Opening paragraphs.................

     A song is a short story.  It might have been my buddy Harlan Howard, a writer I met in Nashville in the sixties, who first said a song ain't nothing but three cords and the truth.
     Well, songs come easy to me.  I've written hundreds of them.  I see them as little stories that fall out of our lives and imaginations.  If I have to struggle to write a song, I stop before I start.  I figure if it don't flow easy, it's not meant to be.
     The truth should flow easy.  Same for songs and stories.  If you overanalyze or torture yourself to bring them to life, something's wrong.  Just the way a mountain stream, bubbling with fresh clean water, keeps flowing, stories need to flow free and easy.  The source of water, like the source of the songs, comes from on high.  It's a natural thing.  It's a beautiful thing.

-Willie Nelson, It's A Long Story:  My Life