them.
	They'll continue to eat.
	Why should the American people care?
	First of all, you need someone on the land who loves the land.
	That's important.
	I believe that.
	Uh, if you have someone there who feeds his family from the land, who drinks the water from the well, there's a good chance he will take better care of that soil than some big corporate conglomeration whose owners are somewhere in Spain on a boat or something.
	They could give a damn list about what's happening to that soil.
	Every civilization that's gone under in the past has gone under, or the inability to feed its people, soil erosion.
	Now the state of Iowa in the last hundred years has lost 50% of its topsoil.
	So it doesn't take a, you know, a great mathematician to figure it all out.
	You know, you're right about that, and I don't know how much you get a chance to hear, but there's some pretty horrible things going on in a lot of our waterways right now because of mass use of pesticides and other things that appear to be activating organisms that are eventually not going to be real friendly to people at all.
	Most farmers who had to use chemicals and pesticides have done it because their loaning institutes Make them do it so that they would be sure to get enough yield per acre to make their loan payment back.
	They didn't care that they were ruining the soil.
	They didn't care anything about that.
	No, they care about the bottom line.
	The bottom line.
	So what's happening is all the pesticides and all the chemicals that we've been putting on our lawns, golf courses, farms, now a lot of it we saw going down the rivers, you know, headed toward the ocean.
	Full of chemicals and pesticides, going right back into the ocean, into our food chain again.
	Yeah, there's some scary things beginning to happen, Willie.
	There's this new organism that's about half plant, half animal, and it lies dormant, apparently, at the bottom of waterways, and then when enough pesticides... I'm a lawyer.
	When enough pesticides... Both bottom feeders.
	Anyway, when enough of something awful gets to it, it activates, and it begins first killing the fish and the plankton, and then it is shown a definite desire for human blood as well.
	So, it's like we're doing it to ourselves, and I'm kind of worried that at some point we're going to go past the point of no return.
	Yeah.
	We may have already.
	Well, that's my view.
	We may have already.
	I don't like to seem real negative about things, and you always want to try and do what's right.
	But we may have gone too far already.
	And I don't know how you turn it around.
	I mean, industrial farming is increasing.
	The small farmer is going away.
	It's happening more and more and more.
	How do you turn that around?
	Now we have what they call factory farms.
	Where you'll have a hundred thousand hogs in a small farm community, then you'll have a hundred thousand chickens laying a million eggs, and then you've got ten thousand cows.
	It's not the way nature intended it, where you have a two, three hundred acre farm and you have a little this, you have chickens, cows, hogs.
	That's the way it's supposed to be, because that way the environment can handle it.
	But when you put that much hog manure running off of small areas into land and water and supplies around small communities, it's a horrible situation.
	I've gone to two, three maybe now, different places in the country where farmers and people who live next to these factories have called me and told me how horrible it was.
	We'd go in there and we'd Try to call attention to it.
	In a lot of instances, in a couple of instances, we have got those factory farms closed and in some instances we have them being sued or moved.
	So it can be done, but it's a horrible way to treat the people, first of all, and then the land itself.
	And then the animals themselves, that's an inhumane way to raise chickens, hogs or cattle.
	Well, that's a problem they're having down in North Carolina right now.
	Very severe problem in North Carolina.
	And Missouri, and Nebraska.
	I mean, it's everywhere it's happening, but in South Carolina, it's the limelight.
	Now, the people down there are fighting it, and there's some great guys down there really working hard to keep it from happening, you know?
	I gotta presume, since you did this song that I love so much, the high one.
	God, I love that song.
	What's the song Jimmy Webb wrote?
	Jimmy Webb?
	Jimmy Webb wrote that song.
	And what got all of you, I mean that's quite a collection of the big names, Waylon Jennings, you, Johnny Cash, Chris Christopherson, what got you all together?
	Well it started out that John was doing a Christmas show in Switzerland.
	And he had asked Waylon and me and Chris to come over and be on the show.
	And in fact, we were having our pictures made, the photo session, and the photographer asked Waylon, what are you all going to Switzerland for to do a Christmas show?
	And Waylon said, because that's where Jesus was born.
	And the guy said, okay.
	And went on, you know, he never thought it.
	But anyway, we went over there to do this Christmas show with John and June.
	We had a lot of fun and we decided maybe, when John came back, he was going to do an album.
	So he wanted me to go in and sing some songs with him.
	So then we got in there and Waylon and Chris showed up, Johnny Rodriguez, and we started recording.
	The Highwaymen, the lead song, that's about reincarnation.
	Yeah.
	What do you think about that?
	I mean, how do you feel about that?
	I believe in that 100%.
	I think that's the only thing that makes sense.
	We're all going to school out here.
	This is a university and we're in a rather low grade at the moment.
	Hopefully we'll graduate to higher grades, but right now everyone is going through and everyone is in a different grade.
	So as you progress and as you learn your lessons, I think you progress and you go on to do other things and become a better person or a better spirit wherever, but I do believe I thought you might.
	I do, too.
	I'm real concerned about the grade level, as you pointed out, that we're at right now.
	There's not much reverence for life out there anymore, and it's getting to be less, not more.
	A lot of blank-eyed kids.
	Out there committing crimes and, you know, one of my favorite examples is when somebody used to go in to rob a 7-Eleven or something, they'd go in with a gun, say, give me your money, and the guy'd give him the money and put it in a bag, he'd go run, get in the car and take off.
	Now, uh, they go in with a gun to rob 7-Eleven, say, give me your money, and they get the money and shoot the guy in the head, as an afterthought, and get in the car and drive away.
	Yeah.
	It's like, nobody cares about life.
	Or, there are so many, there are fewer people now That cared all about life, theirs or anybody else's.
	What is that from?
	Why is our society changing like this?
	Our values have changed.
	You know, the do unto others, the golden rule has sort of been forgotten.
	So I think that's what's happened.
	It's more like do unto others for they do unto you.
	There you go.
	So how, you know, like how do you fit working with farmers, doing that kind of work into the kind of schedule that you keep?
	And I guess, what is your schedule like anyway?
	You're doing a show about every day or every other day or what?
	Well, we do a couple hundred shows a year.
	So we're out here a whole lot.
	We listen to you a lot.
	Well, what I'm asking is how do you fit good work into 200 shows a year?
	Well, I try to do a better show tonight than I did last year.
	And tomorrow night I'll try to do a better one than I did tonight.
	In each town it's different.
	Each show is different.
	You've got a different crowd.
	You're in a different mood.
	Everyone on the stage is a different person.
	They're 24 years older.
	So everybody is different.
	In order to get back to exactly where you were or close to where you were, I hear that.
	Actually, I want to talk to you about that a little bit.
	We're at the bottom of the hour, so just relax.
	You've got several minutes.
	We'll be right back to you.
	Back now to Willie Nelson.
	Willie.
	Hey.
	Let's talk about performing a little bit, because that's something at least I know about, in a sense.
	You know, I come on here and do this for five hours every night.
	And, what I found is, because I love what I do, 98 or 9% of the time, I come on and I do a show, and it's just like falling off a log.
	I mean, all I do is come on there and have fun, and it comes naturally.
	And then maybe about 1 or 2% of the time, it's hard.
	And, you know, maybe I'm having a bad day, or my biorhythm is not just right, or something or another, and you gotta push, you know, you gotta push to make it happen.
	And then if I don't feel right after a program that I didn't do what I wanted to do, I beat myself up real hard, mentally.
	Is it like that for you?
	Well, I really get a lot of energy from the show itself.
	I feel like there's a huge energy exchange between the band, us, and the audience.
	I get charged up, they get charged up.
	That stays with me.
	I don't ever, ever go back to where I was, you know, because I'm going back to another spot tomorrow night.
	But tonight I got in a place where I've never been before.
	I mean, it was a lot of energy there, going back and forth, and I'm still charged up over it.
	I had a great time.
	Yeah, I hear you.
	But once in a while, once in a while with 200 times every year, there's got to be a day when you had to push to do it.
	Oh, yeah.
	Someday it's work.
	Some days it's work.
	Exactly.
	And you never know when those days are coming.
	That's the bad part.
	That's right.
	They sneak up on you.
	They really do.
	Listen, in your interview on 60 Minutes, you revealed that you smoke pot.
	Yeah.
	For years, I've said I thought pot ought to be decriminalized, legalized.
	Right.
	And this fits right in with a small farmer, because There's a lot of farmers right now down through, well actually all over America, but in the mountains in the east especially, that have grown pot.
	I think it's number one cash crop in California.
	You know, I think it was the Wall Street Journal a couple years ago ran an article and said that if we were to legalize pot in all its forms, hemp, We could balance the budget in 20 minutes.
	and pot the government would derive about
	five hundred billion dollars a year
	uh... just from allowing that to occur how do you feel about that
	we could balance the budget and twenty minutes it would have to do if you just had to go off
	where everyone could grow and uh... every business
	i was a camp related could go ahead At one time, the American government encouraged our farmers to grow hemp.
	Uh, even after they made it illegal back in 1937, uh, by throwing it in with a lot of hard drugs like heroin and cocaine.
	Yeah.
	Even when they did that, uh, they made it illegal and then nobody could, uh, use it.
	The doctors who had been using it, uh, had been calling it cannabis.
	So they were, uh, upset when they heard it.
	Marijuana and cannabis was the same thing.
	When they made marijuana illegal, they also made cannabis illegal.
	So the doctors who had been prescribing various, uh, you know, medicines, uh, using cannabis now had to quit.
	And then, what did our government do?
	Uh, I'm in, what, uh, 7th or 8th grade in Adelaide, in school, and the war is breaking out, and all of a sudden we're out in the gymnasium making rope out of hemp.
	They made it legal again and they encouraged our farmers to grow hemp for the war.
	So we do have rather a double standard on the issue.
	It's all politics.
	If there wasn't so much competition, if hemp didn't replace so many things that I think are bad for the world.
	Is that right?
	for the landed set the petrochemicals that we have you know when he obtained
	uh... when petrochemicals came along with plastics came along
	uh... they replaced everything that was being made by camp cellophane to dynamite uh...
	the first levi's in this country was made out of here is that right
	yeah but the paper that the declaration of the of the independence was written
	on was made out of the update the up that one i knew about The sails on the ships that sailed around the world were
	made out of canvas.
	That's where the word canvas comes from.
	Our covered wagons were made out of canvas.
	This is a great product.
	It's a very strong, durable product.
	But it's also competition to other textiles.
	So the paper industry didn't want marijuana made legal because hemp is a big competitor to the tree, the wood industry.
	The William Randolph Hearst people who own millions of acres of trees all over the world wanted to make marijuana illegal because one acre of hemp is equivalent to four acres of trees.
	You can take the biomass from hemp and you can build houses with it.
	You can do everything, make paper out of it.
	Everything you were doing out of our trees and the rainforest could be done and used to be done with hemp.
	Well, so then why are we so far out of our minds that we're allowing these industrial interests and politicians with their agenda to stop this?
	I mean, we're really out of our minds.
	Of course we are.
	And I think that there's a few positive things that have been happening.
	California and Arizona, you know, came with some initiatives that passed and the people there are are beginning to uh...
	really snapped up what's going on in the big conspiracy over the fifty last fifty
	years of the world that they pulled over everyone's eyes
	just to protect the petrochemical industry everything that was made out of
	camp is now being made out of plastic you know that's right i guess that's a that's a lot of
	money you know i sort of figured
	years ago i remember they sort of toyed with the idea of uh...
	of legalizing marijuana and then
	we had several republican administrations and marijuana got lumped
	right back in there with all the other hard drugs And I always thought, Willie, that was the most dangerous thing in the world, because some little kid somewhere, 12, 13 years old, smokes a joint, he finds out he doesn't go out on a rampage, he finds out his brain is not fried eggs, he finds out he was lied to, and so then,
	Uh, this little guy lied to once, finds it pretty easy to try the next thing up the ladder, and then he's in trouble.
