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It is now a tradition that everyone who stays backstage at a Willie-Nelson concert accompany him at the Gospel Medley, with which he concludes his appearances. On Wednesday at the tour stop of the Outlaw Music Festival in Franklin, Tennessee, two unannounced stars were also included. Chris Stapleton and Sheryl Crow, who, among other things, joined the McCrary Sisters, members of Nathaniel Rateliffs Night Sweats, Tami Neilson and Lily Meola to join in “I’ll fly away”.
Message on the big screen
Most fans did not even notice Stapleton and Crow. The music video that was shown an hour ahead of Nelson’s headliner set on the screens, however. As soon as the light in the first bank Amphitheater – a former quarry about 45 kilometers south of Nashville – started, Nelson’s video for his song “Living in the Promiseland” from 1986 began.
Pictures of immigrants were seen on two oversized video screens. Many of them People of Color. Some on boats. Others in Essens snakes. All looking for the increasingly difficult helping hand of America. In view of the current states in the United States in 2025, in which immigrants demonized, pushed for “self -deportation” or – worse – are torn out of their jobs by masked men and brought into far -distant detention centers, the decision to show this music video was anything but random. Rather, it was a conscious memory of what this country was once. And should be again.
“Give us our daily bread / we have no shoes to wear / no place that we call our own / only to wear this cross,” sang Nelson in the video. His head not with the typical red bandana, but with a that shows white stars and strips. In the decades -old video there was Nelson, only 53 at that time. America was a warm voice. A refuge for the needy. Today, at 92, he is still. He underlines this by not performing in front of the Texas flag as before, but in front of a huge American flag that extends over the entire length of the stage. For him, the flag still stands for everyone. And represents who we are, what we do. And as Bruce Springsteen once sang: “What we don’t do”.
A hymn for the marginalized
“It is basically: comes from, comes to America,” said Nelson in 2017 in an interview about “Living in the promiseland”, in the middle of the first term of Donald Trump, during which immigrants were massively attacked. “We love you. We help you. And we find a place for you. And there is the other side that says: No, no, no. But that’s not right.”
“I am still optimistic that all people who come here make this country just as great. Tomorrow as today,” said Nelson.
A song with history
“Living in the promiseland” was written by David Lynn Jones. And was the title song of Nelson’s album “The Promiseland” from 1986. Nelson played the song live in the following years, but largely pulled it out of the repertoire in 2005. Ten years later, he revived it when he was awarded the Gershwin Prize for Popular Music. At a time when Syrian refugees fled from a civil war. “I think this is one of the most suitable songs for this time in America,” he said on the stage of the Constitution Hall in Washington, DC “I recorded this song many years ago. And I felt that I was now a good time to bring it back.”
Ten years later, it is worth listening to “Living in the Promiseland” again. And even if Nelson does not play live on the current Outlaw Music Festival tour like last year, he ensures that his message – in this promised country is “space for everyone” – is spread before he even enters the stage.