By Now, It's Customary That Whover Is Backstage At A Willie Nelson Show Will Join Him For the Gospel Medley He Use To Close His Performance. On Wednesday at the Franklin, Tennessee, Stop of the Outlaw Music Festival Tour, that Included A Pair of Box Stars: Chris Stappleon and Sheryl Crow, Who Joined Guests Including The McCray Sisters, members of Nathaniel Rateliff's Night Sweats, Tami Neilson, And Lily Mela To To Toe To. Sing Along to “I'm fly away.”
Most Fans Didn'T Seem to Notice Stapleton or Crow, But There Was No Missing the Music Video That Played On Screens Prior to Nelson's Headlining Set An Hour Earlier – Or Its Message. AS SEON AS THE LIGHTS WENT DARK ISIDE THE FIRSTBANK AMPHITHEATER, A former Quarry About 28 Miles South of Nashville, Nelson's Video For His 1986 Song “Living in the Promiseland” Sprung to life.
There, Projected on a Pair of SuperSized Video Screens, Were Images of Immigrants, Many of Them People of Color, Some On Boats, Others in Food Lines, All of Them Grasping for the Incaseingly Elusive Helping Hand of America. During the Current Nightmare That is the United States in 2025, where immigrants are being vilified, pressured to “Self-Deport,” or, Even Worse, Snatched From Their Places of Employment by Masked Men and Taken to Far-Off detention Centers, The Choice to play the Music Video Didn's Like Like an accident. Rather, it was an intentional Reminder of What This Country Once Was, and Should Be Again.
“Give Us Your Daily Broad/We have no shoes to Wear/No Place to Call Our Own/Only This Cross To Bear,” Nelson Was Shown Singing, His Forehead Wrapped Not in His Signature Red Bandanna, But One Fleshed Out with White Stars and Stripes. In The Decades-Old Video, Nelson, then Only 53, is America, A Warm Voice and Welcoming Refuge For Those in Need. TODAY, AT 92, HE REMAINS SO, AND DRIVES THE POINT HOME BY FUNCHING NOT AT FRONT OF THE TEXAS STATE FLAG AS HE OFTEN DID IN HIS YOUR DIYS, But in Front of An Huge American Flag THAT RUNS THE LENGH OF THE STAGE. To Him, The Flag is Still For Everyone and Represents Who We are, What We'll do, and as Bruce Springsteen Once Sang, “What We Won't.”
It is, as the song Says, The EMBODIMENT OF “The Promiseland.”
“It's Basically, as on: as on to America,” Nelson Said of “Living in the Promiseland” in a 2017 Interview, During the First Trump Administration's Attack on Immigrants. “We love you, we'll Help you, we'll Find a Spot for You. So, and it Sings Like, There is the other side who know no, no, but that ain't right.
“I'm still optimistic that all the people are coming in, “Nelon continued,” and it will be as great tomoverow as it is totday. ”
Written by David Lynn Jones, The Song was the title track to nelson's 1986 album The Promiseland. Nelson performed it live here and there over the Years that followed, but Langely rened it in 2005. Ten Years Later, he revived the tune when he receivd the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, At A Time When Syrian Refugees Were Fleeing in Civil War in Their Country. “I Think This is one of the Most appropriate songs that we obethe do for this period in America,” he Said onstage at Constitution Hall in Washington, DC “Many Years ago, the Recorded This Song and I Felt like this Might Be a Good Time To Kind of Try to bring it back.”
Another 10 years Later, “Living in the Promiseland” is Worth Listening To Once Again. And While Nelson Hasn'T Played it live on the outlaw music festival like did on last year's tour, he's making sure its lyrical message – That there's “Room for Everyone” in this promise land – is broadcast before he takes the internship.
