Willie Reminds Us to Roll Him Up and Smoke Him When He Dies

Since Willie Nelson started collecting Social Security checks nearly thirty years ago, mortality has been a subject he’s given a fair amount of time to. He’s recorded a lot of songs about dying,  some of which are hymns, whether spiritual (“I’ll Fly Away”) or secular (“Satisfied Mind”). Some are arch, sung with a smile that—as Jan Reid and Don Roth wrote in Texas Monthly in 1973, back when Willie was 37 years old—“would make Buddha nervous,” like “Last Man Standing,” his ode to fallen friends and his realization that somehow, he’s still here and glad to be. Others are surprising, like his cover of the Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize??.” At least one is downright silly, namely “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I…

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