	I'm sure that happened, uh, just because he was lied to and he couldn't believe what he's been told anymore.
	Yeah, so somebody lines out some coke for him and away he goes, you know, and that's that.
	Yeah, and I really believe it's, uh, it's wrong for a parent to Stand there with a cigarette in your hand and a drink of, you know, a shot of whiskey in your hand and tell kids to put that joint down.
	You know, I mean, there's something... I mean, there's people dying all over the world from cigarettes and alcohol and nobody yet has ever died from smoking pot.
	I believe that actually is accurate.
	That really is accurate.
	Nobody's died.
	No, unless a bale of it fell on them or something.
	If it were legalized, wouldn't that do an awful lot for the small farmer?
	It absolutely would.
	It would open up so many new ways for this guy to make it.
	I mean, they've done nothing but take ways away from him now.
	Kentucky used to be the greatest hemp growing state that we've had.
	And when you took that away from the farmers, Well, now they started growing tobacco, but if they were allowed to grow hemp, they could make so much more money.
	Well, as I said, there were a number of Republican administrations, and I kind of figured, and I think a lot of other people figured, the first time we got a Democrat in office, probably he would legalize or decriminalize pot.
	Uh, but then we've got this President Clinton, uh, who I think puffed but didn't inhale or whatever it is, and it seems like he got himself stuck in a position where he can't, he can't make any moves politically.
	I'd give anything if he didn't inhale.
	You think it'd be a different country right now?
	Oh well.
	So maybe it'll happen eventually, I don't know.
	What it takes, I think, is people speaking the truth about it and combating the image that they put on TV and everywhere else.
	And at least tell them the truth.
	That's all I ask is tell the truth.
	Well, you know, it's such a politically suicidal issue.
	Politicians believe that they don't want to take a stand on it.
	That's the reason that I'm sure our president doesn't admit that he might have inhaled because at the time he felt like it might have cost him an election.
	And there's a lot of other politicians out there who would not come out of the closet for the same reason.
	They don't want to lose voters.
	Yeah, that's right.
	And it's being really dishonest, but so what's new?
	Yeah, in fact, that's almost worth asking about, too.
	I used to talk about politics, you know, a lot.
	And I was very involved and very much an activist.
	And it seems like in the last several years, maybe two or three years, all of a sudden, Everything they're talking about in Washington, or most of what they're talking about in Washington, isn't, or arguing about in Washington, isn't even relevant to our lives.
	I mean, they're academic, um, I'm right, you're right, left, right, arguments that just aren't relevant to our immediate lives anymore.
	And so, I kind of stopped talking about politics as much as I used to.
	It's just, it's not important.
	I mean, it is important if they ever really did anything important.
	Yeah, if the government acted and worked the way that we all thought it was doing, well then it would be a good thing.
	But the way it is working is that it's working for its own selfish interests and it doesn't have the people's interests at heart and it doesn't take a real smart guy to figure that one out.
	Tell me something, this place you live in, this bus, what's it like?
	I mean, it's home.
	It's home most of the year, right?
	Yeah, it's got everything I need.
	We're parked outside the motel now, but I'm not going inside.
	I stay here.
	I live on the bus.
	I'll go in maybe.
	So your crew goes into the motel?
	Yeah.
	And you stay on the bus?
	Yeah.
	Are you in your private life different than you are in your public life?
	I mean, you know, more private.
	I've heard about private life before but I've never really experienced it because in the beginning I didn't really want it.
	You start out wanting to be known and liked by everybody when you're an entertainer and then once you get that you start trying to figure out how to hide and get away from the people.
	Exactly.
	I mean, I dearly love my fans, but it's like most of my life is radio, like most of your life is music.
	And so it begins to take over your life.
	And whatever private moments you have are really going to be few and far between.
	Yeah, and I think that's a decision that we make when we get into the business that we're in.
	We give up our private life.
	Whether we wanted to or not, or whether we say we're going to or not, it's immaterial because you do.
	No, I made that deal with myself.
	I mean, I knew what I was getting into.
	Yeah.
	And I figure you did, too.
	Yeah, I did, too.
	And I didn't start out, you know, trying to kid myself into thinking that I could do this different than anybody else has ever done it.
	I mean, it's when you're trying to balance a job on the road and a home a thousand miles away, you're going to have some problems.
	Are you married now?
	Yeah.
	You are?
	Yeah.
	How does that work?
	I mean, 200 days... Well, I've been married four times now, so... Well, I mean, how does it work this time?
	This time?
	It's working fine now.
	This has been a good one.
	It's working fine, but it does require a certain kind of person who can...
	I don't know.
	with the things that they have to live with, not only me living away from home, but when
	I'm home you have mixed emotions.
	When you're here you want to be home, when you're home you want to be here.
	So you're a little bit unhappy everywhere and you have to have a woman who understands
	that.
	You love the road?
	Sure.
	Where is your wife?
	What part of the world?
	Texas.
	Texas.
	Do you figure she's listening to you?
	Probably not.
	My son is at Montessori School there in Texas and she's probably in bed sleeping.
	My wife is, I believe in this soul mate thing, and boy is she my soul mate, but she understands
	the way I feel about women and when there's a pretty woman around she points her out to
	me.
	That's an understanding woman.
	Most women would say, don't look there.
	Don't look there.
	Well, you know, there are some understanding women out there.
	God bless them.
	Yeah, indeed.
	God bless them.
	Listen, country music in general, what's happening?
	Is country music becoming more popular?
	Is it waning?
	What do you sense is happening, not just with you, I mean the whole industry?
	Oh, it's growing.
	I have never yet Anybody who became a country music fan and then left it.
	So anybody who was one 50 years ago is still one today.
	He may not be able to turn on the radio and hear his kind of country music, but he's still a fan.
	And then there's the new fans who have picked up their heroes along the way.
	You know, from Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks, all these guys.
	There's millions and millions of new fans out there.
	I see the country music as healthy as ever been.
	So that means there's a lot of new blood coming in.
	In other words, there's another Willie Nelson out there somewhere?
	I hope not.
	Somewhere out there, there's a whole lot of guys headed toward Nashville with a pickup truck full of songs.
	Some of them will be great.
	What do you say to those people?
	You know, I encounter people wanting to be in my business all the time, and I'm always kind of at a loss to tell them or to advise them.
	And I'm sure you get a million people ask you that question, so maybe you can answer a million questions at once now.
	Somebody who wants to be a Willie Nelson someday, at least from a career point of view, what do you tell them?
	Well, I tell them if they really want to be Something that can be that and if they really have the
	talent, then there's nothing that can keep them from being that.
	And regardless of the advice I give them, if they really want to do something, they're
	going to do it on their own.
	I believe the old, you know, if you build a house of quality in the woods, the world
	will be the path to your door.
	I really believe in that one.
	Well, to me, I had a passion for what I wanted to do and I loved doing it and I never really
	never really expected anything to come of it and I didn't care, if you want to know
	the truth, money wise I never figured to make much money.
	Most people in radio don't.
	Probably most people sing in music, little places every night, they don't make a lot
	of money either.
	The key is not to care.
	Then somehow or another, when you don't care, it all works.
	That's weird, huh?
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Basically the same thing happened to my career when I left Nashville and sort of gave up
	and decided that maybe a singing career, traveling around the world wasn't for me so I moved
	back to Texas.
	Well, you know, I'm just going to play where I want to play and do what I want to do and not really care what happens.
	And all of a sudden, everything started happening.
	Yeah, I don't understand that.
	It's like when you relax and you don't give a damn, then it all just flows and it all happens.
	Yeah, you play golf.
	I do not, but I imagine that rule applies with golf.
	It really applies with golf.
	If you get up over the ball and stand there and worry about all the things that could happen wrong.
	They do.
	They happen.
	Jan, if you just relax, take a little advice and go at it, the ball goes pretty much where you want it to go, I guess.
	Yeah, if you just shut everything out and swing and let your natural instincts take over, you'll be fine.
	Listen, how are you doing on time?
	I'm coming slowly here toward the top of the hour, and there's about a million phones ringing here, and a lot of people, I'm sure, would love to ask you questions.
	Well, I'm here.
	You're there, huh?
	Yeah, whenever.
	When you're in the bus, are you pretty much, you know, everybody else has gone to Motown, and you're in there alone?
	Well, right now my sister, who plays piano in the band, is here, and she has some earphones on, and she's listening to us talk, and David Anderson I think, uh, email to your, uh, address some information.
	He's here listening, and Gator's got his earphones on listening.
	I see.
	Um, how is it work in such close quarters all the time?
	I mean, uh, you gotta be almost, well, actually some of, some people are your family, but aside from that, it's gotta be almost like a family, doesn't it?
	It has to be, yeah.
	You, you, when you live this close, it's like living in a submarine.
	You know, you, you really gotta, uh, have people who, know how to live close together.
	Does it always work, or like all families, do you guys sometimes get in fights?
	Well, fortunately we don't get in the kind of fights that we used to get in to.
	Now it's mostly, you know, drive-by shoutings.
	Drive-by shoutings?
	All right, excellent.
	What I'm going to do then is ask you to sit tight.
	You've got plenty of time.
	Just relax, do whatever you want to do, and we'll come back to you and we'll get phones open after the top of the hour because I know a lot of people want to ask you questions.
	All right, stay right there.
	Willie Nelson.
	Morning, everybody.
	This is Coast to Coast AM.
	I'm Art Bell.
	My guest is Willie Nelson.
	And you know me.
	I can't resist.
	Willie's here.
	And here's Willie.
	Highwayman.
	I was a highwayman.
	I was a highwayman, along the coach roads I did ride, with sword and pistol by my side.
	With sword and pistol by my side Many a young maid lost her marbles to my trade
	Many a young maid lost her marbles to my trade, many a soldier shed his life blood on my blade.
	Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
	The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five, but I am still alive.
	But I am still alive I was a sailor, I was born upon the tide
	I was a sailor, I was born upon the tide, with the sea I did abide.
	With the sea I did abide I sailed a schooner around the whole of New Mexico
	I went along to furl the mainsail in a blow And when the yard broke off they said that I got killed
	But I'm living still I was a dam builder across the river deep and wide
	Where steel and water didn't collide A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
	I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below.
	They buried me in that gray tomb that knows no sound.
	But I'm still around, I'll always be around and around and around and around and around
	I'll fly a starship across the universe divine And when I reach the other side
	I'll fly a starship across the universe divine And when I reach the other side
	I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
	I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
	Or I may simply be a single drop of rain But I will remain
	And I'll be back again and again and again and again and again
	Oh my, I love this song. I love it.
	I love this song.
	Willie, uh, welcome back.
	Thanks.
	Um, I've got a couple of commercials, but I wanted to ask you right out of that.
	How did you guys decide where you were going to sing, what part you were going to sing, and how did that song even happen?
	Well, the, uh, producer of the, uh, album, first Highwaymen album, Highwaymen, was, uh, a guy named Chip Smolba.
	Great producer, good musician, great writer and stuff.
	So we left a lot of those decisions up to him rather than, you know, us sit around him because we knew what he was really trying to get, so we let him make most of those choices.
	All right.
	I've got to ask you to stay good and close to that cellular of yours.
	I don't know.
	It's one of those songs, Willie, that, you know, sometimes what I do here is real stressful.
