Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings From the Road (15 page)

What I thought was heaven

Is just falling debris

Well, I may not be crazy

But I got one hell of a start

Somebody pick up my pieces

I think I’m fallin’ apart

Don’t follow my footsteps

Step over my trail

The road is too narrow

And your footing could fail

And the fall to the bottom

Could tear you apart

And they’ll be pickin’ up pieces

Of you and your heart

Don’t follow my footsteps

Step over my trail

The road is too narrow

And your footing could fail

And the fall to the bottom

Could tear you apart

And they’ll be pickin’ up pieces

Of you and your heart

And they’ll be pickin’ up pieces

Of you and your heart

S
UNDAY
, A
PRIL
15

We are somewhere on the road right now, headed to Springfield, Missouri, and listening to Thom Hartmann on SiriusXM Radio. I had a job washing dishes at a restaurant in Springfield, back before I moved to Nashville. My wife, Martha, was working there also. In Springfield, the
Ozark Jubilee
was a very popular country music show. That’s where I became friends with Shirley Collie, Red Foley, Grady Martin, and Billy Walker, who moved to Nashville. Billy Walker let me and Martha and Lana come stay with him until we could find a place to live. He was a great friend, and he was the first guy to record “Funny How Time Slips Away.”

Shameless plug alert! Speaking of SiriusXM Radio, did I mention that I have my own channel called Willie’s Roadhouse (XM channel 56 and Sirius channel 64), where I get to play all the music from my heroes from the past and present?

On Willie’s Roadhouse you can hear the greatest entertainers in country music, coming to you every week from Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, with people like Little Jimmy Dickens and Bill Anderson. Little Jimmy Dickens is ninety-one years old. He says, “When I drop something now, I bend over and look around to see if there’s anything else I can do while I’m down there!”

Me in the studio

One time me and Bill Anderson were flying from Nashville to San Antonio. We were talking about entertaining in Texas. Bill said, “Will, I just can’t seem to do that well down here in Texas.” I said, “Well, hell, Bill, they drink beer louder than you sing!”

Jeannie Seely and Connie Smith are great singers and good friends of mine. I’m glad to have them singing on the Roadhouse. One of the main purposes for me having my channel was to be able to help touring artists like Amber Digby, Tony Booth, Johnny Bush, Ray Price, Jamey Johnson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Jody Nix, Tommy Alverson, Asleep at the Wheel, Lukas Nelson, Paula Nelson, Amy Nelson (I should have called it the Nepotism Channel), and Leona Williams.

I get to fine-tune the channel with my producer Jeremy Tepper, and Dallas Wayne does a great job spinning the country hits from Austin. It’s a work in progress, and hopefully will stay that way.

M
Y
NEW
ALBUM
H
EROES
IS
N
O
. 15
ON
THE
T
OP
100
ALBUMS
,
AND
No. 4 on the country charts in the U.S.! Buddy Cannon and I picked the tunes and, as I said, brought in some great pickers from Nashville to my studio in Austin, where we joined Lukas and Micah and cut the tracks. We also cut some tracks in L.A. with Kris Kristofferson, Lukas, and Micah. I love working with Buddy because he knows all the best pickers to call. He’s also a great writer and one of the best producers ever. He’s not a bad guitar player and singer either.

Micah, Buddy Cannon, Kris Kristofferson,
me, and Butch Carr

My friend Snoop Dogg was gracious enough to sing with me on my new album too. We teamed up on “Roll Me Up” with Kris, Micah, Jamey, and Lukas. Thanks, Snoop!

I had the help of a lot of my heroes on
Heroes
: Sheryl Crow (one of my favorite singers), Ray Price, and Merle Haggard, another great singer and writer. Merle has written some of the best songs ever, like “Today I Started Loving You Again,” “Ramblin’ Fever,” “Mama Tried,” “Silver Wings,” and so many more. We still pick together any time we can.

Merle, Ray Price, and I did a CD called
The Last of the Breed.
We all sang on the Cindy Walker CD too. I hope we can do more again soon.

FUNNY HOW TIME SLIPS AWAY

Well, hello there

My, it’s been a long, long time

How am I doing?

Oh, I guess that I’m doing fine

It’s been so long now,

But it seems now, that it was only yesterday

Gee, ain’t it funny, how time slips away.

How’s your new love?

I hope that he’s doin’ fine

I heard you told him,

That you’d love him till the end of time

Now, that’s the same thing that you told me

Seems like just the other day

Gee, ain’t it funny, how time slips away.

