Tag: Larry King

Happy Birthday Willie Nelson, A Hero of This Country

Desperados Waiting For a TrainIn what has become an annual tradition on Chimesfreedom, we wish a happy birthday this week to Willie Nelson, who was born in Abbott, Texas late at night on April 29, 1933.  Due to the late hour, the birth was not officially recorded until the next day and his birthday is sometimes reported as April 30.  So, Nelson celebrates his birthday on both dates.  One of his recordings I love is his wonderful interpretation of Guy Clark’s “Desperados Waiting For a Train.”

The song “Desperados Waiting For a Train” combines themes of memory, aging, history, and mortality. The singer recounts being friend with an old man when he was a boy.

The singer reports how the old man told him about his youthful days as a drifter working on oil wells.  And the young man watches the old man get older. Anyone who as a child has been close to an elderly person or a grandparent may recognize the relationship and admiration.  The singer sums it up, “Well to me he was a hero of this country.”

One of the reasons the lyrics ring so true is that Clark based the story on someone he knew. As he explained in a 2011 interview, “It’s a true song about someone in my life – I mean, you couldn’t have made that up. . . . It was about a guy who was like my grandfather.” Clark also recounted how he knew he would write about the man almost as soon as he started writing songs.

Versions of “Desperados Waiting For a Train”

There are several excellent recordings of “Desperados Waiting For a Train.”  Guy Clark made a beautiful recording of it, including some live versions. Jerry Jeff Walker released the first recording of the song on his 1973 album Viva Terlingua. Actor Slim Pickens released his own version, where he reads the lyrics like poem over the music.

Willie Nelson took part in an earlier version recorded with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson as the Highwaymen. Their version that appeared on the super group’s album Highwayman was a top 20 hit when released as a single in 1985.

The more recent version by Nelson alone appeared on a wonderful Guy Clark tribute album, This One’s For Him (2010).  At the time, Nelson, like the old man in the song, was “pushin’ eighty.” This version of the singer as an older man looking back on his youthful encounter with old age and death adds a deeper layer to the classic song. Check it out.

For some additional Willie, the Larry King Now website features a recent episode where Larry King interviewed Nelson about music, marijuana, politics, and aging.

Happy birthday Willie, and thanks for the presents to us.

What Willie Nelson song are you playing for his birthday? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • Tribute to Guy Clark CD is “Stuff That Works”
  • Nanci Griffith’s Superstars on Letterman: “Desperados Waiting for a Train”
  • When the World Seems to be Spinnin’ Hopelessly Out of Control
  • Willie Nelson: “Immigrant Eyes”
  • Why “GUY”? (Steve Earle album review)
  • Willie Nelson Is “Still Not Dead”

    • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

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    “Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst”

    The documentary Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst (2004), now on DVD, tells the story of when the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst.  Although one might long for the movie to go deeper into the subject, it provides a good overview of the story and the time period, with some implied prophecies for our current times.

    Patty Hearst Wanted PosterIn February 1974, the nineteen-year-old granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst was kidnapped in Berkeley, California by a group calling themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). What followed was a story that became stranger and stranger. After the SLA failed to negotiate a trade of Patty Hearst for other SLA members who were in prison, they then demanded that the Hearst family feed the poor, which the family tried to do with various degrees of success.  Two months after the kidnapping, in a recorded message, Patty Hearst announced that she had joined the SLA and was now named “Tania.”  A few weeks later the nation saw her holding a gun on a bank camera with other SLA members committing a robbery.

    Guerilla takes us step-by-step through the months while Hearst was missing. It also briefly follows up through Pres. Carter granting her a commutation (Pres. Clinton later gave her a full pardon).  Near the very end, the movie includes brief footage from the 2003 trial of some of the SLA members.

    Today, through our individual failing memories (or through no memory if you were not born yet), one might struggle to comprehend what was going on the minds of the members of the SLA, an organization created with a name basically out of thin air and with an almost equally non-defined practical strategy beyond bringing about “revolution” in American society.  Compounding our difficulty in understanding the movie is that 9/11 forever changed our our perspectives on terrorism, and the SLA’s acts in the pursuit of media attention are directly related to modern terrorism.

    The movie does an excellent job of telling the story about the kidnapping through the arrest and trial of Hearst and other members of the SLA. It features interviews with some people involved in the events, including some insight from Russ Little, a founding member of the SLA who was in prison when the captors tried to trade Hearst for him. The one weakness is that there is very little from Hearst or the captors who were later caught, so the details of the captivity and Heart’s change are summarized and left to conjecture. The hole is not the fault of the producers, as many of the key players are now dead. 

    Regarding Patty Hearst, the director explains on the DVD commentary that they deliberately chose not to interview her because the focus was on the surrounding events and not her ordeal.  The director also notes that Patty Hearst liked the movie and said it was better without her.  I disagree, and I am not sure why her perspective was less relevant to the director, than, say Mr. Little.  But the movie still tells a fascinating historical story about the time period and the events. And the movie does provide some new perspectives from some of the people involved at the time.

    Conclusion? Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst is a compelling documentary that will tell you much about the events surrounding the kidnapping, and it is a great introduction or refresher for those who vaguely remember 1974, while providing some new depth for those who were there. The movie, however, will leave you with several questions. But a successful documentary will leave you with a desire to learn more and seek out additional information, such as this Larry King interview with Patty Hearst on YouTube.

    Do you have memories of the period when Patty Hearst was kidnapped? Leave a comment.