Waylon Jennings – Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way

This song I wrote in 10 minutes…it took me 10 years to think it up though…Waylon Jennings 

This is country music that I really like. Waylon was part of the Outlaw country movement of the 1970s and he was a badass. This song is a tribute to Hank Willaims and also questions the extravagance of the modern country stars of the 70s with their “new shiny cars” and “rhinestone suits”.

The song peaked at #1 on the Billboard Country Charts and #21 on the Canadian RPM Country Tracks…it also made it in the Billboard 100 at #60 in 1975.

Waylon acted more like a rock star. He took that Outlaw title to heart. He used the Hells Angels as bodyguards and hung out and partied with them. Lynyrd Skynyrd was known as rough and fighters but when they shared a plane with Jennings and the Angels… they gave them plenty of room and stayed quiet like school boys.

In the seventies, Waylon took a pistol to a recording studio one time because he didn’t like studio musicians. He knew they were great musicians but they didn’t give any new ideas so he was joking around with the pistol about shooting someone’s fingers off if they didn’t play well. It wasn’t serious and everyone there knew it was a joke… but rumors got around that he was serious. Later on in 1975 at the Grammys… Waylon Jennings and John Lennon met backstage. They started talking to each other and really hit it off. Waylon was surprised because he told John that he was very funny but he thought he was some kind of madman because of John’s press. John then told him that people in England thought Waylon shot people.

Lennon wrote him a letter after that and there was even talk of Waylon recording a song by Lennon (Tight A$ on Mind Games). Not much came of it but the letter was found when Waylon passed away and sold at auction.

John-Lennon-Letter

Waylon was hired to play bass for Buddy Holly on that last tour and he gave up his seat on the plane for J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) and ended up saving his own life. So he was in rock and roll before country.

Also…if you see the live clip…Waylon used that guitar for years. My guitar tech was Waylon’s guitar tech. The guitar was at the shop one day and Turner (the tech) told me to come over and play it. Of course, I did…I’ve never seen a guitar with leather…and I’ll never forget it. It was sometime in the late eighties or early nineties. He used that guitar from the 70’s to the mid-nineties.

Waylon Jennings: “I met John Lennon, and we were cutting up and everything at one of the Grammy things, and I said, man, you’re funny. I didn’t know you were funny,’ I said, ‘I thought you were some kind of mad guy or something like that.”

John Lennon: “Listen, people in England think you shoot folks.”

Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way

Lord it’s the same old tune, fiddle and guitar
Where do we take it from here?
Rhinestone suits and new shiny cars
It’s been the same way for years
We need a change

Somebody told me, when I came to Nashville
Son you finally got it made
Old Hank made it here, and we’re all sure that you will
But I don’t think Hank done it this way
No, I don’t think Hank done it this way

Ten years on the road, makin’ one night stands
Speedin’ my young life away
Tell me one more time just so’s I’ll understand
Are your sure Hank done it this way?
Did ol’ Hank really do it this way?

Lord I’ve seen the world, with a five piece band
Looking at the back side of me
Singing my songs, and one of his now and then
But I don’t think Hank done ’em this way
I don’t think Hank done it this way 
Take it home

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

33 thoughts on “Waylon Jennings – Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way”

  3. That’s a fun one , I wonder what some of his Nashville counterparts thought of it? I wouldn’t have guessed he was friends with John Lennon – that’s a really cool part of the story.

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    1. I would have never thought of it either…but him and John would have sounded cool together. I was surprised Dave by how many of his songs crossed over to the pop charts…it’s a bunch. The song Luckenbach Texas made it to #25 in the pop charts.

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  4. I don’t listen to country but I even knew about the Outlaws. Having the Hells Angels as your bodyguards and carrying guns sounds like Axl Rose took a page out of the Waylon How To Survive handbook in the late 80s!

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  5. Very interesting stuff, and an interesting pairing with Waylon and John! Cool Max trivia about the guitar. I always liked this song, there’s nothing like country music for name dropping the legends of the genre.

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    1. Last night I was going over his discography…songs that I’ve forgot like “Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line” that rides that line between rockabilly and country.

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      1. I got into him way back with ‘Honkey Tonk Heroes’ and ‘Wanted The Outlaws’. Wore them out. My dad was always a fan. He liked Cash, Jennings and a few others. I guess they were a little more earthy to him. That resonated with me also. You can have all the image in the world but the music has to stand and Waylon’s does.

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  7. Waylon has “the voice” doesn’t he, and oh I love that down-home country sound. Music is the way to get the message across and he gets his message across very clearly. For some reason I always think of Waylon and Willie together. The album they made way back when was hot on the jukebox at the time I was hanging out in a little country bar with cowboys. Fun times!

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    1. Expect more of it in coming weeks… I’m about to watch the 7th Ken Burns episode…and after that only one more to go.
      Waylon and Willie did do some stuff together… some really good stuff. I guess Willie and Kris are the only two left.
      I would have loved to hear a Jennings and Lennon song… just one.

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      1. Keep your fingers crossed. Lost tapes are found every day 🙂 Good on good ol country music coming up. I love that song, “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys.” Brings back a lot of good memories.

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      2. Yea I wish…but I didn’t know they were even fast friends.
        Oh yes I love that song also…and “Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line”

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  8. Those two together would have given the record companies conniptions: ‘Waylon and John and the ‘Ornery Cowpokes?’ John and Waylon’s Cosmic Country-fried Band? ‘ What a marketing dilemma!
    Love that line ‘Lord, I’ve seen the world with a five piece band looking at the back side of me.’

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    1. John and Waylon’s Cosmic Country-fried Band…now I like that!
      Those Outlaw country guys didn’t give a care about their image and they were open to others. Some of their peers would not be seen dead with a rock star like Lennon.
      That is a great line… funny how their reputations followed them to each other.

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  10. Pretty cool you got to play Jennings’ guitar, Max, I’m impressed. Perhaps also good he wasn’t around, given his pistol! 🙂

    I recognized the name Waylon Jennings right away but couldn’t quite remember the context – until you mentioned the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and the others on board. You wonder how Jennings must have felt, since he had given up his seat to The Big Bopper. Just a crazy story that sounds like right out of a movie…

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    1. Yes it does sounds like it came out of a movie. May be the reason he partied so much in his older years….that would give you a big survivors guilt.

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      1. It just had to be an awful feeling, even though I understand Jennings did it with the best intentions. Richardson had the flu and the trip on the tour bus to the next stop would have taken longer, not to mention the cold conditions on the bus due to the icy winter weather.

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      2. Oh yea…but he probably still felt bad for sure. He did it so Richardson would feel better.
        They should not have been touring on a bus with faulty heat…in the middle of the winter.

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