Eric Church Wrote “Leave My Willie Alone” After He Was Arrested For Trying To Steal His Willie Nelson Records Back From His Ex-Girlfriend

One of Chief's many underrated songs. Eric Church obviously has some incredible hits in his catalog with songs like "Record Year," "Hell Of A View," "Drink In My Hand" and of course, "Springsteen." But it's his deep cuts where you'll find some of his best work. Church's songwriting really shines through on his songs that may not be the best fit for radio. "Where She Told Me To Go," "Can't Take It With You," "Knives Of New Orleans," "Russian Roulette." There are so many songs buried on Church's albums that are better than pretty much anything on the radio these days. And while it may not have been a good fit for radio, Church managed to sneak one of his more underrated deep cuts in as a bonus track on his sophomore album. Church often performed "Leave My Willie Alone" during his live shows early in his career, and ultimately released it as a bonus track on Carolina. And as it turns out, the cheeky track written by Church alongside Casey Beathard and Michael P. Heeney was actually inspired by some real-life events. As Church once recalled: "I had a girl in college... This particular girl, and I'm from North Carolina and where I'm from we call this particular girl, it rhymes with 'witch' pretty much. This is a true story. When she left me and went through my record collection, and she pulled out five records in the entire collection. I didn't realize it until about a month later...And three of them were Willie Nelson records, and it just pissed me off. She never answered her phone when I called for some reason and that led to the whole thing about me getting arrested for stalking her. Some cop somewhere thought knocking a window out at 2am was stalking...Crazy cops. So I wrote this song, I decided 'You know what, this is a great song, I'm gonna make money off this.'" Classic. And yeah, I'd say that sounds like a good word to describe somebody who would take off with your Willie Nelson records after you break up. The song may not get the same attention as Church's hits, or even the same attention as many of his deep cuts. But its fun wordplay and suggestive songwriting make it just one of many in Chief's catalog that deserves revisiting from time to time. Gotta love it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvMQlNTXs6k You can listen to Eric deliver the full explanation here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvHYLRuSeZ0