Texas Monthly.

Hey there, I'm John Spong with Texas Monthly Magazine, welcoming you to season two of 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.

On this episode, one of the finest singer-songwriters alive, Steve Earle, talks about Willie's

1973 recording of local memory.

That song was included, of course, on Willie's first masterpiece, Shotgun Willie, and Steve

says that hearing it on that record was the first time he realized that a country lyric could

read like literature. From there, we'll get into the very real tension between hippies and rednecks

when Willie played outside Austin in the early 70s, as well as the irascible charm of Willie's longtime bassist B. Spears

and the wonderfully off-color nickname that Willie has for Steve. Oh, but note that this is

Steve Earl we are talking to, so Willie's nickname for him will not be the only F-bomb to drop on this show.

Listener discretion is advised. Let's do it.

The lights go out each evening at 11,

and up and down our block there's not a sound.

I close my eyes in search for peaceful slumber,

and just then the local memory comes around.

The place to start where we always start is,

what's so cool about local memory?

Wow.

Well, in the first place, my introduction to it is,

to put it in context, is Shotgun Willie.

And I never, there's never any point growing up where I grew up that I didn't know who

...