You Were Always On My Mind - My Favorite Willie Nelson Song

Today in 1982 Willie Nelson scored big with the super hit “You Were Always On My Mind.”  This, in my humble opinion, is Willie’s best love song by far, and probably my favorite song by him, barring his “Good-Hearted Woman” duo hit with Waylon (MAYBE).  Always On My Mind was a record-breaker, even for Willie.  This song stayed at Number One on the charts that year for a whopping TWENTY-TWO WEEKS!  Think Elvis, the Beatles, and Michael Jackson, and put Willie right up there.  Always On My Mind went on to garner CMA Song of the Year for 1982, Single of the Year for 1982, and Grammy Awards that year for Best Country Song AND Song of the Year.  Willie’s recording also earned him Grammy’s Best Male Country Vocal Performance of the Year.  And there was no wonder, because Willie Nelson sang that song almost as he had lived it. 

Almost as if he had lived it.  Really, the lyrics of Always On My Mind resonate with most of us.  Most of us have taken a loved one, a spouse, a lover, for granted and then felt the pain this caused.  But Willie did indeed sing the song as if it was his autobiography.  In fact, for years I believed that Willie Nelson had penned the lyrics, or at least co-authored the song.  Only recently I learned that this song was actually written by a team of writers in Nashville, but the theme of the song can be heartfelt by all of us.  No doubt that explains the remarkable success of this song.  Willie Nelson was able to put that heart-feeling onto the vinyl “canvas” and a hit was born.

The writers of the song never had a doubt that this was a number one hit.  Wayne Carson, Johnny Christopher, and Mark James, already successful writers, put this song together fairly quickly.  Carson wrote the first two verses and the chorus, while the other two corroborated with him to come up with the “bridge,” a contrasting lyric in the song yet which connects the verses and the chorus and also provides a “breakaway” from the “sameness” of the verses and chorus, thus relieving any possible boredom a person might feel while listening to the repetitive words and music of the song.

Carson did not believe that his song needed a bridge, because the words were so moving, and so easy for people to identify with, but his producer told him, “You need a bridge.”  Both Johnny Christopher and Mark James agreed with Carson that the song did not need a bridge, but they knew that without it they would likely not get a deal, at least THIS deal, and might have to find another producer.  So, they all put their heads together and a bridge was born.  In this case, the bridge was these lines:

                                                 Tell me, tell me that your sweet love hasn't died
                                         Give me, give me one more chance to keep you satisfied
                                         I'll keep you satisfied

So the team of Carson, Christopher, and James had their “bridge,” and with the help of Willie Nelson, another number one hit.  Not just a Number One hit for Willie, this was the BIGGEST selling single of his entire career! An interesting sidelight to this story is that the producer who demanded the “bridge,” Fred Foster, turned the song down, saying the world was not ready for it.  So the trio took the song from Nashville back to Memphis, where famed producer Chips Moman took on the song, and Elvis Presley put it on the top of the 1972 pop music chart.  I bet Fred Foster was probably sorry that he did not produce this hit. The sorrow was no doubt relived when Willie released this song a decade later. 

Coming Soon:  How Willie Nelson Came To Cover An ELVIS Hit