Willie Nelson is the subject of a new profile in The New Yorker today. Writer Alex Abramovich followed Nelson, 92, on tour this year, to get a window into this final phase of his legendary life. There’s a lot of noteworthy info in the story. For instance, COVID-19 made Nelson so sick he wanted to die, and his wife, Annie, offered to do the need if he wanted. Abramovich includes comments from artists who played this year’s touring Outlaw Music Festival, including Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, who admires Nelson’s vision of America as “a big tent” and his aim at corporations rather than people. Texas politician Beto O’Rourke, for whom Nelson has campaigned, calls Nelson “the best of Texas: you can be a freak, a weirdo, a cowboy, a rancher, a cello player, whatever.”
Also on the Outlaw Music Festival lineup this year was fellow legend Bob Dylan, 84, who offered a written statement about Nelson for the article. It’s tucked away right at the end of the piece, as it should be, because it makes for quite the finale. Here’s what it said:
It’s hard to talk about Willie without saying something stupid or irrelevant, he is so much of everything. How can you make sense of him? How would you define the indefinable or the unfathomable? What is there to say? Ancient Viking Soul? Master Builder of the Impossible? Patron poet of people who never quite fit in and don’t much care to? Moonshine Philosopher? Tumbleweed singer with a PhD? Red Bandana troubadour, braids like twin ropes lassoing eternity? What do you say about a guy who plays an old, battered guitar that he treats like it’s the last loyal dog in the universe? Cowboy apparition, writes songs with holes that you can crawl through to escape from something. Voice like a warm porchlight left on for wanderers who kissed goodbye too soon or stayed too long. I guess you can say all that. But it really doesn’t tell you a lot or explain anything about Willie. Personally speaking I’ve always known him to be kind, generous, tolerant and understanding of human feebleness, a benefactor, a father and a friend. He’s like the invisible air. He’s high and low. He’s in harmony with nature. And that’s what makes him Willie.
Anyone who gets Dylan to open up like that has done a great service, so kudos to Alex Abramovich and eternal gratitude to Willie Nelson.
