Waylon Jennings – Tall Tales, Tiny Towns, And Texans
Billy Joe: You know what? I can’t believe I did that, ’cause if I’d’a known, it scares me to death. Everybody in town was givin’ me such an honor, to be in the position I was in, and I just got out there and I was raisin’ hell about it. (laughs)
Waylon: I was wrong, ’cause I had not asked him, first. Because you know what? They’re like your little babies, when you write songs. And to this day … the other day somebody sent me a new demo with a song of mine, it took me a couple of times listening to it before I didn’t want to go over and whup his butt. So I understand. I couldn’t show him what I was going to do ’cause of the laryngitis. I said, “When I get through with it, if you listen to it and you don’t like it, I’ll do it the other way.” That’s where all that came down.
Billy Joe: I liked it, though. I liked it. I acted like I didn’t, but I liked it better that way. But I couldn’t do it that way. I didn’t know how to do that, back then.
Waylon: Actually, the way that happened is, we’d been doing it so long the other way and it wasn’t coming together, and I tell you who give me the idea. What was the guitar player on there? Randy Scruggs.
Billy Joe: Randy Scruggs, yeah.
Waylon: Randy got to doing it t’other way, and he stopped and started just doodling.
Billy Joe: Yeah.
Waylon: And I thought, hmm. Maybe that’s what I need to do. Because I was losing it on the second half.
Billy Joe: Oh it made it, it made the song, yeah.
Waylon: For me, yeah.
Billy Joe: I’ve gotta admit one thing, too. On “Ain’t No God in Mexico”, there was some stuff — you were real high, man — and you wrote some of that and I didn’t give it to you.
Waylon: I don’t remember that. (chuckles) OK, we’re even.
Billy Joe: Well, that’s all right, ain’t never been a hit, so what the hell was the difference? (laughs)
Waylon: (sings) “Me and Louise Higenbothem.” That was great.
Billy Joe: You know where I came up with that?
Waylon: No, that’s what knocked me out. ‘Cause I knew a girl named Higenbothem, they were neighbors of mine. They had the Higenbothem Lumber Company.
Billy Joe: Oh, yeah? Her father was a policeman of some sort.
Waylon: (disappointed) Uhhh. Oh, was he?
ND: Which would have been why her name stuck in your mind?
Billy Joe: Yeah, yeah. Well.
Waylon: Mighta been.
Billy Joe: Might have been.
Waylon: We get along good.
Billy Joe: Yeah, we wrote one song Elvis recorded.
Waylon: In the dark.
Billy Joe: Yeah, it was in the dark. In about five minutes. “Just Because You Asked Me To”.
Waylon: Me and him, you know, the reason I treat him so polite is because we’re the same kind. And if I do something he don’t like, he’ll come get me, get mad as hell at me, and I’m the same way with him. Ah, but that’s the way it’s supposed to be, anyway.
Billy Joe: That’s the way it oughta be. (Stands up to shake hands.) Love ya.
Waylon: Love ya, too.
ND: Have you two toured together?
Waylon: Oh, yeah. Australia, you know…
Billy Joe: (laughs) And you know how Waylon is about airplanes? There was that little prop job come up ‘side the building, and Waylon said, “Oh, no, we’re not going on that,” and they shuttled us over to the big plane. Of course, he was upset already. We’re going up the stairs, and I’m right behind him, and I started singing (sings) “Chantilly Lace…” (laughs) And he starts, “I’m going to kill you, I’m going to kill you.”
Waylon: (laughing) You did that. The tour before — actually, the tour ran through New Zealand — and we was goin’ to fly on down to Christchurch, there in New Zealand.
Billy Joe: I didn’t go on that deal, no.