	And, um, toward the end of the program, um, I'll play that, and it calms me.
	Music, music does that to you, uh, if it's really meaningful.
	Like, that song is really meaningful to me, and, uh, it calms me.
	Yeah, I think that's absolutely one of the jukebox plays in the beer joints and lounges and clubs around the world, because music has a calming effect on us human animals.
	It brings you back to your center, kind of.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Willie, hold on.
	We're going to go to the phones in a moment.
	Back now to Willie Nelson.
	Willie, I got a couple of faxes I want to read your questions, then we're going to go to the phones.
	All right.
	This fax says, I hate people who do this, but I'm reading it anyway.
	It says, Art Bell's staff hasn't got one cojone if you don't ask Willie this question.
	Uh, Willie, I've been from Orange to El Paso, from McAllen to Denton, and I still ain't figured out how to beat the IRS.
	I ain't saying you beat a damn thing, I know that's a sore point, but it's a thing everybody wants to hear about.
	I don't know what they want to hear about, uh, Willie, but, uh, that's the question.
	How did I beat the IRS?
	I didn't.
	You pretty much paid them, didn't you?
	I paid them, yeah.
	Yeah, so, um, there's your answer, wherever you are out there.
	Um, now, ask Willie, what is the brand and model of guitar he plays, and when and how did he get the extra hole in the top, and can you give a recommendation for someone who wants to graduate from a cheap guitar to a good one?
	Uh, that guitar is a Martin classical guitar, and I've had it for about 35 years, and those guitars normally, you're supposed to use a pickguard, almost, for classical guitars.
	But this one, if you're going to use a pick, you use a pick guard.
	But I didn't have a pick guard, so my fingers just play it and play, I guess, Whiskey River too many times or something.
	Or a hole in that guitar, and it's just gotten bigger and bigger every year.
	I've had to go in there and reinforce it on the inside a couple of times.
	I don't think it affects the tone.
	Is it one of those things that, I mean like if all of a sudden you didn't have it, would that be real bad?
	Yeah, it would be real bad because it's the sound that I really have grown to love.
	It's the best guitar sound for me that I've ever found.
	So you're real careful with it then?
	Oh yeah.
	All right, one more.
	Please ask Willie to say a few words about Patsy Cline.
	Well, first of all, Patsy Cline was, you know, one of the greatest of our time.
	She recorded Crazy, a song that I wrote, which went on.
	Her recording of it became the best all-time jukebox song.
	It played more than any other song in the world ever.
	I love pitching.
	One last, I guess.
	This is for my audience.
	We talk about a lot of weird things on this program, Willie.
	It's somebody's understanding here that you're pretty close friends with Jimmy Carter.
	You know him pretty well?
	Yeah, I sure do.
	When Jimmy Carter ran for office, Willie, he said to the American people as a campaign promise that when he got in office he'd tell them everything there was to know about UFOs.
	Yeah.
	He sort of never got around to really discussing that, and I wonder, this person is wondering if he ever talked to you about that.
	No, we never talked about it, and I really do believe that no matter, it's like a lot of other things that you think you might do when you get to Washington if you're elected, but when you get there, by the time you get there, you've had to make so many deals along the way, compromises along the way, that anything Any promise that you've made, you're liable not to be able to keep?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that's... It seems like, you know, it's such a great country, and we really do have a lot of freedom, but there's some basic things that are really wrong, and that's one of them.
	And it applies not just to the President, but it applies to all of our government, and I just don't know what we're going to do about that, because it seems like it's getting worse, not better.
	It's Big Brother looking after us, you know?
	Yeah.
	You ever wonder what it's going to be like You know, for your children, for the next generation, generation after that, what this country, what the world is going to be like?
	Well, I think I know how some people would like for it to be.
	Yeah, me too.
	But I don't think that everybody's going to lay down and roll over and let that happen.
	Fortunately.
	But it seems like some things are headed to this one world type deal, no matter what we do.
	I mean, it's headed in that direction.
	Well, it may be, and if that is the best way to run a planet, maybe somewhere along the way in the future they may come up with the idea that that is the best way to do it.
	Right now, I personally think the best way to do it is to let Art handle his business, Willie handle his, Waylon handle his, and not let one guy somewhere handle all of our business.
	I think that's why we're only around here for so long, because we wouldn't be able to stand it past a certain point.
	Or they wouldn't be able to stand us.
	One of the two.
	Alright, let's see who we got.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Good morning, where are you please?
	Hello.
	Hello.
	I'm in Roseburg, Oregon.
	Oregon, alright.
	Go ahead, Willie.
	Hey.
	Hey, my wife and I saw you and Eugene back in 1986.
	Oh yeah.
	You played at MacArthur Court.
	Yeah.
	You haven't been back since.
	No.
	I used to live in Eugene.
	My mother lived there and I went to visit her there.
	Right.
	I think your mother died about a year later up in Olympia, Washington or something?
	Glead.
	Pardon?
	In Glead, right across Portland up there.
	Yeah.
	Somewhere up north there.
	Yeah.
	But you haven't been back since and we really miss you.
	Up close to Yakima.
	Yeah, well, I haven't been there and I don't know why not.
	You know, maybe somebody will, some promoter will bring us in there.
	Maybe we're headed that way.
	I don't know.
	We played Portland and Seattle.
	Yeah, I think they were planned one time here in Roseburg, but then they canceled.
	You know, Roseburg's not to adapt to really getting into big time operating music, you know.
	But anyway, we had really enjoyed your concert.
	And, uh, Johnny, say hi to Willie.
	Hi, Willie.
	Hi, Jillian, how are you doing?
	Good, how are you?
	We talked to you, Willie, behind the concert.
	Yeah?
	We were so shook up, you know, all we could say was, we love you, Willie.
	And I took your photograph.
	I wanted to say something.
	Alright, go ahead.
	I wanted to know when you have your next Farm Aid.
	Farm Aid will be October the 4th, Irving Stadium, right outside of Dallas, between Dallas and Fort Worth, where the Dallas Cowboys play.
	We had one farm aid there before, and it went well, and they invited us back.
	So we'll be back in there on October 4th.
	And by the way, I really appreciate, Willie, the invitation to be part of that, but as I told you, I'm going to, you know, October 1st, I'm taking off for Egypt and Greece and all those kinds of places.
	I understand.
	And you said something to me on the phone.
	You said, well, I'm going to Egypt too.
	Metaphorically, you meant it.
	You got a break coming up at some point, where you just sort of like disappear for a while?
	Well, I've got a few days off, and I'm planning on heading to my hideout.
	Yeah, that's good.
	Everybody's got to have a hideout.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Good morning.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	Yeah, Willie?
	Yes, sir.
	Willie, this is Gary Unger, the real writer of Born in U.S.A., almost titled God Bless U.S.A.
	A very important question for you, and we love you here in Clinton, Iowa.
	Yes, sir.
	Okay, how do you audition for farm aid?
	If you've been sending it for like 25 years?
	Well, if you want to send a tape of what you do to Farm Aid Cambridge, Massachusetts in care of Carolyn Mugar.
	Okay, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Okay. Do you have a zip code?
	Probably. I don't know what it is.
	It'll get there.
	It'll get there.
	I want you to go to the post office and they've got a book for you to look up a town.
	They'll give you the zip code.
	Okay, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Farm Aid, right?
	Yep.
	Right.
	Okay, thank you very much, Willie.
	It's really nice talking to you.
	Thank you.
	Good luck.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Willie Nelson, who's in New Jersey.
	Hello.
	Hello, Mr. Bell.
	This is Robert.
	Where are you, Robert?
	I'm in the San Joaquin Valley listening on KFRE, sir.
	Alright.
	Willie.
	Hey.
	Hey.
	How you doing?
	What a thrill.
	Thank you.
	I got two important questions to ask you, if I may.
	Yes, sir.
	But first of all, let me just say this to you.
	If we lived back in the days of horses, I would have been proud to ride with you.
	Yes, sir.
	I hear you.
	Same to you.
	My first question, out here in California, Fresno, you know, we had Garth Brooks here.
	We would sure love to see you here again.
	Well, I'd love to come through there.
	Oh, I hope you do, sir.
	My second question, for your millions of fans, please consider being up on the big screen again.
	We'd love to see you on the screen.
	Oh, yeah.
	Well, there's a movie now that you brought it up.
	There's a movie coming out at the end of this month called Gone Fishin' with me and Joe Pesci and Danny Glover.
	Oh, that's great, Willie.
	Oh, no kidding.
	Willie, how do you feel about motion pictures, television, that kind of thing?
	Oh, I enjoy doing it.
	It's a lot of fun, especially, you know, if it's something that I think I can do.
	And if I can't do it, then I'd rather not even try it.
	What's Gone Fishing about?
	Gone Fishing is a comedy.
	Joe Pesci and Danny Glover grew up together in Connecticut, and they were always getting in trouble, and they grew up fishing, big fishing fans.
	They came to Florida.
	They won a fishing contest.
	And they came to Florida, and it's the story of what all the trouble they get into in the Everglades.
	You know, I've done a little bit of television, and what I want to ask you is this.
	It's like, when I went and did some TV, I did my part, and I had no idea what the overall picture was until I got to see it on TV myself.
	You know, it's like I had my little isolated compartmentalized part and I did that, and I didn't even know the program was about until I got to see it.
	I guess it's a little different with a full motion picture, but do you get the feel of what you've done before it's done, you know, before you get to see it on the screen yourself?
	Well, it happens both ways, you know, and if I get a chance to really work with the actors and the script and everything, well, then that's one thing.
	And you're all shooting it there together and working together every day for weeks.
	But then when I did this King of the Hill show a few weeks ago,
	we met somewhere in some hotel or something, some building somewhere, me and this guy.
	And I read my lines and he faked everybody else's lines, and then they went somewhere else and put it all together.
	So I had no idea what that was going to look like until it came out.
	Yeah, and it's a surprise.
	Yes.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Where are you, please?
	Yeah, I'm Dave, and I'm in Long Beach, California.
	Hi, Dave.
	And I got a little story to relate to Willie, plus a question I'd like to ask him when I'm done.
	All right.
	I went to see you one time when you played in Laughlin, Nevada.
	Yeah.
	And my mother and I went over to see you and we really enjoyed the show.
	Thank you.
	But before we went in to see the show, you had like a life-size cutout poster of you standing in the lobby.
	And so I was taking a picture of my mother standing beside your poster.
	And some other lady came by and decided that I was you.
	And she wanted a picture of me.
	With her.
	So my mother gladly took the camera and took a picture of me and her for her.
	Did you autograph it?
	Yes, but I autographed it David Meade, but I don't think she read it.
	She just closed the book and ran off with a happy smile on her face.
	I guess she was happy that she got home and read the autograph.
	That's funny.
	And my other question for you was, how do I get a job driving your tour bus?
	Now there's a threatening little remark for a guy who listens to my program.
	Yeah, well you know, the driver of this bus is a guy named Gator, and first of all, you'd have to whip him.
	Great job.
	i have to wait a little bit hungry at willie the uh... the other people uh... who who work with
	you like a tear uh... listens to this program thank you gator
	they really they've got to be living the same
	color life you live right And they've got to enjoy it like you do.
	Oh yeah.
	It's a very gypsy-like lifestyle.
	You have to love that.
	Listen, uh, country music, uh, the guy who called from Oregon, uh, are there places, Willie, that you go back to a whole lot, and then places you don't get to too frequently, uh, is that the way it works, or are you, like, all over the place?
