Rosanne Cash on "Night Life"
One by Willie
John Spong
4.6 • 898 Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2021
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Acclaimed singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash, a four-time Grammy winner and certified roots music royalty, examines “Night Life,” one of Willie’s first compositions to earn its way into the American musical canon. It’s a song that makes her nostalgic for the clean-cut, smooth-crooning Willie of the early ‘60s, but also brings up the effect of a Depression-era upbringing on artists like Willie and her dad, Johnny Cash. Oh, and she also breaks out her cell phone to play one of her favorite covers of “Night Life”—by none other than Aretha Franklin.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Texas Monthly. |
| 0:07.0 | Hey there, I'm John Spong with Texas Monthly magazine, 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. |
| 0:23.0 | This week, we talked to singer-songwriter and country star Roseanne Cash about one of the first |
| 0:28.0 | Willie compositions to earn its way into the American pop music canon, Nightlife. |
| 0:33.3 | Specifically, we'll look at Willie's original recording of the song that came out in 1959 on Tiny RX Records out of Houston, |
| 0:40.3 | which prompts Roseanne to reveal how partial she is to the clean-cut, smooth, crooning Willie of those early years. |
| 0:47.3 | She'll also describe the way that growing up with hard-scrabble depression-era childhoods affected artists like Willie and her dad, Johnny Cash. |
| 0:55.7 | But the real fun will come when we start playing different cover versions of Nightlife for each other over the phone. |
| 1:01.8 | If you've never heard Aretha Franklin's version of Nightlife, you are in for a treat. |
| 1:06.3 | So let's do it. |
| 1:08.5 | The nightlife |
| 1:11.7 | ain't a good life |
| 1:14.5 | but it's my life |
| 1:16.9 | I mean it sounds like the silliest question I would ever ask somebody |
| 1:20.7 | What's so cool about night life? |
| 1:24.3 | Well, it's kind of |
| 1:26.8 | It's a genius song in that it's so simple. |
| 1:32.3 | The idea is so simple. |
| 1:34.8 | And I believe he wrote it as he was walking home from playing in a bar. |
| 1:41.1 | Is that the right story? |
| 1:42.2 | Similar. |
| 1:43.5 | The legend is that he had a regular gig in Houston, |
... |
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