Born during the Great Depression and raised by his grandparents, Nelson wrote his first song at age seven and joined his first band at ten. During high school, he toured locally with the Bohemian Polka as their lead singer and guitar player. After graduating from high school in 1950, he joined the U.S. Air Force but was later discharged due to back problems. After his return, Nelson attended Baylor University for two years but dropped out because he was succeeding in music. During this time, he worked as a disc jockey in Texas radio stations and a singer in honky-tonks. Nelson moved to Vancouver, Washington, where he wrote "Family Bible" and recorded the song "Lumberjack" in 1956. He also worked as a disc jockey at various radio stations in Vancouver and nearby Portland, Oregon. In 1958, he moved to Houston, Texas, after signing a contract with D Records. He sang at the Esquire Ballroom weekly and he worked as a disk jockey. During that time, he wrote songs that would become country standards, including "Funny How Time Slips Away", "Hello Walls", "Pretty Paper", and "Crazy". In 1960 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and later signed a publishing contract with Pamper Music which allowed him to join Ray Price's band as a bassist. In 1962, he recorded his first album, ...And Then I Wrote. Due to this success, Nelson signed in 1964 with RCA Victor and joined the Grand Ole Opry the following year. After mid-chart hits in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Nelson retired in 1972 and moved to Austin, Texas. The ongoing music scene of Austin motivated Nelson to return from retirement, performing frequently at the Armadillo World Headquarters.
In 1973, after signing with Atlantic Records, Nelson turned to outlaw country, including albums such as Shotgun Willie and Phases and Stages. In 1975, he switched to Columbia Records, where he recorded the critically acclaimed album Red Headed Stranger. The same year, he recorded another outlaw country album, Wanted! The Outlaws, along with Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser. During the mid-1980s, while creating hit albums like Honeysuckle Rose and recording hit songs like "On the Road Again", "To All the Girls I've Loved Before", and "Pancho and Lefty", he joined the country supergroup The Highwaymen, along with fellow singers Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson.
In 1990, Nelson's assets were seized by the Internal Revenue Service, which claimed that he owed $32 million. The difficulty of paying his outstanding debt was aggravated by weak investments he had made during the 1980s. In 1992, Nelson released The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories?; the profits of the double album—destined to the IRS—and the auction of Nelson's assets cleared his debt. During the 1990s and 2000s, Nelson continued touring extensively, and released albums every year. Reviews ranged from positive to mixed. He explored genres such as reggae, blues, jazz, and folk.
Nelson made his first movie appearance in the 1979 film The Electric Horseman, followed by other appearances in movies and on television. Nelson is a major liberal activist and the co-chair of the advisory board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), which is in favor of marijuana legalization. On the environmental front, Nelson owns the bio-diesel brand Willie Nelson Biodiesel, which is made from vegetable oil. Nelson is also the honorary chairman of the advisory board of the Texas Music Project, the official music charity of the state of Texas.
Nelson uses a variety of music styles to create his own distinctive blend of country music, a hybrid of jazz, pop, blues, rock and folk. His "unique sound", which uses a "relaxed, behind-the-beat singing style and gut-string guitar" and his "nasal voice and jazzy, off-center phrasing", has been responsible for his wide appeal, and has made him a "vital icon in country music", influencing the "new country, new traditionalist, and alternative country movements of the 1980s and 1990s".
In 1969, the Baldwin company gave Nelson an amplifier and guitar with their "Prismatone" pickup. During a show in Helotes, Texas, Nelson left the guitar on the floor of the stage, and it was later stepped on by a drunk man. He sent it to be repaired in Nashville by Shot Jackson, who told Nelson that the damage was too great. Jackson offered him a Martin N-20 Classical guitar, and, at Nelson's request, moved the pickup to the Martin. Nelson purchased the guitar unseen for $750 and named it after Roy Rogers' horse "Trigger". The next year Nelson rescued the guitar from his burning ranch.
