“I guess I probably am the last leaf on the tree.” — Willie Nelson
At 93, Willie Nelson is still recording and performing after outliving friends Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson. Reflecting on those losses, he said, “I’m lucky to be here. I’ve lost a lot of my good friends along the way.”
His own early years gave him little reason to expect a long life. Asked whether he’d imagined working into his 90s, Nelson recalled drinking heavily and taking too many pills. “I don’t think anyone expected me to live beyond 21, the way I was going.”
In 1978, he stopped drinking and gave up illegal drugs other than marijuana. He’s credited that change with keeping him alive. His health later forced another adjustment: after breathing problems, emphysema and pneumonia, he stopped smoking marijuana at 86.
“I had a lung collapse, so I have to be really careful. I do edibles at night,” he said. He still enjoys marijuana-infused chocolate made by his wife, Annie D’Angelo, and says marijuana helps him write songs: “It relaxes you to a point where you might think a little different.”
That answer, about being the last leaf left, lands harder because Nelson doesn’t flinch from where it points. He described feeling fortunate to still be here, while accepting that his life will end. “Well, you know, everybody’s gonna die, so it ain’t no big deal how long we got. We live and we die, and I believe we come back again.”