I gotta go now

I guess I’ll see you around

Don’t know when though

Never know, when I’ll be back in town

But remember, what I tell you

In time you’re gonna pay

And it’s surprising, how time slips away . . .

YESTERDAY’S WINE

Miracles appear

In the strangest of places

Fancy meeting you here

The last time I saw you

Was just out of Houston

Sit down let me buy you a beer

Your presence is welcome

With me and my friend here

This is a hangout of mine

We come here quite often

And listen to music

Partaking of yesterday’s wine

Yesterday’s wine

I’m yesterday’s wine

Aging with time

Like yesterday’s wine

Yesterday’s wine

We’re yesterday’s wine

Aging with time

Like yesterday’s wine

You give the appearance

Of one widely traveled

I’ll bet you’ve seen

Things in your time

So sit down beside me

And tell me your story

If you think

You’ll like yesterday’s wine

Yesterday’s wine

We’re yesterday’s wine

Aging with time

Like yesterday’s wine

Yesterday’s wine

We’re yesterday’s wine

Aging with time

Like yesterday’s wine

I GOTTA GET DRUNK

Well, I gotta get drunk and I sure do dread it

Cuz I know just what I’m gonna do

I’ll start to spend my money callin’ everybody honey

And I’ll wind up singin’ the blues

I’ll spend my whole paycheck on some old wreck

And brother I can name you a few

Well, I gotta get drunk and I sure do dread it

Cuz I know just what I’m gonna do

Well, I gotta get drunk, I can’t stay sober

There’s a lot of good people in town

Who like to see me holler, see me spend my dollar

And I wouldn’t dream of lettin’ ’em down

There’s a lot of doctors that tell me

That I’d better start slowin’ it down

But there’s more old drunks than there are old doctors

So I guess we’d better have another round

A
PRIL
15, 1:30
P
.
M
.

I am playing Wii golf on the bus with David, and there is a storm coming. I’m glad the show is inside tonight. It’s one thirty
P
.
M
.
, and so far so good, but it looks like we are still in the path of the bad weather. It’s amazing the number of bad storms we are having. We are definitely in a changing world. I’ve said before that the Earth is a living entity, and it takes care of itself. The Bible says, “If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out.” It is a huge tiger with a thorn in its paw. Earth will take out the thorn and everything else in its way. Earth is always healing itself, mainly because we are always harming it in some way. The water and air on Earth are being adversely affected by our bad habits. We are fucking up our home . . . damn, are we dumb.

2:25
P
.
M
.

Looking out the window of the bus, David says we have fifteen minutes before the storm hits. The weather is still bad. There have been one hundred tornadoes this week, and five people so far didn’t make it to the next day. One tornado destroyed a town and one hundred people have been displaced, from Texas to Wisconsin. Otha Lee Boyd and I were in the middle of a tornado one time. It killed one hundred sixty people. I have the utmost respect for tornadoes. If I were a music fan in this area, and I asked myself where I wanted to be on a night like this, my answer would be home. I wouldn’t blame them at all if that’s what they decided. I think the worst is over, though. I hope so. But we are all in this sinking ship together.

Ahoy, matey!

Whew, no problem, we dodged another bullet! Thank you very much, weatherman or weatherwoman, whichever. You who do weather.

Bill Cosby is on TV now. He is a great guy and a great friend. One time he asked, “What do you need?” when I needed millions, and I knew he was serious. Thanks, Bill!

I haven’t quite figured out this walking-on-water stuff. I had a great day of golf today with all the gang. We didn’t play that well, but we had fun and got some fresh air. I needed to get off the bus for a while.

I
WOKE
UP
ONE
NIGHT
ABOUT
TWO
IN
THE
MORNING
,
IN
R
IDGETOP
, Tennessee. I was reading in the paper where some guy killed his girlfriend, so I wrote:

I JUST CAN’T LET YOU
SAY GOODBYE

I had not planned on seeing you

I was afraid of what I’d do

But pride is strong and here am I

And I just can’t let you say goodbye

Please have no fear you’re in no harm

As long as you’re here in my arms

But you can’t leave so please don’t try

I just can’t let you say goodbye

What force behind your evil mind

Can make your lips speak so unkind

To one who loves as much as I

I just can’t let you say goodbye

The flesh around your throat is pale

Indented by my fingernails

Please don’t scream and please don’t cry

I just can’t let you say goodbye

Your voice is still it speaks no more

You’ll never hurt me anymore