	Well, there are certain places that I really enjoy playing, that I, some of them that I've been playing since I really first started playing, places like John T. Flores and Hellotus, uh, And well, there's maybe a few of those around the country.
	There's Longhorn Club in Dallas.
	Now there's new big, big beer joints, you know, opening up all over the country.
	But I like to go back to those old places that I used to play because the atmosphere is still there.
	So you're comfortable?
	Makes you comfortable?
	Uh, what about these really big things like where you've got concerts with a gazillion people out there?
	Is that harder?
	Well, it's different in a way.
	It's uh... Not as personal?
	It's not as personal as being close up with two or three hundred people in a club.
	It's a different atmosphere and there's a different Energy exchange there.
	You have to, I guess, approach it a little bit.
	I hear you.
	All right.
	Hold on.
	We're at the bottom of the hour.
	We'll be right back.
	Willie Nelson is my guest.
	This is CBC.
	To Atlantic City, where Willie's in his bus.
	Do you call it a bus or do you call it your home?
	Bus.
	Bus.
	It is my home, but it's a bus.
	Here's a question for you by fax.
	Please ask Willie, what drew him to the part in the film made about the American skydiving champion stranded in Russia?
	Did you do a movie about that?
	Something called Coming Out of the Ice?
	Yeah, with John Savage.
	It was a movie for, I think, CBS Television.
	And it was several years ago, and we did that up in Finland.
	Finland?
	I was in Finland about a year ago.
	That's a really interesting part.
	What's your impression of that part of the world?
	Oh, I love it.
	It's beautiful.
	I like all of that area up there.
	I was in Helsinki, and it's an amazing part of the world.
	I mean, it's old, but it's clean.
	And somehow, Willie, in our cities in America, when they get old, they're not clean.
	Yeah.
	No, I really do like The places that I've been, I've been there.
	Norway.
	I love Norway.
	Have you ever been there?
	I have.
	Same kind of impression.
	Copenhagen, even.
	All of those cities, somehow they're old, but they've aged gracefully, and I can't figure out how they've done that.
	You know, to be so old, so much stonework everywhere, it's a different kind of atmosphere, and yet they stay clean, while our cities have kind of gone A lot of them, some of them are alright, but a lot of them have sort of not aged very gracefully.
	I'm sort of partial to Amsterdam, myself.
	Uh-huh.
	You like Amsterdam?
	Yes, beautiful.
	Absolutely beautiful.
	Um, West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	How you doing?
	Hello, Willie.
	My name's Daryl, and I'm calling from Seattle, Washington, about as far across the coast, across the United States as we can get apart from each other right now, but I feel so close to you.
	I feel like you are a father figure to me.
	You've got a pioneer spirit, man.
	You are what freedom is all about.
	And I really want to thank you for your stance on hemp, because I'm a stone-cold hempster.
	I call talk radio shows every day of my life, telling people that marijuana should be legal, and that the farmers need this product, and we need to save our forests.
	And I was wondering, have you ever met with Woody Harrelson?
	Yeah, I know Woody.
	He's a good friend.
	Oh, man, he is such a great guy, too.
	You know, Woody Harrelson, you... I put you guys right up there with Mark Twain, man.
	I am so proud of you, and I will... I mean, when I see an eagle, I'm thinking about Willie Nelson.
	Oh, right.
	Oh, man.
	We put on a little festival over here in Seattle.
	We gather about 60,000 people a year.
	It's called the Seattle Hemp Fest.
	Right.
	And if you get a chance, I'd like you to take a look at those pictures on the Internet.
	They're easy to find.
	Just type in Seattle Hemp Fest on any search engine, you'll find them.
	And we would really, really love to just have your support in spirit.
	Or if you could send an email or a message to us around the Seattle Hemp Fest, we're going to have it in August.
	Oh man, I mean...
	Be a lot of help.
	Well, I tell you, for sure, you've got my best wishes with you all the way, and my spirit is there, you know, no matter whether I get a message to you on the email or not.
	I mean, you know how I feel about the issue, and I'm with you all the way.
	Thank you so much.
	And Art Bell, please, please, get him on again and again and again.
	And more hempsters, please, too.
	Woody Harrelson, all the rest.
	All right.
	Yeah, I'll be glad to.
	How about you, Willie?
	what kind of thinking did you do about him about pot before you decided to be uh...
	public about it well it's one of those things that once you realize that
	that uh... you have been lied to about uh... you have to decide whether you want
	doing about it or what you just want to lay down and roll over and say well those
	son of a gun's lied to me uh... and it really uh...
	uh... it really upset me to think that would insult my intelligence like that.
	Have you changed a lot over the years?
	I mean, if you had to describe how you've changed, from like when you were in your 20s
	to now?
	Are you a different person?
	You the same?
	Just in my habits.
	I think I've dropped a few bad habits, hopefully, along the way.
	But my attitude about everything, I don't think it's changed a degree, hardly.
	Uh, I don't know whether that's just because I'm a stubborn Taurus or what.
	You spend any time in jail?
	Today?
	No.
	No, no, no.
	We're talking ever.
	Ever?
	Have I spent any time in jail?
	Well, sure.
	Yeah.
	Um, cause you, you do a lot of work, you know, for people who are in the joint and I gotta tell you, I get a lot of letters.
	Man, I have so many listeners who are in jail, federal institutions, local institutions, you name it.
	And you go and you sing for them sometimes, don't you?
	Sure, I do.
	Well, you know, a lot of my friends and relatives are in there.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	First time caller line.
	You're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Hi.
	Hello.
	Hello, Bill.
	Yes, sir, where are you?
	It's a pleasure to talk to both of you guys.
	Yeah, okay, where are you, sir?
	I'm fantastic.
	I'm from St.
	Paul, Minnesota.
	All right.
	Art, I've got your book.
	I haven't had a chance to finish yet, but it's fantastic.
	Thank you.
	Willie, we have a mutual friend.
	Yeah?
	I'm from St.
	Paul, Minnesota.
	I'll give you his initials.
	JP.
	Okay.
	You know who I'm talking about?
	I'm pretty sure I do.
	Your movie, Red Headed Stranger, when you shot the man off the back of the horse that the man stole, that's my friend.
	All right.
	You know who I'm talking about.
	Yes, sir.
	All right.
	Would you give him a message for me?
	Get a hold of Brian in St.
	Paul.
	It's been a long time.
	If I run across him.
	Okay.
	I first was introduced to you, I'm the youngest of eight, and My sister had the Wet Headed Stranger album.
	And I just recently got that again on CD.
	And I'd love for you to come to St.
	Paul for a concert so you could sign that for me.
	And if you happen to come out here and bring Jeff with ya, I'd throw a hell of a barbecue and you're more than welcome to come on over.
	Well see, now you're just gonna use his initial.
	Now you used his name already.
	I didn't use his last name, did I?
	We know who you're talking about, don't we?
	Yeah, we do.
	Okay.
	All right.
	All right.
	Well, thanks.
	Uh, hey, you know, it's like you're an American institution now.
	Um, how does it feel to be an American institution?
	Oh, I don't really know what that means.
	Well, it means, uh, it means like you're a household word.
	It means like everybody knows Willie Nelson.
	Commode is a household word.
	Well, yeah.
	Oh, Willie.
	But everything is relative.
	You know, I used to have this saying, of all the people who don't like me, just think of the millions who've never heard of me.
	How do you handle it mentally?
	Once you got to the point where, I mean, there was a breakout in your career, all of a sudden, you know, you were known nationally.
	I mean, everybody began to know you, and it's a pressure, isn't it?
	Well, I guess it is.
	You know, I don't think about it.
	I really don't think about it.
	I know there's a responsibility to keep the music going and I know I have a responsibility to Farron Young and to Little Jimmy Dickens and to Hank Williams and I take that very seriously.
	Are you going to ever stop?
	Are you going to ever go fishing or are you going to keep singing until you drop?
	Uh, all those things.
	I went fishing last Sunday for my birthday.
	Took my boys down to Galveston to fish.
	I'm not a big fisherman.
	I don't do that a lot, but it's... Oh, I meant that.
	No, no, no.
	I meant that metaphorically.
	I mean, is the day going to come you're going to hang your guitar up and you're going to just, you know, live a different life?
	Or are you going to probably keep singing forever?
	Well, hopefully we'll sing forever.
	I don't really want to think about quitting singing or quitting playing or quitting Doing what I'm doing, because I'm really having a good time, and as long as I'm healthy, and as long as people show up, to me, that's the perfect world.
	Yeah, it is.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Good morning.
	Good morning.
	Can you hear me okay?
	I hear you fine, sir.
	Where are you?
	I'm in Bradenton, Florida.
	Alright.
	Well, as one who is obsessed with talk radio, I'd like to ask Mr. Nelson something regarding pot.
	I'm not personally a pot smoker, but Could we try having an experimental state where they allow pot legally and before we go total U.S.?
	Well, I think that's happened now.
	California and Arizona now have passed a law where medicinal marijuana is legal there and the doctors can prescribe it.
	So that is happening and I think it's good that it's happening in a small scale, one or two states, where everybody else can look at it and see You know, just how affected is the population going to be one way or another?
	Well, so far it looks to me like California is no crazier than it normally is.
	Yeah, it's hard to see the change.
	Willie?
	Willie?
	Yeah?
	You don't think the bottom would fall right out of the market for pot if they allowed it nationwide, do you?
	The bottom fall out?
	What do you mean?
	Well, I don't know.
	I think the bottom would fall out of the What about the liquor industry?
	You were a drinker once, weren't you?
	Yeah.
	Pretty heavy drinker?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I was.
	So marijuana takes the place of booze?
	For me it has.
	Maybe it was a natural progression for me because whenever I used to get too drunk to know what I was doing, Paul English, my good friend and drummer, would bring me a big fat joint and say, here, smoke this.
	Next thing you know, I'm laying on the floor, so at least I'm controllable.
	So that's the way I sort of switched over, and I sort of like Paul's, the way Paul was handling it and the way I was handling it.
	I really wasn't handling alcohol that well.
	Yeah, what kind of drinker were you?
	Some people get happy, some people get belligerent.
	Well, I think it depends on what you have on your mind when you start drinking, you know, and I had a lot of negative things on my mind, bad marriages and all that kind of stuff, and not making any headway in my career, so if a guy ever needed a reason to drink and to feel sorry for himself, I had one.
	A lot of people say bad marriages make good country music.
	Is that right?
	Is it?
	I mean, is it?
	Tragedy, you know, living through Sure it does.
	It makes you a little more wary of what you do or beware of what you do.
	not just people to top people at every level live through hard stuff
	hard new make you better uh...
	better which do juror
	actually wary of what you could or be beware of what
	uh... you don't really learn a lot i guess so i find myself making the same
	mistakes over and over and some as
	you know you we were talking about reincarnation uh...
	Um...
	Your place in this constantly reincarnating world, you figure you've been around a lot before?
	You're pretty new at this.
	I think I've been around a few times.
	Yeah, I do too.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with a guy who's been around a few times, Willie.
	Willie Nelson, hi.
	Hi, this is Tony in the Palm Desert.
	Hi, Tony.
	Hey, Tony.
	Well, I called Willie because my wife wanted me to call and have you say hi to Bobby because she loves your sister.
	Hey, uh, Bobby's sitting over here listening.
	I'll tell her that someone says hi.
	And we've seen you every time you come out here to the desert because we've been a long time fans of yours.
	Thank you very much.
	And my 86 year old mother has picked out two songs that were to play at her funeral that you've done very well.
	Wow.
	Which songs are those?
	Yeah.
	Wind beneath my wings.
	Yeah.
	Angels flying too close to the ground.
