Waylon Jennings – "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" (1975)

 

I’ve seen the world with a five-piece band

Looking at the back side of me

Once a year, I take a ferry from Cape Cod to Nantucket and spend the day riding my bike, taking photos, buying T-shirts for my grandkids, and drinking beer.

The Boston Business Journal has accurately described Nantucket as “a playground for the well-to-do.”  The average Nantucket house is valued at more than $1 million, making it the most expensive place to live in the country.  (Median housing prices in Marin County, California, and Manhattan – which rank just behind Nantucket – are pretty outrageous, but they’re about 20% lower than prices on Nantucket.)

A typical Nantucket house

I’ll never own a house on Nantucket – hell, even the cost of renting there for a week is out of reach for me – but it’s a great place to go for a day trip.

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This year, after I was finished biking and taking pictures and buying T-shirts, I stopped at Cisco Brewers’ sprawling outdoor taproom on Bartlett Farm Road, which opened in 1995.  (Cisco – which now operates four taprooms in addition to the one on Nantucket – was independent for many years, but now is owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev.)

I sat at a picnic table and enjoyed a Whale’s Tale pale ale while a local “twang and bang” country-rock band that called itself Buckle & Shake serenaded the crowd.

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Buckle & Shake started off their set by playing “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way,” which was a big hit for Waylon Jennings in 1975.

Jennings – who would be on the Mount Rushmore of outlaw country music if there was a Mount Rushmore of outlaw country music – wrote “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way” to pay tribute to Hank Williams in particular and classic country and western music in general.  (Yes, I know there should be a question mark at the end of the song’s title, but that’s not how Waylon wanted it.)   

Buckle & Shake

I got the feeling that Buckle & Shake’s frontman was inwardly smirking as he sang “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way” – his performance practically oozed condescension.   

“I know that none of you is a Trump-loving hillbilly,” was the unspoken, read-between-the-lines message that the singer seemed to be trying to communicate to his audience (who were mostly effete snobs from Boston, New York City, and points between).  “We’re just playing this country crap to demonstrate what well-developed senses of irony we have.”    

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It turns out that I was reading the singer’s message loud and clear.

In 2019, the local Nantucket newspaper reviewed a performance by Buckle & Shake.  The review noted that the lead singer went on stage that night wearing a Reagan-Bush ’84 cap, which he said he did  “ironically.”

Here’s some irony for you: Ronald Reagan won Massachusetts in 1984 by over 70,000 votes.  (In case you weren’t around in 1984, Reagan carried 49 states that year – including not only Massachusetts, but also California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Vermont, which are all bluer-than-blue liberal bastions today.  The only state that Walter Mondale won was his home state of Minnesota – and he prevailed there by only 0.18% of the vote, a much smaller margin of victory than that achieved by Reagan in any of the states he won.)

Here’s a little more irony for you: Ronald Reagan carried Nantucket County in 1984 by a margin of 53% to 47%!

The Buckle & Shake singer thought he was directing all his high-powered irony at born-and-bred rednecks like yours truly.  It turns out that he also being condescending to his fellow Nantucketeers.

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I thought about leaving Cisco right then and there, but a single beer didn’t seem like fair recompense for all the miles I had biked that day.  So I bought another one and listened to the rest of Buckle & Shake’s set.

I was glad I did when I heard the next song they played.  I had no clue what the name of the song was, or who had written it – but I knew it was good.

I’ll tell you all about that song in the next 2 or 3 lines.

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Click here  to listen to “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way.”

Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson -- "Good Hearted Woman" (1976)

But she never complains

Of the bad times or bad things he's done

She just talks about the good times they've had

And all the good times to come

The heroine of this song doesn't just see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty -- she sees that half-full glass as filled up to overflowing.

My daughters are "mirror-image" twins -- that is, they are identical twins who are opposites in certain ways.  For example, one of my daughters is left-handed, and the other is right-handed.  (Some mirror-image twins have reversed internal organs -- which isn't really a problem, but which probably comes as a major surprise to any doctor who examines the reversed twin without knowing his or her medical history.)

Mirror-image twins

"Good Hearted Woman" is the mirror-image twin of "Stand By Your Man."  Both are about patient, all-forgiving wives who tolerate the behavior of their narcissistic and immature husbands.  

"Stand By Your Man" was co-written and recorded by Tammy Wynette, a female singer who was one of the great mainstream, Nashville-based country music superstars.  By contrast, "Good Hearted Woman" was written and performed by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, two male performers who were the giants of Texas-based "outlaw" country-western music.

And the two songs have a very different mood.  The woman in Tammy's song seems to be suffering -- she is paying a price for her fidelity to a man who seems to have a lot of issues -- while I see the woman in Willie and Waylon's song as having a smile on her face because her husband is lovable and charming in spite of his foibles.

Willie and Waylon

You can't write about Texas popular music and leave out the outlaws like Willie and Waylon.  Their music is as crucial to the psyche and popular culture of Texas as the "Summer of Love" groups are to the psyche and culture of San Francisco.  Until they came along, I think a lot of people (like me) viewed country music as formulaic and sappy.  But Nelson and Jennings were great songwriters and exceptional singers, who combined finesse and style with raw emotion and a whole lotta soul.

I would have had a hard time choosing just one of them to feature in "29 Posts in 28 Days," but fortunately I didn't have to.  Their live duet of "Good Hearted Woman" was featured on the groundbreaking 1976 album Wanted! The Outlaws, which featured previously released material by Nelson, Jennings, Jessi Colter (Jennings' wife), and Tompall Glaser.  It was the first country album to sell a million copies.  The Nelson-Jennings "Good Hearted Woman" made it to #1 on the Billboard "Hot Country Singles" chart.

Willie and Waylon had written the song in 1969 while they were staying at a hotel in Fort Worth.  The story goes that the song was inspired by a newspaper story that Waylon read that referred to Tina Turner as "a good-hearted woman loving two-timing men."  He tracked down Nelson, who was in the middle of a poker game.  Jennings joined the game, and the two of them worked out the lyrics as they played.  

(That may be the best story I've ever read about how a popular song came to be written.)

Before I share the Wanted! The Outlaws version of "Good Hearted Woman," here's Waylon Jennings' solo version of the song, which was released in 1972 and was a #3 country-western hit.  The two performances have a lot in common -- including the key change before the second chorus:

Here's the live Nelson-Jennings recording of "Good Hearted Woman."  Happy Valentine's Day, ladies!

Here's a link you can use to buy the song from Amazon: