Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash were some wild cats.
It’s not secret that Cash, Jennings, and a number of country music legends struggled with substance abuse at one point or another during their iconic music careers. Hell, many artists today do as well. It seems to come with the rockstar territory.
In 1985, Johnny Cash appeared on Late Night with David Letterman and was later joined in the interview by Waylon Jennings. When Cash and Jennings took the stage together, they started a hilarious bit about their living together, how Cash had the apartment, and Jennings just lived there but cooked and ensured it was a good time.
However, the best part of the interview was when they both started cracking jokes about their wild ways in the past.
Letterman commented to Jennings that Cash was in the hospital the last time he was on the show. Cash, who was not shy about the fact that he struggled with substances, replied with a witty remark.
“Under the weather? Was that when I was at an alcohol and drug treatment center?”
Waylon fires right back with another great punchline.
“No, I was still on drugs; you were off of them at that point.”
After all the men laugh a little, Johnny Cash talks about how that point in his life was among the lowest. Letterman tries to change the topic, but Cash leads him back, saying he gave him the perfect opening to ask how Betty Ford, the former First Lady, pertained to him getting clean and sober.
After Letterman insisted they could revisit the topic, Cash jokes that although he could tell him many stories about getting clean, this was not the crowd.
“One out of six people…these people don’t want to hear about drug and alcohol abuse. Not on this show, not this late at night.”
But Letterman saw he wanted to revisit, so he posed a question asking how much of life he remembered during those years in a drug-induced haze.
“Well, I remember almost everything. I had periods of blackouts…you know you can always find excuses for taking drugs. Sometimes it was a pain, a broken bone, and I’d take a mood alter and painkillers…
You know, I read an article about me in one of these papers recently, about Johnny Cash was on mood alters and pain medication because of his cowboy boots. The high heel gave him back pain. I never thought of that either…you know why. I thought about all the excuses we used for taking drugs like your wife left you…or your wife didn’t leave you. Your dog died, or your dog didn’t die. It’s Monday, or it’s Saturday; anything was a good reason for taking drugs.
To answer your question, I started taking them in 1958, amphetamines and barbiturates. To get up and to come down, you know. I controlled it pretty well for a while, like you can do. But just like the alcoholic drinks from the bottle, finally, the bottle starts drinking out of him. But the pills started to take me. In 1967 with the help of June, my faith, my religion, and willpower I managed to stop for a long long time.
But it was a broken bone that got me back to taking medication again, pain medication. And then it would make me nervous and then I’d take something to go to sleep, then something to get up in the morning. It was a cycle.”
Letterman then asks if writing and performing became a lot clearer once he got cleaned up, to which Cash says it makes a world of difference.
Letterman then asks Jennings if he had a similar experience:
“I was on drugs for 21, almost solid. And, like John, I had blackout times, too, but I remember most of it too. I’ve been off going on my eleventh month now…”
The interview wraps up with Waylon telling the crowd how, during the peak of his drug use, he was spending one thousand dollars a day. These two changed their tune later in life, but when we look back on interviews like this, we often find it hard to believe some of their stories because they are so wild.
Make no mistake, substance abuse is no laughing matter, and many don’t have the resources that Waylon and Jonny had to try and get clean. Their outlaw ways were out of control no doubt, but it sure did lead to some good music and stories.