	All right.
	See, there you are, Willie.
	That's what I mean.
	When I said it's like you're an institution, that's what I meant.
	People like that.
	People who are going to play your music at their funeral, that kind of thing.
	If you stop and think about it, which I think it's better not to do, because it'll get to you after a while, but that's like a lot of responsibility, huh?
	Well, I agree with you.
	I don't think you're supposed to think about it.
	We've got a saying that we like to use out here.
	It's, fortunately, we're not in control.
	And I hang on to that one with both hands.
	Yeah, I hear you.
	Your sister, you're pretty close to your sister?
	Oh, yeah.
	Yeah, we're probably as close as blood relatives can get.
	We've played music together all our lives.
	Um, East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Willie Nelson, top of the morning to you.
	Where are you, please?
	Um, Rob in Springfield.
	Springfield, uh... Ohio.
	Ohio.
	Yeah, there's quite a few Springfields around there.
	Yeah, there are, yes.
	Mr. Nelson.
	Hello there.
	It's a pleasure to speak to you, an honor.
	Um, I am interested in the songwriting, and I was wondering if there's anything you could tell me about, um, a place where I could send any songs, or anything about how much it would cost to get copyrights done and all that stuff.
	I honestly don't have any information on where to send songs.
	I don't have a publishing company, so I really couldn't help you there.
	There are some good publishing companies around, but I really couldn't give you a name.
	I'm sorry.
	Would there be any?
	I know there's no way this is possible, but if I could send you something?
	A little poem that I write?
	Yeah, send it to me at Spicewood, Texas.
	Spicewood, Texas.
	Yeah, 78669.
	Willie, I take it anything that shows up in Spicewood with your name on it gets to you?
	It'll get there.
	I don't know how the Postal Department does it, but they've come to know me too, Willie, and people can address things too.
	I've seen letters come to me that say, Art Bell, in the desert.
	Yeah.
	No zip code.
	In the desert.
	And somehow it gets to me.
	It's crazy.
	Yeah.
	And I'm sure it's the same with you.
	How big is Spicewood?
	It's just a few disturbed people.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Well, you would have been, but you're dialed to him.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Hi.
	Yeah, Willie, I think it's great on your farm that you do for the farmers and everything.
	Yes, sir.
	Thank you.
	I really do.
	It's really a wonderful thing there.
	Where are you, sir?
	I'm in San Francisco.
	Okay.
	And you are?
	Yes, sir.
	I want to make... You know, I said the 28th of this month.
	It's the 28th of next month.
	For what?
	June.
	Huh?
	The, uh, Sacramento deal.
	You know, against the, uh, MTB.
	Oh, yes, yes, yes.
	I know the stuff.
	It's been getting into the groundwater, poisoning the water and stuff.
	Yeah.
	Uh, this caller, Willie, is talking about some stuff in California.
	It's getting into the groundwater.
	They're getting wells closed down.
	Yeah.
	You know, Willie, I was pretty much political conservative in a lot of ways.
	I'm economically still very conservative.
	But boy, I'm telling you, Willie, I'm becoming really conscious of our ecology.
	You travel around a lot.
	It seems to me like our weather's getting worse.
	Oh, yeah.
	And I'm sure you've read books that predicted it.
	You know, supposedly that time when the Earth is going through some changes, so it's important that everybody know that this is a natural progression.
	Um, well... Don't you think so?
	I don't know.
	I mean... Have you ever read a book?
	Have you ever read a book called Mother Mary's Message?
	Mother Mary's Message?
	Mary's Message to the World.
	I've interviewed the author.
	It's a very interesting book because it talks about the weather changes and why and when.
	It's very interesting.
	Well, here's what I think.
	We agree the change is going on, but I don't know if it's natural.
	I think, you know, whether it's like a creator, God, or nature, and they may be like one and the same, that this earth is beginning to react to what we're doing.
	So, I agree with that 100%, but I think what we were doing is a natural reaction.
	So the world, the earth itself, is taking a natural reaction to us.
	I think every few million years the world has to get rid of the folks and start all over again because we don't know how to handle it.
	We haven't figured out how to treat the earth as a living entity.
	And we keep treating it like it was a piece of dead meat that you can do whatever you want to do to.
	The earth is a big living thing, and all it has to do is belch a couple of times, and yeah, there's 8 million people gone.
	Yeah, and we're gone.
	That's right.
	No, that's exactly right.
	And I'm afraid some of it might come from organized religion, you know, because some people interpret the Bible to mean that we can do whatever we want.
	that we have dominion over everything and if we feel like concreting over everything around uh... no problem go ahead and and concrete do whatever you want to do and uh... that's that's our right somehow or another and i think that's just a sort of a misinterpretation so i think you're right i think we probably been around a few times before and booted away look we're coming to the top of the hour willie i got a five-hour show but it's four o'clock in the morning back there uh... so uh... are you getting sleepy?
	Oh, I'm not going to sit down.
	No.
	You want to stick around?
	Well, I'll stay with you a while if you don't care.
	No, I don't care.
	I'd love to have you.
	All right, cool.
	Then take a break.
	You've got about 10 minutes and we'll be back.
	All right.
	All right.
	Willie Nelson is my guest.
	And he is an American institution, whether he likes it or not.
	Good morning, everybody.
	Well, somewhere along the way we decided it's better that we leave town that night.
	Because everybody's knocking on your door, that kind of thing, so in other words, get out of town, get to the next town.
	Well, you know, just like we were talking about earlier, you and I are a lot alike in some respects.
	It's better that I get out of town or I'd have had more than four marriages.
	I understand.
	There are, as you said, you're watching Private Sleep right now.
	There's a lot of temptation out there.
	Yeah.
	A whole lot of it.
	And I don't want it to go away.
	I like it.
	Yeah, I feel exactly, exactly the same way about it.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Good morning.
	Good morning, Art.
	Hi!
	Hi, my name's Cindy, and I just can't believe I've got my two favorite men on the radio at the same time!
	Well, good morning to you, Temptation.
	Oh, thanks so much.
	Listen, I wanted to ask you something.
	I have got a dream that I've told my family about for the last, probably, 15 years.
	And what that is, is to sing Amazing Grace with Will and Elton in my living room.
	Well, the thing is, I'm standing in my living room right now.
	And I was wondering if you'd like to sing it with me.
	Or at least a couple bars.
	We'll kick it off.
	Okay.
	Amazing grace How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me I once Was lost, but now I'm found.
	Was blind, but now I see.
	Ha ha ha, you did it!
	He made a dream come true!
	Thank you so much, and I gotta tell ya, I believe that music can help build the planet.
	Uh, well that's fact.
	Thank you.
	I believe in that one.
	Um, you, how much gospel have you done, Willie?
	Uh, honestly, and I'm not saying this just to be a smart, to make a smart crack, but I think all music is gospel.
	Uh, and I started out singing the traditional gospel and the, and since then I've just been adding different kinds of what I really believe gospel music, blues is gospel, bluegrass is gospel.
	Yeah.
	It's all, you know, true music of the spirit.
	It seems like a lot of people who came from a background like that, pretty simple background, Crystal Gales one, the Pointer Sisters, you know, they were raised by a preacher.
	Yeah.
	And look where they went.
	And that seems to happen to people who come from real strict or religious backgrounds.
	For some reason, they just, something clicks, something's changing, and all of a sudden they're in a whole different world.
	And it's a natural progression.
	Oh yeah.
	I believe that.
	I think if you start out singing gospel music, you've got two strikes with you.
	By knowing that kind of music, you already know the blues, you know country, you know a lot of different kinds of music without even knowing that you do.
	Do you ever sing any other kind of music?
	I mean, when you're just jamming, do you ever get into anything else?
	Like what?
	Well, I don't know.
	Like jazz or pop or blues or... You know, do you ever just... I have a reggae album coming out in a few weeks.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	On Island Records.
	Now, how in the world do you get from where you are to reggae?
	Don was a great producer.
	Who did the Borderline album that I did on Columbia, and also did the Highwayman album that we did.
	He said, why don't we do a reggae album?
	I like reggae, but I don't know anything about it, and I'm afraid I don't know what kind of reggae.
	And he said, why don't we take some of your songs and put reggae beats to them?
	So we went to the studio and did one, a song called Undo the Right, and it turned out so good that we flew down to Jamaica and talked to Chris Blackwell at Island Records, and he liked the idea, so now we have our reggae album coming out.
	Wow!
	How do you like it?
	I love it.
	I think it's great.
	We do a song, a Jimmy Cliff song on the show every night called, uh, Sittin' in Limbo.
	Sittin' in Limbo?
	Yeah.
	You ever heard that one?
	No.
	It's a great song.
	All right.
	Wes the Rockies, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Good morning.
	Good morning.
	Good morning, Willie.
	Good morning.
	I wanted to say how much I enjoyed your appearance on the cartoon show, King of the Hill.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	I was there and saw you at the very first Farm Aid in Champaign, Illinois, all those years ago.
	I believe it was 1981.
	The first Farm Aid, I believe, was what, David? 1984?
	It's October 4th in Irving Stadium just outside of Dallas.
	I wanted you to talk a little bit about, I assume there is probably another Farm Aid
	coming up.
	Yeah, we mentioned the date earlier but I'm glad to mention it again.
	It's October 4th in Irving Stadium just outside of Dallas.
	And who all is appearing with you there?
	Well there will be the regulars, me and John Mellencamp and Neil Young and John Connolly
	and whoever else we can get to come there.
	We usually have 30, 40, 50 acts that are glad to come because everybody knows the problems in the situation and everybody is eager to help.
	We've never had any problem getting people to play Farm Aid.
	Great, well good luck to you.
	I was going to ask you, what was it like doing that show, King of the Hill?
	And I'll hang up and let somebody else talk to you, too, if you want to comment on that.
	All right.
	A lot of people want to ask about King of the Hill.
	Well, that's a great show.
	First of all, I didn't know that there was such a show until I was on it.
	So the first show that I saw was the one that I was on.
	Those guys are hilarious.
	Have you seen the show, Art?
	I have, yes.
	It is a funny show.
	Well, a lot of people, yeah, a lot of people seem absolutely interested.
	Alright, hold on, we're at the bottom of the hour.
	Don't hang up!
	We'll be back.
	Willie Nelson is my guest.
	To the river more deadly than the vainest knife.
	Paul, I must be the number one Willie fan.
	Alright.
	I just thought I'd let you know that and I can't believe I'm actually talking to you.
	Well, that's great.
	I appreciate it.
	Thank you.
	Well, record this and play it back in your log house.
	Oh, I'm going to.
	I am recording it.
	But I wanted to ask you one little question.
	How come is it that all of your, what I think is your very best music never became big hits?
	Well, that's a subjective question, but it's a fair question.
	Like the sound in your mind.
	My favorite one.
	Well, you know, there was a lot of records that I made back in those years that sort of got lost in the shuffle.
	The Sound in Your Mind was one.
	Yesterday's Wine was one.
	It came out many years ago.
	Now it's been reissued.
	But a lot of those records that, a dozen or more, that I felt like had, well, you get a dozen albums, ten songs, an album, there's a hundred songs there that just got lost.
	Oh, they did.
	And those, to me, are the best ones.
	Are there, uh, what's your favorite?
	Do you have a favorite?
	Well, I have, I do it in my show every night, 40 to 50 songs, and those are my favorites.
	And usually the last stuff that I've written is my favorite.
	I just wrote an album called Spirit, and those songs are my favorites now.
	Spirit.
	What inspired that?
	What inspired that?
	Uh...
	Why call it spirit?
	It's the evolution of the spirit.
