Waylon Jennings – Tall Tales, Tiny Towns, And Texans
Billy Joe: What’s that?
Waylon: Well, Billy Joe had written one of the greatest songs I’ve ever heard in my life, called “Oklahoma Wind”. Well, there’s a line in there, about this Indian guy, and it says, “He lay dying in a woman’s wing.” And I thought, man, a woman holding this man while he’s dying. What a great deal. And so, I told Billy Joe, I said, “My favorite lines in the world is ‘The Oklahoma Kid lay dying/In the woman’s wing.’ ” And he says, “Yeah, it is good.” But he says, “But you know, we went over to see him, and that place was so damn filled up and had so many people in it, they had to put him over in this woman’s wing in the hospital.” (Slaps his forehead to general laughter.) I said, “I hate you!”
Billy Joe: Waylon did “Old Five and Dimers”, and he said, “Yeah, Billy, I feel bad about owning this Cadillac.” I said, “Well Waylon, give it to me!” (laughter) That cleared it up real good. (laughs)
Waylon: That old thang. That old lead-lookin’ thang.
Billy Joe: Remember that old Cadillac you had?
Waylon: The orange one?
Billy Joe: Yeah, that orange lookin’ thing.
Waylon: Yeah, I painted all of it black. Including the license plates. I’ve still got that.
Billy Joe: Do you really?
Waylon: Yeah, in the warehouse. I need to get it out. That’s the best car I ever had. I used to jump curbs…
Billy Joe: I know, I’ve seen you. Whiskey bumps all over it.
Waylon: (snorts) Ha! Whiskey bumps?
Billy Joe: All over the damn thing.
Waylon: Now, you may hear that again, but you won’t get no credit.
Billy Joe: That’d be all right. You can get me back for…
Waylon: Whiskey bumps, I love that.
Billy Joe: Oh, go right ahead. Naw, I done stole a buncha shit from him he don’t know about.
ND: Do you think you changed Nashville in the end, or has it gone back to exactly the way it was before?
Waylon: It’s almost back to the same. It is for people who let it be. One thing about it now, you can get all the freedom that you demand. But these new guys, I feel sorry for ’em, because they’re even told what hat to wear. One of them guys, a pretty tough kid — looked like he might be a little scrapper — I said, “Where’d you get that goddamn hat?” He said, “Well, my manager and the record company made me get this one.” I said, “They made you do that?” I said, “I don’t think I’d let ’em do that.”
Billy Joe: I tell you, whoever’s selling them hats is making a killing.
Waylon: Yeah, ain’t that the truth.
ND: Is country music now just going to be another form of pop music, or is this just a phase?
Waylon: You can’t kill something that’s right, that’s good. You know what I mean? But I have said it, and I’ll say it again, I don’t want to be remembered from this era. The way they choose things now, is they go up there and say, “Can you dance to it?” And then they say, “Can you make a video about it?” And down here about third place they say, “Is it a good song?” The song always made what we did. And we knew. I wrote things that people didn’t understand ’til I did it. But now, they’ll record anything. And they’re told what to do. And some things, they get a good hook line. Every song he ever wrote, and I tried to have it in every one I wrote, had the title and the melody and equally important was that hook line.
Billy Joe: Throw-away line. We called it the throw-away line.
Waylon: Yup, yeah.
Billy Joe: “Too much ain’t enough” or something like that. We used to actually call it a throw-away line.
Waylon: (laughing) I used that twice in my new album.
Billy Joe: Did you?
Waylon: I said, “Billy goin’ kill me.”
Billy Joe: You know, I thought I heard something familiar there.
Waylon: Oh, yeah. Both times. And, hey, I didn’t realize I put ’em both in that damn thing.
Billy Joe: I went to sleep on it a couple times, but I’m not real sure…(laughs) I’m just kidding you.
Waylon: Life ain’t easy around him.
Billy Joe: I know it ain’t. It sure ain’t.