A Conversation with Billy Joe Shaver (continued)
PM: When do you do your songwriting? You seem to be an inexhaustible fountain of song. When do you tend to write?
BJS: It's my hobby. You know, it's still my hobby. And I still maintain it's the cheapest psychiatrist there is. So actually, I do it just any time I get ready. When something hits me, I do it. 'Cause I really enjoy doing it, I don't hunt and fish anymore, that's what I do. I just really like doing it--there's nothing like being the first one to hear a completed song, you know, that you've written yourself. You'll be the first one who ever hears it, so it really is quite a rush.
PM: You know, all the songwriters I've ever talked with, you're the first one who ever said that. I think that's great.
BJS: I mean, especially a Billy Joe Shaver song, my God... [both laugh] Gonna have to take my hat off, my head swelled up.
PM: How about a word on your friend Kinky Friedman.
BJS: Oh my God, what would that word be? "Hell." [laughs] No, I love old Kinky. I've been knowing him since '66. We knew each other way before we even really got started. He's been good to me, and I've been good to him. We do quite a show together. We've done quite a few shows. We went over to Australia together, played about a month there.
PM: Was that fun?
BJS: Aw yeah. Kinky's crazier than a bed bug anyway. We been friends a long time. He's a real genius. No kidding, the guy's a genius. No doubt about it.
PM: I just picked up a book of his [Steppin On A Rainbow], I haven't started it yet. Hey, I hear you're writing a book yourself.
BJS: Yes I am. I've got a lot of it done already. And I'm gonna be doing a script with Horton Foote pretty soon.
PM: Boy, that's the guy to do it with.
BJS: Yeah, he's a good one. My English teacher lives here in town, she's a hundred and two years old--
PM: I heard Ms. Pedraza went by and got her on film, too.
BJS: Yeah, [laughing] scared 'em to death. She's a hundred and two, sharp as a whip. She reeled off a bunch of my poems and stuff from memory, things I don't even remember! She's really amazing.
PM: Man, I hope that happens to us, that we'll be reeling off poems from memory at a hundred and two.
BJS: Boy howdy, I don't know! I don't know if I'd want to live that long--although she is gettin' around pretty good.
PM: Did it mean a lot to you getting the Lifetime Achievement Award for songwriting from the AMA?
BJS: Well... It was a great pat on the back. Always good to have a pat on the back--course at my age it could be fatal.
PM: [laughs]
BJS: But no, it was good to have that, especially from those people. I admire them a lot. And I think they're doin' a bunch of down home stuff, which I like.
PM: Yeah.
BJS: You know, bless their hearts. All of them just about work for nothing. They just love the music.
PM: Thank God there's still a group of good musicians who're willing to push what we know as Country Music.
BJS: Yeah. They're great people.
PM: So the way everything's going now, with a lot of big things in the works, the future's gotta look pretty bright, right?
BJS: It does look bright. It looks real good for me, yeah, if I just don't tire out. But I'm doing alright!
PM: Well, it's a real pleasure, and a privilege to talk with you today, Billy Joe.
BJS: Man, thank you so much for callin'. Merry Christmas.
PM: And Merry Christmas to you.
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