	This album was written over a 17 year period and it starts out with the way I felt 17 years ago and the way I feel now.
	It's a concept album that I really waited a long time to write because I really didn't have it all together, you know.
	I wrote maybe six or seven songs in the Spirit album last year.
	All right.
	Wes of the Rockies, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Good morning.
	Good morning, Art.
	This is Marcus, your pistol back in Bagan in Portland.
	How are you gentlemen doing?
	Fine.
	Hello there.
	Howdy.
	While I have the opportunity, Willie and Art, I just wanted to say may the God and Goddess bless you both for the work that you've done and the cause of human freedom.
	There are a few things in my canon that are as important.
	No, I'll amend that.
	The cause of freedom is the most holy thing that I can conceive of in the realm of human experience, and I think you both have done yeoman service in that cause, and everybody knows it, and long may your flags fly.
	Thank you.
	That being said, Willie, I also wanted to thank you again for it.
	A piece of work you did in a movie called The Electric Horseman.
	Oh, yes, sir.
	Thank you.
	That was a brilliant piece of down-to-earth leavening that that movie needed to make it more than just a feel-good picture.
	That elevates it to the canon of a keeper.
	For no other reason than it tells a good story about an important subject, freedom, and how it applies at all times and all places to all people and all things.
	It's a good lesson that we need to keep in mind and never forget.
	Um, sort of tangentially, which goes into my question for you, Willie, you have a unique opportunity that I think some politicians would give their eye teeth for.
	You travel all over the country, you meet millions of people, you have your finger on the pulse of the nation the way that very few people are gifted to have.
	And I've admired and respected you, although I'm not a country music fan, I admire you as a person because you have demonstrated this kind of openness.
	And receptivity and honesty that makes it possible for people to tell the truth to you and for you to know the truth about them.
	Thank you very much.
	What is your sense of the pulse of America?
	Where do you think we are as a people?
	Where do you get the feeling that we're going?
	Oh, that's a good question.
	Well, I'm a positive thinker, so naturally I'm thinking that the fact that you and I and the people who have called in tonight have the ability to Be here tonight and say what we're thinking and to have it being heard by millions of people all over the world.
	To me, that's a positive sign because if enough of us get out there thinking and talking positive, you know, the Berlin Wall fell.
	So what's next?
	What I find is that the older I get, the easier it seems like it is for me to say what I really feel without caring.
	In other words, Just to say what I feel, and that's kind of recent for me, like the last decade or something, I sort of began to change and not care.
	And so I just started saying exactly what I felt without regard for the consequences.
	And I'm sure you've become a little... You ever listen to Barry Goldwater?
	Sure, I'm a big Barry Goldwater fan.
	Yeah, so am I. And he says so much of exactly what's on his mind that I think the press is getting afraid to go to him anymore.
	Well, you know, we've had a few guys around.
	All politicians haven't been bad.
	I think, well, I like Barry Goldwater, and I like Jimmy Carter, and I like Harry Truman.
	I mean, these are some, and Lyndon Johnson.
	I like these guys who would stand up and say, wait a minute, you know, this is the way it is.
	That's exactly what Barry Goldwater did.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Hello.
	Hello there.
	Oh, whoops, I didn't push the button, so that's not going to work.
	First time caller online, now you're on the air, I think.
	Uh, yeah, I was calling earlier about the idea I had to run by.
	Uh, well, you're on the air with Willie Nelson, so, you know, there's no point in running an idea just by me.
	Uh, do you have a question for Willie?
	Oh, I have a question for both of you.
	All right, fire away.
	Actually, um, I was, um, thinking about all the prophecies, uh, like in the Bible and several other, uh, prophecies that talk about, like, natural disasters towards the end.
	Prophecy.
	I interview a lot of people who are into prophecy, and there's biblical prophecy.
	Do you do anything about that, Willie?
	Prophecy, where things are going in the longer run?
	Well, I do believe in prophecies.
	I think a lot of prophecies are interpreted in different ways.
	The book of Revelation, for one thing, is all book of prophecies, but it's interpreted a thousand different ways.
	Some of those are right.
	I just don't know which ones it is.
	as it is.
	You ever wonder with regard to Revelation since you mentioned it, you know, it's hard
	to tell where you are in a process.
	You think we're in that now?
	I do believe that we're in that time period when there are changes being made and they're
	rapid changes.
	They're happening fast and I think there's a lot of information being fed to us now through
	all the channels that are coming in to us so fast that a lot of us are reeling from
	it a little bit.
	But I think it's just important to know that that's what it is.
	We're just receiving a whole lot of information real fast and it's probably for a good reason.
	We maybe are going to need this knowledge.
	That's a fact.
	I've been observing this for 13 years doing a talk show.
	Started to realize that things are coming at a faster and faster pace.
	And I tried to ask myself if it was just because of the media delivering this information to us.
	But the fact of the matter is, things really are beginning to speed up.
	Yeah, and actually the media is way behind in giving it to us.
	That's right, that's exactly right.
	Um, alright, uh, West of the Rockies, you're on there with Willie Nelson.
	Good morning, where are you please?
	Hi, I'm from Lake County.
	I'm glad to hear that you did a reggae album.
	Yeah.
	It's really different from what you've done before, but recently my husband and I, my whole family have changed over from country-western to reggae because it is really a family-orientated and love and It's full of brotherhood, and as you know, right now, all we've got now is our family and our friends.
	Well, you know, let me tell you a story about where reggae music came from.
	And this is a story that the reggae musicians that I recorded this album with told me that many years ago, when they first listened to music over the radio out of Jamaica, they would listen to these different stations and they would hear this country music.
	and they couldn't hear the rhythms because there weren't any drums back in those days anyway
	so they put their own rhythms to the country music and that's where the original Jamaica
	songs came from the original reggae songs come from they were getting the the uh the messages
	the spiritual messages of the country music songs that are not there today
	What you've been looking for in country music today, the reason you went to reggae is because you're looking for that one thing that you don't hear in country music anymore.
	Is that right?
	Yeah, and you're totally right on that aspect, Willie.
	I think it's funny that country music and reggae sort of make the big circle.
	We're at the top of the hour again, choice point.
	You got a choice.
	I've got the hours.
	You know, I don't want to hog all the program if you've got other folks coming or something, but I'm here.
	How much longer we got?
	An hour?
	An hour?
	I've got two hours left, Willie, and I've got nothing but time on my hands.
	That's a luxury radio, you know?
	If I'm not, you know, if you've got somebody coming in or something, I don't want to hog the whole show, but I'm having fun.
	If you're having fun, then let's keep going.
	All right.
	All right.
	Willie Nelson is my guest, and we'll just keep going.
	How about that?
	This is CBC.
	Don't hang up, Willie.
	From that time, a few, including you, and I was wondering if you have any that you're willing to tell on the air.
	Well, of course, I remember Barbara Newitt.
	Still, you know, I run into him occasionally.
	He and Chris Christopherson and some more guys hung out together in New York.
	And I run into him back in the 70s, I guess it was.
	He's a good songwriter, a good picker.
	I think he's in California now.
	What was your first question, hon?
	About the Super Suckers?
	He's been doing some recordings of them.
	Yeah, in fact there was a whole album called Twisted Willie.
	I'm going to switch topics on you real quick and ask you a real serious question.
	together and that they have what i thought was great that there are a lot
	of my songs but their own and on
	uh... angel planted close to the ground was done with an electric sewing machine play on the river
	haha because i write
	and i want to come on a switch topics on your request you real serious question
	uh... we've had some things happen in this country that not so good uh...
	william uh... down in waco
	uh... in idaho and lately we've been getting these people arrested uh...
	we got the trial going on in denver now we've got militias we've got
	people who are uh...
	like taking matters into their own hands and i scares the hell out of me
	i i've got this feeling that uh...
	if we if we get the wrong spark at the wrong place at the wrong time
	there's going to begin a cycle of violence in this country it's going to
	turn us into another belfast And I thought I would ask you about this militia stuff and what's going on currently and what you feel about that.
	Well, personally, I feel like that if everybody gets out and votes against the people they don't like, then there won't be any need to get any guns and go shoot nobody.
	To me, that's the way to do it.
	Once it gets to the point where you feel like you have to arm yourself and fight, Then it's too late anyway, because look at China.
	You can't beat a tank.
	I don't care how mad you are or how big your shotgun is, you can't out-shoot that tank.
	That's right.
	So once it gets to the point where our government is more well-armed than we are, we're screwed anyway.
	So you better figure out a way to vote them out, because you can't whip them.
	Yeah, and more and more people are getting apathetic.
	They're getting the feeling that they can't change anything.
	And they're getting cynical.
	Willie, even I'm getting a little cynical sometimes about politics.
	And that turns them away from voting.
	And it just seems like some kind of vicious cycle.
	And it's beginning to spawn these people with guns.
	I know it.
	And you'd like to catch 22.
	You're damned if you do.
	You're damned if you don't.
	But I still believe That there is a peaceful solution.
	There's got to be, because... The alternative is not so hot.
	No, the alternative is an impossible situation.
	You can't win.
	Look at Waco.
	Look at all these other places.
	You can't beat them that way.
	You've got to do it at the voting polls.
	You really can't beat them in court.
	You have to vote them out.
	That's the only way.
	Yeah, I agree with you.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Good morning.
	This is Jeff from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, WTMJ620.
	Yes, sir.
	Willie, I didn't even realize that your recordings went all the way back to 1962.
	Yes, sir.
	Yeah.
	What was your first album?
	It was called And Then I Wrote.
	It was on Liberty Records.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	I have a little book here I was just looking at.
	Hey, I didn't get a chance to check out any of the Farm Aid.
	Yeah.
	But my hometown, you guys played there, Farm Aid 4, Indianapolis?
	Yes, sir.
	And I got lucky.
	I happened to get the whole thing on videotape.
	Right.
	Yeah, it was just fantastic.
	It was a fantastic show from beginning to end.
	I'm not a big country fan, but I liked some of the bands, some of the country and western bands that happened to play there.
	It was pretty cool.
	I have a strange Willie Nelson story to tell you real quick.
	When I first got here to Milwaukee back in 85, I had already moved here by the time you guys came to Indianapolis.
	I didn't have a place to live.
	I went to a mission.
	I was wearing a Willie Nelson t-shirt.
	It was a black t-shirt with a drawing of your face on the front of it.
	I needed a place to stay and the pastors as well.
	That's what the guy told me, that's what the pastor told me.
	And he wouldn't let me stay there overnight.
	every other place six o'clock in the morning you know and they look like
	sure it is you gotta do that you gotta change your shirt
	because willie alton doesn't do the work of the lord
	and uh... it is drug meca strange in this way
	cause willie nelson doesn't do the work of the letter the guy told me that the
	pastor told me anyone let me
	stay there overnight now where do you suppose a pastor might have got an idea
	like that will i don't know
	Are you serious?
	No, I'm serious.
	I can understand why anybody out there who's a really fanatical religious person could look at Willie Nelson and say, well, my goodness, keep your kids away from this guy.
	Don't let your kids grow up to be like Willie.
	yeah there you go uh...
	you are you think that uh...
	you think that you've been around along enough so that you were in the old west
	uh...
	It seems like you were there.
	I probably was, because I really still think that way a lot.
	Well, when I see you in those kind of parts, Yeah.
	Seems like it's really natural for you.
	Yeah.
	Feels that way to you when you're doing it?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it's really not a lot of acting involved in those kind of parts, really.
	Yeah, that's what I thought.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Good morning!
	Yeah, this is Gary from Richland, Washington.
	Yes, sir.
