Details from Audible:
Energy Follows Thought
The Stories Behind My Songs
By
Narrated by
For the first time ever, and to help celebrate his 90th birthday in 2023, American icon Willie Nelson provides the stories behind the lyrics of 160 of his favorite songs.
From his earliest work in the 1950s to today, Willie looks back at the songs that have defined his career, from his days of earning $50 each to his biggest hits, from his less well-known songs (but incredibly meaningful to him) to his concept albums. Along the way, he also shares the stories of his guitar Trigger, his family and “family,” as well as the artists he collaborated with, including Patsy Cline, Waylon Jennings, Ray Charles, Merle Haggard, Ray Price, Dolly Parton, and many others.
Willie is disarmingly honest—what do you have to lose when you’re about to turn 90? —meditating on the nature of songwriting and finding his voice, and the themes he’s explored his whole life—relationships, infidelity, love, loss, friendship, life on the road, and particularly poignant at this juncture of his life: mortality.
Revealing, funny, whimsical, and wise, this book is an enduring tribute to Willie Nelson’s legacy.©2023 Willie Nelson (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers
Initial Thoughts:
Life can be unusual when you really think about it, in February I decided, and I don’t recall why, to start listening to a book by Willie Nelson called “The Tao of Willie“. I loved “Tao of Willie” so much that I decided immediately afterwards to listen to another book by him, read by Ethan Hawke, which was this. I’m not much of a fan of Willie’s music, though I will give some of it a try after this book, but I’m a huge fan of his beliefs, attitudes, philosophy and generally him as a person. I didn’t realize how similar I am to him until I read his first book.
Main Points:
As before I was disappointed, at first, when I realized Willie would only be doing the introduction to this book (the same deal with the last book). It turns out that, and I shouldn’t have been surprised, that Ethan Hawke is an excellent voice actor and he does a great job here. He puts so much emotion and effort into the reading that it made the book even better.
The book is very interesting, Willie has hundreds of songs so he had to pick out ones he wanted to talk about and arranged them by album and/or theme. For example one chapter is about songs which are about lonely buildings, like abandoned houses. He of course discussed his biggest hits like “Always on my mind”, “On the Road Again” and “Angel flying too close to the ground”. You get some great insight on what was going in his life when he wrote these songs and what he thinks they’re about but ultimately Willie believes that the song is best as whatever you think it means. He has great stories like when a fan came up to him and said he loved a song and had for many years, except the song came out less than 20 years ago! Willie, ever the gentleman, doesn’t correct the man because he agreed it sounds like an old song and why hurt someone’s feelings for no good reason?
Only in a Willie Nelson book can you hear about how he started smoking pot with Snoop Dog and Snoop had to tap out, no one smokes pot like Willie! While there are lots of light hearted moments there is also a lot of introspection and some dark and serious parts. Willie was almost 90 when he wrote this and I agree anyone who lives that long has lost a lot of people, remembering them and thinking about death is only natural.
I was hoping for some jokes, like in Tao, but it’s not that kind of book. It’s the kind of book to really make you think about life, the passing of time, what’s important, what makes you happy and the world we live in. I loved when Willie talks about social media, he says he has no interest in it, why do we even need it? He’s right of course, like lots of things in our modern world it’s just a distraction and a time waster, you could always be doing something better.
At the end he talks about the title, how you should be careful what you wish for, because it just might happen. I tend to agree, somehow in my life some of things I’ve thought and visualized enough do happen, thought not always exactly in the time or way you thought it would.
Final Thoughts:
I’ve already started listening to my next Willie Nelson book, I’m quite obsessed with him for the moment but he’s got a lot of wisdom to share, so bring it on! I loved this book, maybe not quite as much as Tao but I was sorry to see it end. I give it a very solid 8.5 out of 10 and would highly recommend it. Some coarse language so not for kids, ages 12+. As before I’ll say this, if somehow Willie reads this (and that’s some real wishful thinking) I just want to say thank you for all of the music, all the wonderful writing and for just being you, you’re a gem of a human being and I wish there were more people in the world like you.