See Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard Share a Joint in New Video
Today, on what just happens to be 4/20, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard have premiered the video for their new single “It’s All Going to Pot.” The first released song from their upcoming duets album, Django and Jimmie, the propulsive track was written by the album’s producer Buddy Cannon, along with Larry Shell and frequent Nelson cohort Jamey Johnson, who also sings on the song. Johnson previously lent his voice to Nelson’s other ode to weed, “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.”
The video for “It’s All Going to Pot” captures Nelson and Haggard in the studio, recording, conversing, laughing and lighting up. At one point, the Okie From Muskogee casually hands the Red Headed Stranger a joint, offering a glimpse into the second-nature relationship of the longtime friends and collaborators. They even poke fun at each other in the lyrics. “The Red Headed Stranger I’m not, but, buddy, let me tell you what,” sings Haggard, while Nelson follows with a bit about finding the perfect girl, only to catch her “making eyes at Merle.”
Recorded in just a week’s time, Django and Jimmie will be released June 2nd. “We’ve been talking about it for 18 months,” Haggard recently told Rolling Stone. “We’ve been back and forth on the phone about what kind of song we needed to find, and we [even] wrote a couple of songs on the phone. When we got into the studio, it was probably three or four days, max.”
With cameras along to document the sessions, the footage worked perfectly for the “It’s All Going to Pot” clip. Along with Nelson, Rolling Stone premiered another video today — a chat with the singer and marijuana advocate about his new cannabis company, Willie’s Reserve.
“I feel like I was buying so much of it, it’s time to start selling it back!” he says in the interview.
A month before Django and Jimmie hits stores, Nelson will release his autobiography, It’s a Long Story: My Life, on May 5th.