Willie Nelson recording anti-war ballad
Posted on Wed, Dec. 31, 2003
Willie Nelson recording anti-war ballad
Associated Press
AUSTIN - Willie Nelson plans to debut an anti-war ballad that he wrote Christmas Day at a fund-raising concert Saturday for Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich at Austin Music Hall.
Nelson said he plans to record "What Ever Happened to Peace on Earth" on Wednesday in Nashville, Tenn., and rush-release it as a single.
"Now, I haven't played it for Toby (Keith) yet," a laughing Nelson told the Austin American-Statesman for Tuesday editions. Although the two are close friends, the sentiments of Nelson's song are the polar opposite of Keith's angry-American anthem "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue," with its call to arms.
"Toby wrote that song in reaction to 9/11, which was a totally different thing than watching U.S. soldiers die in Iraq," Nelson said. "Toby's said he's not a Republican or a Democrat; he's a Christian. So we're coming from the same place."
The song asks questions such as "How much oil is a human life worth?"
Asked if the song might cause a backlash with conservative country music fans, he said, "I sure hope so. I don't care if people say, 'Who the hell does he think he is?' I know who I am."
Nelson said he supports Kucinich, an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, because of the four-term Ohio congressman's support of family farmers.
The redheaded stranger said he wrote the song Christmas Day at the Lake Elsinore, Calif., home of his in-laws.
"There was nothing but bad news, and here it was Christmas Day," Nelson said. "I said, 'There sure are a lot of babies dying and mothers crying,' and (wife) Annie said, 'That sounds like a song.'"
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