2025 Life Logs, Day 250: Willie
Date: Sunday, September 7, 2025
Weather: Sunny and Windy; High Temp 72, Low 53 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with Shadow and Justin
Dreams do come true. Justin flew up from Puerto Rico this weekend to take me to a Willie Nelson concert. Thank you, thank you, Justin.
I have never been to a concert, and if I ever wanted to go to one, it was to see Willie Nelson. And tonight, we went to the Xfinity Center near Boston to see the Outlaw show with Sheryl Crow, Bob Dylan, and Willie. I have always loved his voice, always telling a story with the words often slightly ahead or behind the beat. Willie, diagnosed with emphysema in 2019, is now 92 years old. His voice is definitely showing its age, but he performs with a special kind of magic.
This Outlaw show began with the playing of the video for his 1986 song “Living in the Promiseland”. As the video progressed, a huge American flag was unfurled in the background.
The showing of that video seemed to me to be sending a message to all of us of what this country once was, and what we must work to make it once again.
Here are lyrics to Willie’s Promiseland:
Give us your tired and weak
And we will make them strong
Bring us your foreign songs
And we will sing along
Leave us your broken dreams
We’ll give them time to mend
There’s still a lot of love
Living in the promiseland
Living in the promiseland
Our dreams are made of steel
The prayer of every man
Is to know how freedom feels
There is a winding road
‘Cross the shifting sands
And room for everyone
Living in the promiseland
So they came from a distant isle
Aimless woman, faithless child
Like a bad dream
Until there was no room at all
No place to run and no place to fall
Give us your daily bread
We have no shoes to wear
No place to call our own
Only this cross to bear
We are the multitudes
Lend us a helping hand
Is there no love anymore?
Living in the promiseland
Living in the promiseland
Our dreams are made of steel
The prayer of every man
Is to know how freedom feels
There is a winding road
‘Cross the shifting sands
And room for everyone
Living in the promiseland
And room for everyone
Living in the promiseland
