I'm John Spong, and this is One by Willie.

In October 1992, just two years after becoming a global pop superstar with her hit song

Nothing compares to you, Irish singer-songwriter Shunate O'Connor returned to ubiquity

in a far different light when she ripped up a photo of the Pope following a performance on Saturday

Night Live. She was protesting the sexual

abuse of children in the Catholic Church, but the world was decades away from facing that tragedy.

The backlash was intense. Two weeks later, at an all-star tribute to Bob Dylan at Madison Square

Garden, she was viciously booed when she took the stage. The show's MC, Chris Christofferson,

tried briefly to console her, but the shouting kept on, until she waved off her band and launched

into a furious a cappella version of the song she'd sang on SNL, Bob Marley's War.

Willie Nelson was on the bill that night, too, and after seeing the way O'Connor was treated

and the way she stood her ground, he invited her to join him in the studio the next day. The song

they ended up cutting was a cover of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush's 1986 hit, Don't Give Up. Don't

Was was the producer that day, and the musical director at the Dillon show the night before

In this excerpt from his old one by Willie episode

He describes the impetus for that recording session

The reason he chose the song for Willie

And why Willie wanted to record it with Shunate O'Connor

We were in New York for that 30th anniversary Bob Dylan tribute of Madison Square Garden.

Neil Young called it Bob Fest.

So I went there and I played with Willie, Jim Keltner and myself.

And so we were there.

...