Willie Nelson
Releases Gay Cowboy Song
By AP from the
NYTimes on the Web, February 16, 2006
NASHVILLE, Tenn. Feb. 15 -- Country
music outlaw Willie Nelson sang ''Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be
Cowboys'' and ''My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys'' more than 25 years ago.
He released a very different sort of cowboy anthem this Valentine's Day.
''Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other)'' may be the first gay
cowboy song by a major recording artist. But it was written long before
this year's Oscar-nominated ''Brokeback Mountain'' made gay cowboys a hot topic.
Available exclusively through iTunes, the song features choppy Tex-Mex style
guitar runs and Nelson's deadpan delivery of lines like, ''What did you think
all them saddles and boots was about?'' and ''Inside every cowboy there's a lady
who'd love to slip out.''
The song, which debuted Tuesday on Howard Stern's satellite radio show, was
written by Texas-born singer-songwriter Ned Sublette in 1981. Sublette
said he wrote it during the ''Urban Cowboy'' craze and always imagined Nelson
singing it.
Someone passed a copy of the song to Nelson back in the late 1980s and,
according to Nelson's record label, Lost Highway, he recorded it last year at
his Pedernales studio in Texas.
Nelson has appeared in several Western movies and sings ''He Was a Friend of
Mine'' on the ''Brokeback Mountain'' soundtrack.
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