Willie Nelson Got the "Red Headed Stranger" Nickname from the 1953 Tune Originally Written for Perry Como

You've likely heard Willie Nelson referred to as the Red Headed Stranger. While you may think the nickname comes from his 1975 album, Red Headed Stranger, the backstory is a little more involved than that.

In fact, the Red Headed Stranger isn't a Willie-ism, but rather a song title of a tune first written in 1953 by entertainment critic and lyricist Edith Lindeman and composer and radio announcer Carl Stutz. As shared in Lindeman's obituary (her full name was Edith Lindeman Calisch, but she wrote songs under her maiden name), "Red Headed Stranger" originally had some very different plans for itself: The song was "...a Western ballad originally intended for Perry Como. Because of a publishing dispute, Mrs. Calisch said, the tune never reached Como."

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It did, however, make it into the hands of Nelson, and in 1975, it became the title track of Nelson's Billboard Country chart-topping album of the same name. "I was just sitting at home one night, playing with the idea of colors," Lindeman reflected of the song's origins, as shared in her obituary. The red-headed stranger Lindeman was thinking of when writing the tune was her husband, A. Woolner Calisch, and the song was set in Blue Rock, Montana, miles and miles away from Nelson's Texas stomping grounds.

"The red-headed stranger from Blue Rock, Montana / Rode into town one day / And under his knees was a ragin' black stallion / And walkin' behind was a bay," as Nelson sings, capturing the sentiment of Lindeman and Stutz' words so beautifully. For sure, it's hard to imagine anyone else singing those storied lines, and it's hard to think of a better nickname for one of our favorite country artists.

As for Lindeman's impressive career, we're sure glad she happened on the craft of songwriting while driving through Kentucky with her husband. As her obituary quoted her retelling the story, "We had the radio on and a lot of music was coming over, and I said 'Oh, Lord, I could write better lyrics than that.' And my husband, who believed I could do anything I set my mind to, said, 'Well, why don't you?'"

And so she did. And all of us country music fans are luckier for it.