Billy Joe Shaver and Willie Nelson could be considered two of country music’s most prolific outlaws. Both are wonderfully gifted songwriters whose songs have touched the hearts and souls of the many fans who have heard them.
Billy Joe Shaver and Willie Nelson could be considered two of country music’s most prolific outlaws. Both are wonderfully gifted songwriters whose songs have touched the hearts and souls of the many fans who have heard them.
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Not surprisingly, both are frequent visitors to the Americana charts. They embody the format in that their music can rarely be formulated other than to say that the songs they write are just about as honest a feeling as you will find anywhere.
It’s interesting to note that the careers of the two have paralleled in ways other than their music. At different times in their lives, Billy Joe and Willie both lived in Nashville, seeking to make a living in that town’s music community. For different reasons, both decided to leave the Tennessee city for their home state of Texas to follow their own individual paths to musical success.
Billy Joe’s songs have been recorded by everyone from Willie to Waylon Jennings, Johnny Rodriguez, John Anderson and Bobby Bare. Who can forget the lyrics to great songs like “Ride Me Down Easy,” “Just Because You Asked Me To,” “Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me” and “Old Chunk of Coal.”
Nelson has penned many a standard, among them “Crazy,” “Family Bible,” “Hello Walls,” “Red Headed Stranger,” “Night Life” and “I Never Cared For You.” While others have certainly taken his songs to the top of the charts, he has had his share of hits from his own pen as well.
While Nashville is filled with writers who seek to co-write with each other, and do it very well most of the time, these two renegades who moved back to Texas to follow their individual dreams don’t often sit in the same room with a fellow writer and come up with a song. You would think that because they are such admirers of each other’s music and creativity, the two of them would have sat down and tried to write a song together at least once.
“No it’s never happened,” Willie says. “We hang out together, we pick together, but we never write together. We even sing each other’s songs. But neither one of us is much of a co-writer so we’ve never tried to write together.”
“I was encouraged to continue writing by Willie Nelson way back in the early ‘60s,” Billy Joe says. “I remember he wrote me a little thing on the back of a match box that meant the world to me. He wasn’t popular back then and I was fairly young. I’d go around and listen to him every chance I got. I just loved his words.
“I don’t write much with anybody, I don’t think he does either,” Billy Joe continues. He’s pulled over on the side of one of those Texas highways that can stretch out for miles and miles, taking the time to talk about his songwriting. “Every once in a while you’ll see somebody’s name on one of my songs, but not often. I don’t really know how you write a part of a song. I’ve never seen half a poem, have you?”
Billy Joe pauses for a moment in thought, then adds, “Not that I wouldn’t be honored to write a song with Willie. He’d probably write the whole thing and give me half! I have a hard time dancing with a woman without stepping on her feet, much less writing a song with someone!”
Inspired by Jimmie Rodgers and Roy Acuff as a child, and also by the black singers who lived across the railroad tracks in his hometown of Waco, Texas, Shaver says he remembers singing when he was about six or seven. “I’d sing what I remembered of a song and the rest of it I just made up. I was pretty much a gifted little kid. My grandma raised me and I just had this gift to be able to write songs.”
Willie says the first song he ever wrote was really a poem. He was about five years old and can’t remember why he wrote it. At the time he just thought everyone wrote poems: “I really have no idea where the desire to write songs came from,” Willie says. “It was just something that I wanted to do. I loved to play the guitar, I loved the music, and I always thought that I could write songs. I wrote about things I couldn’t have known anything about. What do you know about at five years of age?”
Harlan Howard was once quoted as saying that after you’ve written songs for many years, and you have earned a comfortable living for yourself, the fire is no longer there to write every day. Willie concurs in part, but says he does continue to write as inspiration moves him.
“I just write when it happens,” Willie explains. “If I really want to write, I rent a car and just take off in either direction. I write best by myself.”
Billy Joe also writes as the spirit moves him. “I just write when it hits me. I just think everybody ought to write. It’s the cheapest psychiatrist there is. If you just put it down on paper, you dig down in yourself and find things. One thing we all have in common is we are all different, and if you’ll just stay true to yourself, and be yourself, you’ll be different and you won’t have to worry about originality.
“Sometimes I’ll get inspired by wonderful things happening. I used to be a slave to it when I first started, my well was so full. I’ve kind of mastered it now, so I keep it like a hobby instead of something to make money at, and I believe the songs remain good quality stuff for that reason.”
