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 song that

they really love. And on this episode, we talk to Wesley Schultz from the Luminers. He's the band's

lead singer and co-writer of all the songs, along with his co-founder Jeremiah Freights.

And he's going to discuss Willie's Christmas classic Pretty Paper.

It's one of those songs that's become so much a part of the holiday season that a lot of listeners don't even know Willie wrote it.

And for Wesley, it brings to mind an Elvis impersonator who lived down the street from his

childhood home in New Jersey.

It also brings up an unexpected apples to apples comparison between Willie and Bruce Springsteen

and how absolutely rare it is to find a Christmas song you want to listen to all year long. Let's do it.

Pretty paper. Prettyons of blue.

Wrap your presents to your darling from you.

So what do you hear in Pretty Paper that's so cool to you?

Well, I think a lot of the Christmas songs that I hear, now that I'm an adult, at least, I heard this when I was a really little impressionable kid.

I remember there was a street that had this, it's a weird story, but it had this Elvis

impersonator who decorated his house every year like a maniac

for Christmas so everybody would drive past this guy's house and then other houses started

following suit but he always had the most lights and we'd always be playing pretty paper on loop

the album as a kid and so when i it, the lyrics sort of washed over me.

And it was more about the feeling of that album.

And that song really jumped out at me.

And then as I got older and I started listening to the lyrics, a lot of Christmas

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