Nelson sings "He Was a Friend of Mine" on the soundtrack for Brokeback Mountain, but his gay-cowboy ballad was written long before this year's Oscars made gay cowboys a hot topic of discussion worldwide. The song was written by a songwriter named Ned Sublette in 1981, during the Urban Cowboy craze and he always imagined Willie Nelson singing it. A few years after he wrote the song, someone passed a copy along to Nelson, who didn't do anything with it.

But last year Nelson decided to take advantage of the furor over the gay cowboy themes in Brokeback Mountain and he dug out Sublette's song and blew the dust off it. According to Nelson's record label, Lost Highway, he recorded it last year at his Pedernales studio in Texas.