Introducing: One by Willie - Conor Oberst on "Undo the Right"

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen

PRX

Arts

4.6 • 675 Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On One by Willie, Texas Monthly’s John Spong hosts intimate conversations with a range of prominent guests about the Willie Nelson songs that mean the most to them. But this series isn’t just about the songs. It’s about what music really means to us—the ways it can change us, take care of us, and connect us all.

Brilliant indie rock-pop-and-folk singer-songwriter Conor Oberst, of Bright Eyes and Monsters of Folk fame, talks about one of Willie’s famous Pamper Demos, “Undo the Right.” It was one of Willie’s earliest efforts for the Pamper Publishing Company, a co-write with Hank Cochran, the legendary songwriter who first championed him when he moved to Nashville. That gets Conor thinking about the craft of songwriting, about how sneaking contradictory or counterintuitive ideas into songs helps them to better reflect what he calls the "big mess” of real life, and how nobody writes a bridge like Willie does…before we listen to another old Willie song, “The Storm Has Just Begun,” which was the B-side to his first single in 1959—and that Willie wrote when he was just twelve years old.

Season 6 of One by Willie is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From PRX
0:02.0	Hey there, I'm John Spong, and this is One by Willie, a podcast in which I talk each week to one notable Willie Nelson fan about one Willie song that they really love.
0:20.0	This week, we wrap up season six of the show with an artist who's one of my very favorite singer-songwriters.
0:26.6	From the band's Bright Eyes and Monsters of Folk, indie rock, pop and folk icon Connor Oberst,
0:32.6	is going to talk about yet another of Willie's famous Pamper demos, Undo the Right.
0:38.2	It was one of Willie's earliest efforts for the Pampor Publishing Company,
0:41.6	a co-write with Hank Cochran, the legendary songwriter who first championed him when he moved to Nashville,
0:47.0	and he gets Connor thinking about the craft of songwriting,
0:50.1	about how sneaking contradictory or counterintuitive ideas into songs
0:53.9	helps them to better
0:55.0	reflect what he calls the big mess of real life, and then he talks about how nobody writes a bridge
1:00.6	like Willie does. Oh, and then also, given Connor's own early history as a songwriter,
1:06.4	hawking cassettes of his songs around Omaha when he was just 13. About halfway through the conversation,
1:12.8	I show him a PDF of a songbook of original compositions that Willie created when he was just 12.
1:19.5	And then we listened to a record Willie cut on one of those songs, The Storm Has Just Begone,
1:24.3	which was the B-side to his very first single back in 1959.
1:28.9	This is a pretty cool moment. So let's do it.
1:33.3	So please help me to face the new tomorrow's
1:41.8	if you can't undo the wrong, undo the right.
1:50.3	That's where we start with your song.
1:53.3	What's so cool about the Willie Nelson song, Undo the Right?
1:57.6	Well, to me, it kind of has that universal, uh, feeling that we all have had,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 11 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from PRX, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of PRX and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.