	And, Mr. Nelson, I think you're one of the coolest guys to ever walk the face of the earth, and I mean it sincerely.
	Thank you.
	Even if you don't like Willie Nelson, you know dang well you're the coolest guy.
	I was just wondering, though, what are some of the newer singer-songwriters today that you respect or listen to?
	And also, I want to know, one of my guys I like a lot, who has a lot of respect to you, is Steve Earle.
	If you could say a few words about him.
	Well, first of all, yeah, Steve Earle is a great rider and he's one of those younger guys that I would, you know, him and Rodney Crowell, and of course, to me, Chris Thompson is still a young guy.
	But the real young guys, I really don't know who they are.
	I don't know who's writing these songs these days.
	Well, I saw you guys do that on Austin City Limits with Billy Joe Shaver and Kimmy Rhodes.
	She was kind of new to me and I really liked her a lot.
	Well, yeah, she's a great writer, and she's there in Austin.
	She's an old friend.
	She'll be playing the picnic again this year, too.
	Man, I'd love to go down that picnic.
	And Billy Joe Shaver, I mean, to me, he's still a young writer.
	You know, back when all this stuff about country music was going on, I knew I was in trouble when I heard those people say, well, I wish they'd play some of them old guys again, like George Strait and Randy Travis.
	Correct.
	Well, thank you, Willie.
	It's been a great pleasure.
	Same here.
	Thank you very much.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Good morning.
	Good morning.
	I'm so glad I got through.
	Where are you, sir?
	I'm in eastern Indiana.
	Okay.
	Okay, two things first.
	One is a request, and the other is a comment.
	All right.
	This is Sunday's Mother's Day, and my mother is a tremendous fan of Mr. Nelson, and I was wondering if he would be willing to give her an audio autograph. All right, what's your mother's name?
	Jean. Willie? What's your name? Gene. Gene?
	Gene. Gene. Yep. Well, happy Mother's Day, Gene. That is wonderful. Her and she and my wife
	make me believe in God. They're wonderful women. So, thank you very much. Thank you, sir.
	You're not a strictly religious person, are you?
	I mean, you're not, like, in a church every Sunday or something, are you?
	Or are you?
	Well, no.
	Well, I couldn't be in a church every Sunday.
	I hadn't gone to church in a long time, but I still, I believe we walk around in our church every day, you know.
	So, wherever we are, that's it.
	Alright.
	That's fair enough.
	When I come back, I want to ask you a really tough question.
	So, stand by.
	Don't go to sleep, and don't hang up, and... And we'll be right back.
	From the high desert, near Area 51, so-called Dreamland, I'm Art Bell, and this is CBC.
	RCA going to release one of their essential series on your sides from back then.
	Alright, last question first.
	There is an album called Yesterday's Wine that came out on RCA several years ago.
	It's just been released on Justice Records.
	And, uh, you know, that was good news to me because I didn't think that album really had a good shot back in those years.
	It was, uh, uh, the content was a little bit early, I think, and, uh, uh, Justice Records liked it enough to get it and put it out again.
	So, uh, it's ahead of your time.
	All right, what about this Fairness in Music licensing?
	I don't know what that is.
	Uh, do you, Willie?
	Well, uh, I, uh, wrote this letter, uh, to uh... some folks trying to get that keep that from being canada understand it what it is it's uh... if this law is passed there's a lot of songs that i think that uh... would be restricted you know what i'm talking about no it's not a lot of that the law you're talking about it is i guess i mean what what what is the law or the proposed law say or what effect would it have willie well first of all let me see if this is the one this gentleman is talking
	Well, he's already gone.
	Oh, okay.
	Well, in case... It's the law that... As I understand it, it's the law that prohibits certain lyrics and ideas.
	It's a horrible form of censorship.
	So naturally, I think anybody, any writer, anybody, any citizen, ought to be against it.
	How in the world can they... On what basis can they limit... I don't understand that at all.
	I mean, there's a lot of things that are done in the name of morality, and it's for our own good.
	Oh, is that what it's about?
	In other words, certain words or phrases you can't say or you can't write about in a song?
	I'm sure that's the origin of it.
	That's the origin of the law that I'm talking about, and I'm not sure about this other stuff.
	Oh, well, alright then.
	What about all this crazy music that's out there right now, the rap stuff?
	That's the ones they're after.
	Yeah, I know that.
	I know that.
	But, so, kind of like Larry Flint stood, and stood behind the First Amendment with a flag behind him, all that stuff, it really applies here as well.
	The rap stuff is bad, but sometimes, sometimes in the name of what we call freedom, if we really mean what we say about the First Amendment, even the stuff you don't like, gotta let it go.
	Yeah, you can't Tell people what to hear and what not to listen to.
	That's not what we do.
	Everyone should be able to listen to what they want to listen to, like what they like.
	That's why they put knobs on the radio so you can turn the dial.
	You've got that right.
	And yet, let me tell you something.
	There are a lot of people out there who hate my guts.
	At least some.
	If you're not hated by some, you're probably not doing anything at all.
	And yet, they're glued to listen.
	To remind themselves how much they hate me.
	Well, they feed on that.
	It's a strange psychology, isn't it?
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Hi.
	Hi, Art, and hi, Willie.
	How are you both doing?
	Fine.
	This is for Willie and for Art, sort of.
	Willie, there's a guest who you've done Farm Aid, and there's a guest who Art has on the show weekly.
	I'd like to know more about it.
	I'm not sure what you're talking about.
	all year and i'm wondering if you would consider to go up a former Idaho
	but would you consider doing a crop circle cabin cattle mutilation a dimmer martin and i'm
	sorry about that are you know she's like
	you know i would i'd like to know more about it i'm not sure what you're
	talking about arm well yet you know in a lot of parts of the country in fact all
	over the world there have been these really strange incidents of cattle
	mutilations uh... that make absolutely no sense at all
	And crop circles?
	Well, those are these strange designs, Willie, that show up in the middle of farmers' fields, wheat fields, those kinds of things that appear to be nothing that a human being could do.
	You know, as though it came from somewhere else, or something else, or whether it's a message, or nobody really knows what the hell it is.
	But they're beautiful, they're intricate, and nobody knows what they are.
	I've heard of those and I've seen them, but I'm not sure what the benefit is for.
	Well, he was kidding about that.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	He was kidding about that, but I mean, you know, the question about the crop circles really is interesting.
	It's like somebody's trying to tell us something, unfortunately somewhat cryptically.
	And there have been some amazing examples, like Stonehenge in England, with 191 circles joined together, some looking like DNA strands, and all these strange things going on that we simply don't understand, but right in the middle of farmers' fields.
	Yeah.
	Well, maybe you're right.
	They're trying to communicate in some way.
	Yeah, maybe they are.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Good morning.
	Yes, yes, it would figure that you would have on your program a dope-smoking, tax-dodging, government-hating hippie that would figure for you one who has murdered not 39, but now 43 people who you sent to their domes by watching a comet.
	Uh, Willie, this is a fellow named JC.
	Features himself to be a preacher.
	...country and western.
	But you give it a bad name.
	Well, how about someone like Hank Williams who sings good songs about the heartland?
	This is JC.
	Features himself to be a preacher, Willie.
	He's doing great.
	I've administered the new revelation from the Lord, and you are against the Lord's work, just like the gentleman who told the gentleman with the t-shirt that he has to take that off, that he was causing disruption among those who were there to follow the true faith, and at Art Bell, you're, you know... Willie, he thinks I'm the Antichrist.
	Well, you've murdered, your body count's piling up, you can't say that you're... He's talking about the Heaven's Gate suicides.
	You're trying to dodge that.
	You're blaming that on me.
	You're trying to dodge that.
	You know, I didn't know whether you did it or not.
	It was revealed that you were at the... JC, JC.
	What do you want?
	JC, be... They say you left your motor running.
	Yeah.
	No.
	Be calm, JC.
	Yeah, I'm... Well, I am calm.
	No, you're not.
	You're never calm.
	Well, yes, I am.
	Are you trying to say that I have a problem?
	No, I don't.
	I have a problem with the fact that you bring on subversives onto your program.
	We're trying to say that the government... Subversives?
	Alright, JC, enough for now.
	Hey, are you holding your nose while you're talking?
	I've often wondered about that myself, Willie.
	Mercifully, he seems to be gone.
	But he'd just go on and on if I let him.
	So, are you a proud subversive, Willie?
	Am I a proud subversive?
	Yeah.
	Hell yeah!
	I know, that's the way I feel about it too.
	First time calling on your own.
	You're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Hello there.
	Hello.
	Yes, hi, where are you?
	I'm in Sacramento.
	Sacramento, alright.
	Well, let's hear how you follow that last act.
	That was really pretty funny.
	I mean, uh, that guy should never be on the air.
	Well, uh, if he hadn't have been, though, we wouldn't have got that last.
	That's right.
	That's true.
	And, uh, hey, Art.
	Yes?
	I wanted to ask you, have you ever heard of a man named Irwin Schiff?
	Yes, I have.
	You have?
	And I bet Willie has, too.
	I'm afraid I haven't.
	Oh, you haven't?
	Oh, he's, uh, he's, uh, it's all about the IRS, right, Caller?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, this is somebody who, um, I think... Has Erwin been behind bars over the IRS thing?
	I think he has.
	Yes, he has.
	And that was a mistake?
	Well, I don't know about that.
	But there have been a lot of people who have been behind bars.
	You know, Willie, since... Let me ask you this about the IRS.
	There's a lot of people out there who say that the 16th Amendment was never ratified.
	I'm not a citizen of this country.
	This or that, and I don't, and I won't pay taxes, and a lot of them end up going to jail.
	How do you feel about those people?
	Well, I don't know about those people.
	The way I feel about it personally is that I've always felt like if I made enough money, I didn't mind paying taxes.
	I think we're being overtaxed a lot now, but as long as I'm making enough money to pay my taxes, then I didn't bitch about it too much.
	It hurts a little bit when you look at what they take, because it is a lot.
	You know, it's a lot.
	There's no question about it.
	If you look at it like, well, it's a pretty good price to pay to live in America.
	And if you look at it that way, it is.
	And I do look at it that way.
	Listen, I've got one more hour.
	I do too.
	You do too?
	Stay right there.
	All right.
	Don't hang up.
	No, don't hang up.
	We'll be right back.
	i see trees of green, red roses too, i see them bloom for me and you, and i think to myself, what a wonderful world.
	because it seems like no matter how good a person or bad a person you are, if you're public enough, there's somebody
	who doesn't like you enough to probably try to do you harm.
	And do you think about that?
	No, I can't afford to think about that.
	You know, the thoughts do come by, and you have to say, well, am I going to worry about this, or am I going to go ahead with my life?
	So, no, I don't.
	You can't.
	I go back to that what we talked about before.
	Fortunately, we're not in control.
	So I go about my life and I figure that other people are taking care of me.
	I better have some guardian angels or I'm in trouble anyway.
	Yeah, that's right.
	And you just can't let it bother you.
	I finally came to the same conclusion.
	Just keep doing what you're doing, having fun.
	And you know, if the plan is that you exit early, then that's the plan.
	And you can't do anything about it.
	Yes.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Hi.
	Hi, Art.
	This is Don in Denver.
	Hi, Don.
	I've got a couple of questions for Willie.
	Sure.
	If you're not a legend in your own time, how come they named a highway after you down there in Texas?
	Which one was it?
	It's the highway that runs through Abbott, Texas, really.
	It's the highways.
	Close now, they moved that highway, and now there's an interstate out the edge of town.
	Oh, there is?
	Yeah.
