Matt Berninger on "All of Me"
One by Willie
John Spong
4.6 • 898 Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2026
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Matt Berninger, lead singer and lyricist of beloved Brooklyn rock band The National, talks about Willie’s 1978 cover of “All of Me.” It was the third single off his dad’s favorite Willie record, Stardust, an album Matt loves so much that, when he went to record his first solo album, Serpentine Prison, he enlisted Stardust producer Booker T. Jones to produce, and Willie’s harmonica player, Mickey Raphael, to play harp. We’ll get into all that, plus the pre-Willie history of “All of Me,” the decidedly unorthodox sessions in which Willie and Booker recorded it, and the healing power of music…with brief cameos by Roberta Flack, Billie Holiday, and Lester Young, and a full-on co-star role for Mickey, who sat in on the interview and provided his own detailed memories of creating Stardust.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | One by Willie is brought to you by Waterburger. |
| 0:03.0 | Willie's been doing things his way for over 70 years, |
| 0:06.0 | and Waterburger's been doing the same. |
| 0:09.0 | Fresh beef, made to order, no shortcuts. |
| 0:12.0 | Some things are just worth doing right. |
| 0:15.0 | Find yours at waterburger.com. |
| 0:22.5 | Hey there, I'm John Spong, and this is One by Willie, a podcast in which I talk each week |
| 0:28.2 | to one notable Willie Nelson fan about one Willie song that they really love. |
| 0:33.2 | This week, we get with Matt Boninger, the lead singer and lyricist, the beloved Brooklyn rock band The National, |
| 0:39.4 | to talk about all of me off of what is probably the wider world's favorite Willie record, |
| 0:44.8 | 1978 Star Dust. |
| 0:46.9 | It's a song that automatically takes Matt back to the Cincinnati suburb he grew up in, |
| 0:51.5 | complete with his dad's unfortunate attempt to whistle along. |
| 0:55.6 | But it's also an album with a warm spare sound that Matt loves so much that in 2020, |
| 1:01.3 | when he went to record his own first solo record, Serpentine Prison, he brought in Stardust |
| 1:06.2 | producer Booker T. Jones to produce, and Willie's harmonica player Mickey Raphael to play harp. |
| 1:12.2 | We'll get into all that, plus the pre-Willi history of all of me, the decidedly unorthodox sessions |
| 1:17.6 | in which Willie recorded it, and the humble, studying genius of Booker T. Jones, with brief |
| 1:23.4 | cameos by Roberta Flackenberry Manilow, a Meteor Camio by tenor saxophone great Lester Young, |
| 1:30.4 | and a full-on co-starring role from Mickey Raphael, who sat in on the interview and added his own |
| 1:36.3 | detailed memories of the recording of all of me and Stardust. So let's do it. |
| 1:43.3 | Hey, it's art. Oh, are your goodbye left me with eyes to cry |
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