Texas Monthly.

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's song that they really love.

This week, we talked to singer-songwriter Alejandro Rose Garcia, aka Shaky Graves,

about what may be the single biggest hit of Willie's career, at least here in the U.S., always on my mind.

It's a song so closely associated with Willie that a lot of fans forget.

It was first a big hit for Elvis Presley, and Alejandro describes how unlikely it is that anyone

could steal a song from Elvis. From there, he'll get into the reasons why Willie's versions

became the definitive one. He'll explain how the meaning of a familiar song can change completely when you hear it in a new context.

And then he'll tell us about that time Willie asked him

to sign his guitar.

Let's do it.

Hey, it's art.

Maybe I didn't love you quite as often as I could have

Where we always start is what is so cool about always on my mind?

Why did you want to talk about always on my mind?

Well, I mean, it's kind of the, you know, the perfect encapsulating sad country song

that can apply to someone who's lived, you know, 16 years or 70 years.

It's not a, you know, it's not a, like, deeply encoded song. It took three people, something

like four years to write, which I love going back into the depth of it.

This is one that I kind of struggled with too because Willie didn't write it.

But I love, you know, the trajectory of old country songs like that where it's like it had its Elvis Presley life.

I think the Pet Shop boys did like an electronic version of it.

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