Constant strumming with a guitar pick over the decades has worn a large sweeping hole into the guitar's body near the sound hole—the N-20 has no pick-guard since classical guitars are meant to be played fingerstyle instead of with picks. Its soundboard has been signed by over a hundred of Nelson's friends and associates, ranging from fellow musicians to lawyers and football coaches. The first signature on the guitar was Leon Russell's, who asked Nelson initially to sign his guitar. When Nelson was about to sign it with a marker, Russell requested him to scratch it instead, explaining that the guitar would be more valuable in the future. Interested in the concept, Nelson requested Russell to also sign his guitar. In 1991, during his process with the IRS, Nelson was worried that Trigger could be auctioned off, stating: "When Trigger goes, I'll quit". He asked his daughter, Lana, to take the guitar from the studio before any IRS agent arrived there, and then deliver it to him in Maui. Nelson then concealed the guitar in his manager's house until his debt was paid off in 1993.
Nelson is widely recognized as an American icon. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1993, and he received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1998. In 2011, Nelson was inducted to the National Agricultural Hall of Fame, for his labor in Farm Aid and other fund raisers to benefit farmers. In 2015 Nelson won the Gershwin Prize, the lifetime award of the Library of Congress. In 2018 The Texas Institute of Letters inducted him among its members for his songwriting. He was included by Rolling Stone on its 100 Greatest Singers and 100 Greatest Guitarists lists.
I'm Still Not Over You
Willie Nelson Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Today I made a point to go somewhere I knew you'd be
I had to know if you still had the same affect on me
And the moment that I saw you there I knew
No matter what I do I'm still not over you
I can't explain why seeing you affects my sanity
But when I see you I become strange and differently
And the moment that I saw you there I knew
I'm still not over you that feeling's still the same
I'm still not over you I find that nothing's changed
And perhaps some day I'll find somebody new
But now it's much too soon I'm still not over you
No matter what I do I'm still not over you
The lyrics of Willie Nelson's "I'm Still Not Over You" express an intensely emotional experience of heartbreak and unrequited love. The singer of the song has gone out of their way to visit a place they know the person they are still in love with will be, in order to see if their feelings have abated at all since they last saw them. However, upon seeing the object of their affection again, the singer realizes that they are still completely and utterly in love with them. The song's repetition of the line "No matter what I do I'm still not over you" reinforces the theme of being helplessly trapped by powerful emotions that continue to grip the singer's heart.
Further in the song, the singer reflects on the strange and inexplicable nature of their feelings. They acknowledge that they cannot explain why they still feel this way, despite the passage of time and the absence of any response from the person they love. Nevertheless, the singer cannot deny the truth of their emotions, which are intense and undeniable. The final lines of the song suggest that the singer is resigned to the fact that they are not yet ready to move on, even though they may find someone new in the future. The song's bittersweet tone captures the complexity of the singer's feelings, which are at once painful and poignant.
Line by Line Meaning
No matter what's still not over you
My feelings for you haven't subsided, regardless of what I do.
Today I made a point to go somewhere I knew you'd be
I purposely put myself in a situation where I knew I'd see you.
I had to know if you still had the same affect on me
I needed to see if I'm still emotionally affected by you.
And the moment that I saw you there I knew
Seeing you made me realize that my feelings haven't changed.
I can't explain why seeing you affects my sanity
I can't understand why my mental state changes when I'm around you.
But when I see you I become strange and differently
You evoke an unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling in me.
I'm still not over you that feeling's still the same
My emotions towards you are still as intense as they were before.
I'm still not over you I find that nothing's changed
Despite time passing, my heartache remains the same.
And perhaps some day I'll find somebody new
Maybe one day I'll be able to move on and love someone else.
But now it's much too soon I'm still not over you
Right now it's too early for me to move on because my heart still aches for you.
No matter what I do I'm still not over you
I've tried everything, but I still can't seem to get over you.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: WILLIE NELSON
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind