{"id":7380,"date":"2016-03-02T10:31:26","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T16:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/?page_id=7380"},"modified":"2016-03-02T10:31:26","modified_gmt":"2016-03-02T16:31:26","slug":"me-and-paul","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/music\/me-and-paul\/","title":{"rendered":"“Me and Paul”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Drew Scherger. 2 March 2016.<\/em><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3YTlHkXufBQ<\/p>\n

\u201cMe and Paul\u201d is a song performed by Willie Nelson and released on his album Yesterday\u2019s Wine<\/a><\/em> in 1971. The song was also later featured on the compilation album Wanted: The Outlaws<\/a><\/em> in 1976 as well as on several live albums. Willie wrote the song about the friendship between himself and his longtime drummer, Paul English. The song illustrates what his life was like on the road but also shows his frustrations with Nashville as well as mainstream American culture, which led him to eventually settle in Austin and embrace the Outlaw<\/a> and Hippie movements.<\/p>\n

Willie Nelson started his songwriting career at the age of 7 in his hometown of Abbott, Texas. As he grew up, he moved around the country, eventually settling down in Nashville as a successful songwriter. Some of his early hit writing credits include \u201cFamily Bible<\/a>,\u201d \u201cFunny How Time Slips Away,\u201d \u201cHello Walls,\u201d and \u201cCrazy<\/a>\u201d. His career as a performing artist, however, wasn\u2019t going as well in Nashville \"b2b86ab843ec2616844ca15dc6d42ac1239e0e9e\"<\/a>because many record executives thought that his voice that wouldn\u2019t sell and that his singing and writing was too jazz influenced. Willie Nelson was a longtime fan of jazz music stemming back to his childhood days in Texas in the 30\u2019s and 40\u2019s when artists such as Bob Wills<\/a> were blending country \u201chillbilly\u201d music with big band jazz to create \u201cwestern swing.\u201d Willie along with many other country musicians was also big fan of Belgian-French jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt<\/a> who played gypsy swing<\/a>. Willie even recorded an album with Merle Haggard in 2015, Django and Jimmie <\/em>that was a tribute to Django Reinhardt and country singer Jimmie Rodgers. Willie later remarked in an interview \u201cDjango is my all-time favorite guitar player\u2026When I first heard him, I realized I\u2019d really been influenced by his music for a long time. I\u2019d been into Bob Wills a lot, and in his songs I could hear Django\u2019s style\u201d (Lewis). This jazz influence can be seen in Willie\u2019s music through songs like \u201cCrazy\u201d in the chord structure or in \u201cMe and Paul\u201d through his singing lightly behind the beat and singing accented notes like the flat 7th<\/sup> of the chord in the line \u201cmy mind\u2019s still fairly sound.\u201d These vocal techniques create slight dissonance that wouldn\u2019t always be accepted by producers whose main goals are to sell records.<\/p>\n

Willie was frustrated with record executives not believing that his jazz influenced material would sell and these frustrations ultimately led him to move back to Texas and settle in Austin. In Austin, he was free to write the music that he wanted to without record companies pressuring him to make music that he wasn\u2019t passionate about just to sell records. With more creative control over his work in Texas, Willie released the albums Shotgun Willie <\/a><\/em>(1973), Red Headed Stranger<\/a> <\/em>(1975), and Wanted! The Outlaws <\/em>(1976), along with later more jazz oriented work such as Stardust <\/a><\/em>(1978), which cemented his career among the greats in country m\"maxresdefault\"<\/a>usic history. When Willie and other Texas born musicians such as Waylon Jennings led the exodus from Nashville in the 70\u2019s they were seen as rebelling from the mainstream country scene and became known as the \u201coutlaws.\u201d The term came from a Waylon Jennings album called Ladies Love Outlaws <\/a><\/em>(1972). They rebelled against the Nashville sound known for heavy production value instead often opting for more bare recordings (Red Headed Stranger<\/em>) and a respect for traditional country music. In his popular song \u201cAre You Sure Hank Done It This Way<\/a>,\u201d Waylon Jennings expressed his concern for where country music was going,<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody told me when I came to Nashville,<\/p>\n

Son you finally got it made.<\/p>\n

Old Hank made it here, we\u2019re all sure that you will<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t think Hank done it this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hank referred to in the song is Hank Williams<\/a>, a favorite of many country traditionalists, like Waylon Jennings who longed for the simpler, more authentic music of the old days.<\/p>\n

These outlaws were just as well known for their music as they were for their lifestyles and appearance. Willie and Waylon along with other outlaws such as Kris Kristofferson<\/a> grew out their hair in rebellion to the Nashville clean-cut image. Paul English, the Paul from \u201cMe and Paul,\u201d had a glass eye and dressed like the devil onstage (Saving Country Music). These artists were also famous for their rock and roll lifestyles. Willie was later given the nickname, \u201cShotgun Willie\u201d after an altercation with his daughter\u2019s husband. After hearing that Lana\u2019s husband Steve \"shotgunwillie\"<\/a>was beating her, Willie went over to their house and slapped Steve around. As he later recalled, \u201cI told him if he ever laid a hand on Lana again, I would come back and drown his ass.\u201d Steve later came back firing at Willie\u2019s house with a .22 rifle and Willie shot back with an M-1 rifle. Steve then kidnapped his and Lana\u2019s son and drove back to Willie\u2019s ranch where Willie shot out his tire with a shotgun (WillieNelson.com). Stories like this show that while the outlaw image was a character of sorts, a lot of these artists lived the part to some degree. This didn\u2019t go with the standards of the time for country music stars that were usually expected to act more conservatively than rock musicians.<\/p>\n

At the time that \u201cMe and Paul\u201d was release\"here-are-willie-nelsons-mug-shots-from-1974-and-2010\"<\/a>d, in 1971, this outlaw movement wouldn\u2019t take off for another four to five years. Willie wasn\u2019t doing as well in his career as he had been earlier with his songwriting success. He wasn\u2019t having as many songwriting hits, and many in the industry thought his vocal stylings were too strange to for him to become a successful performer. This is expressed in \u201cMe and Paul through lyrics like \u201cI thought Nashville was the roughest, but I know I said the same about them all.\u201d This line in the song also shows Willie\u2019s frustrations with not just Nashville but the culture throughout America that didn\u2019t accept \u201clonghairs\u201d like him, Waylon, and the others who lived a different lifestyle than what was seen as normal behavior at the time. \u201cEven Kris Kristofferson, a Brownsville born Rhodes scholar who followed the traditional path failed to fit in\u2026more to the point his hair was too long\u201d (Spong). Many of these artists were embracing the counterculture ideas of the 60’s and began seeking refuge among the hippie communities\u00a0of Austin.\u00a0Again, signs of Willie\u2019s feelings of alienation from the normal world and aligning with hippie values begin to show in \u201cMe and Paul\u201d, predating his move to Austin.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost busted in Laredo,<\/p>\n

But for reasons that I\u2019d rather not disclose,<\/p>\n

But if you\u2019re stayin\u2019 in a motel there and leave,<\/p>\n

Just don\u2019t leave nothin\u2019 in your clothes.<\/p>\n

And at the airport in Milwaukee, they refused to let us board the plane at all,<\/p>\n

They said we looked suspicious,<\/p>\n

But I believe they like to pick on me and Paul.\u201d<\/p>\n

The references to drugs are another sign that Willie and the “outlaws” were\u00a0moving on from the Nashville and mainstream American scene.\u00a0Waylon was well known to have a bad cocaine problem, which reportedly cost him $1,500 daily. Willie is probably equally known for his music as he is for his advocacy of marijuana legalization. It wasn\u2019t that Nashville artists weren\u2019t doing drugs –Roger Miller had a terrible amphetamine addiction– it was that they were expected to try and hide it from the public light. In \u201cMe and Paul,\u201d Willie references almost getting busted for drugs as well as getting so drunk that he doesn\u2019t even know if they played a show in Buffalo. Other musicians such as Waylon, Johnny Paycheck, and David Allan Coe also started covering topics that were covered earlier in the days of Hank Williams and rural folk musicians but were seen as taboo by some in the 60\u2019s country music industry leaders.<\/p>\n

The outlaw movement wasn\u2019t the only big change to occur to country music in the 70\u2019s when \u201cMe and Paul\u201d was released. Changes brought on by the Feminist Civil Rights Movements began to permeate the country music scene, usually known for its refusal to budge from traditional stances. This is reflected in the lyrics of \u201cMe and Paul\u201d when Willie talks about playing a package show in Buffalo with Kitty Wells and Charlie Pride. Country music fans from earlier times may have scoffed at the idea of a hippy, a black man, and a woman being three of the biggest country stars of the time. Charlie Pride<\/a> got his start playing clubs in Montana. He initially hid photographs from the press so that they wouldn\u2019t find out he was black and discriminate against him. However, it only took him his third single, \u201cJust Between You and Me,\u201d which reached Number 9 on the Country charts, for him to be nominated for a Grammy and achieve nationwide success. While Kitty Wells<\/a>, \u201cThe Queen of Country Music\u201d came onto the scene much earlier than Willie and Charlie Pride, she was another barrier breaker when she broke to the top of the country charts with \u201cIt Wasn\u2019t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,\u201d the first time a woman had ever done so. Willie Nelson continued to be on the side of civil rights throughout his career, later defending same-sex marriage, covering the song \u201cCowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AUSTIN,<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMe and Paul\u201d tells a lot about the career of Willie Nelson as well as what was going on in country music and the world in the early 70\u2019s. The song predates Willie\u2019s move from Tennessee to Austin but shows definitive signs of his future with the hippie movement as well as the outlaw country movement that would gain traction in the mid to late 70\u2019s. The other artists mentioned in the song show that country music and the world itself were changing. The effects of the civil rights and feminist movements began to show as it was increasingly accepted to have non-white or male country artists be extremely successful and popular.<\/p>\n

\n

Works Cited<\/p>\n

Nelson, Willie. “The Story Behind \u2018Shotgun Willie.” WillieNelson.com. N.p., 19 Oct. 2013.Web. 24 Feb. 2016. www.willienelson.com\/story\/shotgun-willie\/<\/p>\n

Spong, John. “That 70’s Show.” Texas Monthly. Texas Monthly, Apr. 2012. Web. 24\u00a0Feb. 2016.<\/p>\n

Saving Country Music. \u201cForgotten Outlaw-Paul “The Devil” English\u201d\u201d, 6 Oct. 2009.Web. 24 Feb. 2016. www.savingcountrymusic.com\/forgotten-outlaw-paul-the-devil-english\/<\/p>\n

Lewis, Randy. “Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard Are Country Kin on ‘Django and<\/p>\n

Jimmie'” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 3 June 2015. Web. 02 Mar. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a02016.<\/p>\n

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Written by Drew Scherger. 2 March 2016. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3YTlHkXufBQ \u201cMe and Paul\u201d is a song performed by Willie Nelson and released on his album Yesterday\u2019s Wine in 1971. The song was also later featured on the compilation album Wanted: The Outlaws … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"parent":18,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7380","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7410,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7380\/revisions\/7410"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}