	They named a highway after you?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, he's not a legend.
	That's what it is, you know?
	And it's the road, what's great about it is the road that I used to run up and down is when I was a kid, and I still go back there now, and I hang out on the road, and just have a big time just knowing that, hey, this ain't bad.
	It's Willie Nelson Highway.
	Okay, and the other question was, I don't know if it was a rumor or not, but I heard something about you at the White House or something taking a little break to go up and have a smoke on the roof or something.
	I heard about that.
	Yeah, that's a rumor.
	It's a rumor or was it true?
	I can't remember for sure.
	He claimed short-term memory loss on the subject.
	Okay, and one more question.
	Is there any chance you could squeeze art in your next movie there?
	Yeah, I'd love to.
	You need more exposure.
	No, I don't.
	I'll tell you, Willie, I've been fighting with this.
	I'm a radio guy.
	And now, you know, all the TV people, I mean, CNN's coming out here next week to film a whole show and everything.
	And it just gives me the heebie-jeebies.
	The camera.
	I don't know how to get over that.
	Yeah, I know the feeling.
	There's more mystery to radio.
	Uh, there absolutely is.
	And I just, you know, every time I look at these other talk show hosts who go on television, I say, boy, are they making a mistake.
	And, you know, they've got a good face for radio, and they should stick with it.
	Well, yeah, but there's always temptation, especially when you get as popular as you are.
	They're going to be firing at you, you know, to have your own daily Yeah, I know.
	They're talking to me about all that kind of stuff, and I have been resisting, and I have said no more times, and these television people and these movie people, they are very persistent people.
	I mean, it's like they don't take no.
	They just keep coming back and, well, how about if we do this, or how about if we do that, or we can make it easy on you, and oh, man, they just keep coming.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Hi.
	Good morning, Art and Willie.
	Good morning.
	Morning.
	Where are you?
	I'm in Central Texas.
	All right.
	My question is, I know golf is one of Willie Nelson's favorite pastimes, and My question is, who was the most fun person he ever played with, and who was the best golfer he ever played with?
	Okay.
	Lee Trevino, I guess, is one of the best golfers I ever played with, and one of the most fun guys I ever played with.
	He seems to have a good sense of humor.
	Yeah.
	Is that a big part of your life, sense of humor?
	It has to be, Art.
	I agree.
	You've got to laugh a lot or you're in real trouble.
	That's right.
	It holds you off from going crazy thinking about the more serious stuff.
	Listen, we happen to have, Pahrump is a little bit of a small town, but we actually have a really good golf course here, Willie.
	I've played that golf course.
	You have?
	I've played that golf course.
	In fact, the last time I played that golf course, Benny Binion rode around with me.
	That's right.
	Well, the next time you get near this golf course, I hope you'll call me up, and we'll get together.
	All right.
	Can we do it?
	Yes, and moreover, I would even be willing to try and play golf.
	Well, all right.
	That would be great.
	I'd love to do that.
	All right, good.
	It's Johnny Gimbel, and I had never heard a person that could make a violin swing.
	In a western band like he can when he's played with you.
	Johnny Gimbel is on my latest album, Spirit Album.
	Johnny plays some really great stuff on there.
	Oh, no kidding.
	When's that going to be out?
	It's out now.
	It's been out about six months.
	So, any record store probably, huh?
	Right.
	It's called Spirit.
	All right.
	He's on Island Record.
	Island Record.
	Whoops.
	Would have been West of the Rockies.
	You're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Hi.
	Yes.
	Good morning, Trey.
	Good morning, Willie.
	Hello there.
	And happy Mother's Day to Ma Bell out in Long Island.
	Oh, that's my mom in Long Island.
	A big hug to both of you and a warm smile.
	Thank you.
	Willie, I couldn't name a song that you've done.
	I'm not a fan of your music, but I am a fan of your soul.
	I started liking you when Johnny Carson, who I used to idolize, started having you on his show a lot, and I was really glad to know you from that.
	Yeah, you know, this caller is saying something really important, and they don't necessarily have to be a fan of your music to be a fan of your soul, and there is something about you, Willie, and I don't know what it is, but it's like people can feel your soul.
	People can feel your Realness.
	And that's a big part of it, isn't it?
	It's not just music.
	Well, I think people can feel what you feel if you feel it deeply enough.
	That's exactly it.
	That's exactly it.
	Hold on, Willie.
	We're at the bottom of the hour.
	We'll be right back.
	The devil went down to Georgia. He was looking for a soul to steal. He was in a bind because he was way behind and he
	was willing to make a deal.
	When he came across this young man sewing on a fiddle and playing it hot, and the devil jumped up on a hick or
	something and said, Boy, let me tell you what. I get you dismayed, but I'm a
	fiddle player too. And if you'd care to take a dare, I'll make a bet with you.
	Now you play a pretty good fiddle, boy, but give the devil his due. I'd better fiddle a gold against your soul...
	...selling timeshare there at the time.
	And I saw these buses, and I said, surely that's not.
	And I drove up, and sure enough, it was you, but they said that you were in Wilmington someplace getting ready for a concert, and I really had a hard time believing that.
	I thought you were out on a golf course somewhere, but they wouldn't tell us where.
	Do they protect you that way, Willie?
	Just so you can at least once in a while go off and play around quietly?
	Well, you know, as soon as the guys hit the stage area, everybody's kind of saying, well, where's Willie?
	And none of them know nothing.
	Yeah, that's nice.
	People in my little town are good about that, too.
	A lot of them know where I am, but they don't say.
	They just don't say.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Hi.
	Good morning, everybody.
	Good morning.
	Yeah, Art, I was surprised.
	A couple of breaks ago you played What a Wonderful World, and not too long ago I sent you Willie's rendition of it.
	I love that song.
	Yeah, I wish you would have played that tonight.
	My question to Willie was if he's reviving that song at all since it's becoming popular once again, because his rendition is quite original as well.
	Yeah, I love that song, Willie.
	Well, thanks.
	I do, too.
	And, of course, I learned it from some Satchmo's record, and he does such a great job on it.
	I had a lot of nerve even trying it, but I liked the song so much I did it anyway.
	There's just so much basic truth in that song.
	Yeah.
	It's a funny thing.
	I sat here sometimes during breaks, you know.
	I've got these four or five minute breaks, top and bottom of the hour.
	I play music for myself.
	Yeah.
	Because it sets my mood.
	Yeah.
	It sets my mood.
	You know, somebody's asking here, and I'll ask.
	Have you ever had any experience with, uh, we sometimes talk about ghosts or spirits here, and I'm not altogether sure what happens to a person's spirit, you know, after their body's gone.
	Uh, have you ever had any experience that you could not explain, uh, with regard to something like that?
	No.
	Uh, not really.
	Uh, I believe other people do have them, but I've never had one.
	Uh, that's me too.
	Except that I can feel the presence of those who have left, I think.
	I mean, it's not like some misty white thing appearing or something.
	Just, they're with me.
	Yeah, but it doesn't appear to me as a ghost-like thing.
	It's more of a natural thing.
	Yeah, it is natural.
	That's right.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Willie Nelson in a marathon now.
	Hi.
	Yeah, Willie, I'm calling from Somerset, Kentucky.
	This is Mike.
	Are you coming to Renfro Valley any time soon?
	Well, I'd like to.
	Is that still going strong?
	Yeah, it's done pretty good.
	I had a question to ask you.
	Do you ever do anything with David Alan Coe anymore?
	I haven't seen him in a while.
	I think the last time I saw him was the 4th of July picnic.
	Oh, really?
	Last year.
	I don't know what he's into these days.
	Really?
	I have a lot of your old albums and his old albums.
	I think the songs you've done with him are great.
	Thanks.
	Yeah, he's got a lot of talent.
	Yeah.
	Is he still recording?
	I guess so.
	I think he is.
	I'm not really sure.
	I haven't talked to him in about a year.
	Well, Willie, I appreciate it.
	I hope you get around to Rinfo Valley.
	I hope so, too.
	Tell him hello up there.
	Okay, sure will.
	Boy, there's a lot of places to go, aren't there, Willie?
	Yeah.
	A lot of places.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Willie Nelson.
	Good morning.
	Hey, glad I made it through here.
	Let me kill my radio.
	Okay, hey Art, hi Willie, how are you guys doing?
	Alright.
	Hey, I just wanted to ask Willie, and actually thank him, how did he, and he touched on it earlier, how did he and Julio Iglesias ever get together?
	Because they seem to be just diametrically opposed to each other.
	I know, I thought the same thing.
	Julio Iglesias is the international playboy, you know, and Willie Nelson is the Down home country, boy.
	It just seemed like a... Well, I was going to say he was the national playboy.
	So maybe that's... Oh, yeah.
	But anyway, it's kind of funny.
	The whole thing is, you know, I'm in the military, and every now and then, you know, you get called to do talent shows, you know, for your Christmas party.
	You know, we can't afford professional entertainment usually, so you just gotta get a bunch of guys from the outfit, you know, go on, act crazy, You know, there's your show, right?
	Well, I always usually win because I do the Julio Iglesias and the Willie Nelson song.
	And I kind of like end my act with it.
	It was kind of funny, though.
	I just wanted to hear from Willie how he got together with Julio and who originally had the idea.
	Yeah, I mean, that is a pretty good question.
	It seems like you're two very, very, very, very different people.
	So how'd that happen?
	I was in London and I was listening to the radio at about three or four in the morning.
	In London, at that time, you could only get a couple of stations, and there was a BBC, and then there was a BBC, but that was about it.
	But I heard this guy singing, and I told Connie, I was married to Connie at the time, and I said, Connie, is there a great singer in it?
	And she said, yeah.
	And so the next day, she went down and picked up his album, because the guy said he was I thought I had discovered somebody.
	I didn't realize the guy had already sold a hundred million albums.
	So I called my manager, Mark Rothblum, and I said, see if you can find out anything about Julio Iglesias and if he wants to do a song with me.
	So at that time he was in Los Angeles doing his first session that he'd ever done in this country.
	And when Mark ran down his manager and Found out where he was and they asked him if he wanted to do a song with Willie Nelson.
	He said yes.
	So he came to Austin, Texas, brought a track to all the girls to Austin, Texas, to my studio.
	And we went in there and I did my voice.
	He put on his voice.
	And then he went back to L.A.
	and spent another, I guess, 90 days working on his part because he wasn't satisfied with his English.
	And that's the way it happened.
	Boy, classic.
	The whole thing has been classic.
	Willie, we're out of time.
	Good.
	I mean, I don't mean good.
	I mean, like, you've hung in there for the entire five hours.
	What a total pleasure it's been.
	Same here.
	When you come out, play some golf here in Pahrump, we'll get together.
	I'd love to do it.
	Willie Nelson, thank you, my friend.
	My pleasure.
	I'll talk to you later.
	Take care.
	All right, bye.
	Good night.
	That's it, folks.
	That's all there is.
	I'm Art Bell.
	Good night!
	I was a highwayman.
	Along the coach roads I did ride.
	With sword and pistol by my side.
	Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade.
	Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade.
	The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five.
	But I am still alive.
	I was a sailor.
	I was born upon the tide.
	With the sea I did abide.
	I sailed a schooner around the Horn of Mexico.
	I went aloft to twirl the mainsail in a float And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed But I'm livin' still I was a dam builder across a river deep and wide Where steel and water did collide A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below They buried me in that grey tomb that knows no sound But I'm still around I'll always be around and around and around and around and around
	I'll fly a starship across the universe divide And when I reach the other side I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can Perhaps I may become a highwayman again Or I may simply be a single drop of rain

▲