Willie Nelson's slow, lonely bar crawl tune, "Are You Sure," is reaching a new audience 50 years after its initial release on Country Willie - His Own Songs, back in 1965. Kacey Musgraves picked it up as a hidden gem on her 2015 sophomore album, Pageant Material, and now the duo has a music video to back it up.
According to Rolling Stone Country, the pet project was conceived during a backstage hangout on Nelson's 2014 tour, when the old and new school country singers re-imagined the song as a duet.
Shot in a smoky bar in Austin decorated in the pink glitter that lines Musgrave's recent album, the two heartbroken Texas stars sing to one another about the pitfalls of spending too much time at the local saloon, while they themselves sip on some brown and white liquors and a house band plays the twangy western ballad.
"Look around you/ and take a good look at all the local used-to-bes/ are you sure this is where you want to be?" Nelson softly sings on the tune.
The cover tune has been planned for some time now as Musgraves took to Facebook back in 2013 to say "Willie Nelson's 'Are You Sure' - two minutes and 13 seconds of the realest (stuff) you'll ever hear ... Never gets old. Thank you, Willie."
It only made it onto Pageant Material as a hidden track, tacked onto the final minutes of the album's closing song "Fine," for the true fans who listened to the album all the way through.
"Are You Sure" is really quite a heart breaking song about a love lost to the devices of alcohol, but it's still sweet to see two Texas musicians, generations apart united for four minutes of western twang.
Watch the soft ballad below as well as the original tune by Nelson.
