ENERGY FOLLOWS THOUGHT

In a wry narrative shot through with a loopy, stoner spiritualism, the great songwriter and outlaw country artist takes a ramble through his back pages.

“I’m dumb enough to think everything I write is going to be a hit.” So Nelson remarked to Faron Young, who turned the musician’s “Hello Walls” into an early chartbuster. It didn’t always work out that way, however. For years, the record companies wrestled with Nelson’s sometimes impenetrable lyrics—as he reveals, he sometimes speaks to various parts of houses and makes songs of what they tell him—while trying to turn him into a conventional star. “After struggling in Nashville,” he writes, “I returned to Texas in 1970, not as a conquering hero but as just another singer with a band looking to survive.” As one of his songs puts it, “Nobody said it was going to be easy,” but Nelson found himself with just the right people, from his celebrated drummer and best friend Paul English to the hard-living Waylon Jennings, whose album Wanted! The Outlaws, containing a co-written Nelson tune, was “the first country album to sell over a million copies.” That helped the coffers, but, as the lyrics assembled here, richly illustrated with photographs, suggest, Nelson’s prime motivation is less money than the good life. Much of his commentary on his lyrics concerns spiritual lessons. “Because I’m into my ninetieth year,” he writes, “a lot of people want to know my strategy for survival.” Faith in something that may or may not be God is one element; smoking righteous quantities of marijuana has a part, and as does kneeling in gratitude. Essential are humility and service, as with this memorable comment paired with the song “Heartland,” co-written with Bob Dylan in 1990: “To give voice to the voiceless is a priceless privilege that comes with being a writer.”

A lively accompaniment to Nelson’s sprawling, genre-crossing, delightful catalog of recordings.