Johnny Bush

5. "Tequila and Teardrops": "This was written by Dale Watson, who grew up in Pasadena and is a friend of mine. The song represents the Tejano, Hispanic part of Houston. Rick suggested that we do kind of a mariachi intro. My favorite mariachi song has always been a song called 'Ella,' which means 'she' or 'her,' and the lyrics in translation are something like, 'When you told me you don't love me I decided to go where the mariachis play and drink tequila till I die.' So I thought it would be pretty fitting to use that as the mariachi intro to a song called 'Tequila and Teardrops.'"

6. "Pancho and Lefty": "Townes Van Zandt was the writer. He was either from Houston or spent a lot of time there. Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard had a big hit on this over 20 years ago, and Rick thought it would be a good idea to record this, and I did too. It's a departure from anything we've ever done before -- it's fun to do these acoustic tunes. I've been doing a lot more of them since I started doing the book."

7. "Family Bible": "This was written by Willie Nelson when he was living in Houston, and he sold it to Walter Breeland, Paul Buskirk and Claude Gray for $50 -- and I think it took all three of them to scrape together the $50. Rick thought it fit with the family-type thing of our life in Kashmere Gardens."

8. "Jole Blon": "At the old Bill Quinn-owned Gold Star Studios back in the '40s, this song was recorded by Harry Choates, and that's why we included it here. Frenchie Burke was my first fiddle player, so I based this on his version and this represents the Cajun part of Houston."

9. "They Took the Stars out of Heaven": "That was a duet I did with Floyd Tillman, who was born in Oklahoma but came to Texas at a very young age and wound up in Houston. Starting in the '30s, he worked with the Blue Ridge Boys and Leon 'Pappy' Selph and wrote all those hit songs. My uncle Jerry Jericho was a country singer at about that time, and he was big buddies with Floyd and Ted Daffan. I would be out cuttin' the grass, and they would come rollin' up the driveway, and it didn't seem like a big deal to me at all. But it was, and I was too young to realize it. Floyd was Willie Nelson's idol -- both singing and songwriting...We've all borrowed from each other. About the only really original man that I could think of off the top of my head was Lefty Frizzell."

10. "These Hands": "This was written by Eddie Noack, who was a performer but better known as a songwriter. My uncle Jerry Jericho recorded it for Ted Daffan's label at a recording studio that Floyd Tillman had built at his house, and my uncle had a regional hit with it in 1956 or '57. Then it was covered by both Johnny Cash and Hank Snow, and they steamrolled his version."

11. "Send Me the Pillow that You Dream On" was written by Hank Locklin, who was not from Houston but lived there for a number of years. It was recorded for Four Star Records, and they were distributed by the Daily family in Houston, who had the early hits with George Jones and also Cactus Records, and at one time they had all the jukeboxes in Houston. Back when Hank recorded this, he was living over in Oak Forest. And we wanted Willie to be a part of this song, so me and him just went in his studio in Luck, Texas with two guitars and ran it down with just the two of us."

12. "Bloody Mary Morning" mentions Houston, and Willie was living in Pasadena when he wrote it. I like it 'cause it's up-tempo and about Houston."

13. "I Want a Drink of That Water (That Jesus Turned to Wine)": "I am a Baptist and my brother is a Baptist minister, and we've had lots of arguments about how the Bible calls it wine but he says that means grape juice. And I say, 'Well, don't you think it would just say grape juice, then?' So I asked my minister, and he said, 'Of course it was wine.' He said, 'John, what do you think would happen if you put 20 gallons of grape juice in a goatskin bag, threw it over the back of a camel and walked it across the desert for four days?' And back then, the water would kill you. Drinking wine was a way of life; of course it was alcoholic. If you drank enough of it you would fall down."

14. "Kashmere Gardens Mud (Reprise)": "When I do my shtick on stage, I tell people that you could walk six blocks in Kashmere Gardens and never leave the scene of a crime, and underarm protection for us was a .38 in a shoulder holster. White trash would have been a step up for us."