Introducing: One By Willie

Sound Opinions

Society & Culture, Music, Arts

4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Each week, music writer John Spong talks to one notable Willie Nelson fan about one Willie song that they love, leading to highly personal looks at the life, art, and legend of a genuine American folk hero. Listen here.

New Yorker music critic Amanda Petrusich looks at the other big hit off Willie and Merle Haggard’s classic 1983 Pancho & Lefty album, “Reasons to Quit.” It’s a classic Haggard drinking song, but a little more pensive than most, and Amanda reframes it—and really, all of Pancho & Lefty—as an example of what she calls the Outlaw’s Conundrum, i.e. what’s an old rebel to do when the time comes to settle down? Then we get into the all-star band that backed Willie and Merle on the record and, in a particularly insightful interlude, the specific ways sad songs can help people when life feels like too much to bear.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Today we're doing a feed swap with another great podcast we think you'll enjoy.
0:05.2	One by Willie examines the life and art of one of the most important figures in American musical history.
0:11.5	No kidding.
0:12.6	Willie Nelson.
0:13.9	Each episode, music writer John Spong talks with one notable Willie fan about one Willie song they love,
0:21.5	then runs down the kinds of rabbit holes that open up whenever the subject is Willie Nelson.
0:27.3	By notable, we mean everybody from Casey Musgraves and Lyle Lovett
0:31.8	to Booker T. Jones and Daniel Lannois to Whoopi Goldberg,
0:37.1	Ethan Hawke, and Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright,
0:41.7	with the conversations providing highly personal takes on the way Willie and his songs have shaped
0:46.8	their lives. Today we share an episode from February with brilliant New Yorker music critic Amanda
0:53.0	Petrusich, who focuses on Willie and Merle
0:55.6	Haggert's 1983 duet, Reasons to Quit. Willie nerds know that song as the other hit
1:01.8	off the pair's landmark poncho and lefty album, which Amanda reframes as a concept album,
1:08.1	examining what she calls the outlaws conundrum, i.e. what's an old renegade to do
1:13.9	when the time comes to take it easy, before going deep on why she believes sad songs can help us
1:19.3	when life seems too much to bear. One by Willie will be returning with new episodes later this
1:25.7	summer. But in the meantime, find it wherever you do your
1:29.1	podcast listening. Sound Opinions is supported by Goose Island Beer Company. Since 1988,
1:36.5	Goose Island's been brewing beers in and inspired by Chicago. They got 312 weed ale,
1:43.6	hazy beer hug, and many more one-off beers at the Fulton
1:47.7	Street tap room or their new salt shed pub. The perfect place to go before a show at the
	...

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