page_title: I've Always Been Crazy
section_title: Recording and composition
hierarchical_section_title: I've Always Been Crazy / Recording and composition
caption_attribution_description: English: A roadside sign in the form of Buddy Holly's glasses, located close to the location where he was killed in a plane crash on February 3, 1959 - The Day the Music Died Русский: Указатель возле места катастрофы в Клир Лэйк
context_page_description: I've Always Been Crazy is an album by American country music artist Waylon Jennings, released on RCA Victor in 1978.
context_section_description: I've Always Been Crazy was produced by Jennings and Waylors drummer Richie Albright with a cast of players that included Tony Joe White, Ralph Mooney, Carter Robertson, Reggie Young, and Bee Spears.  In light of the drug bust, the title track and "Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got Out of Hand" sets the tone for the album, summing up Waylon's unapologetic attitude towards his lifestyle as well as his disdain for the music business.  The title track, a Jennings composition, was released in June 1978 and became his sixth #1 as a solo artist, remaining there for three weeks and spending a total of thirteen weeks on the country singles chart.  Considering the circumstances, the song played like a personal declaration by the singer, who proclaims that he has "never intentionally hurt anyone" and confesses that being crazy has "kept me from going insane."  More serious in tone is "Don't You All Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got Out of Hand," another Jennings original which recounts his 1977 drug bust and cynically recalls, "Someone called us outlaws in some magazine, New York sent a posse down like I ain't never seen."  The song peaked at #5 on the country singles chart.
  Despite the fiery spirit of the LP's hit singles, many of the album tracks have a subdued, reflective tone.  Although written by Tony Joe White, the Billy Joe Shaver tribute "Billy" sounds like it could have just as easily been composed by Jennings, who recorded nearly an album's worth of Shaver's songs for his Honky Tonk Heroes album in 1973.  The sentimental mood is also apparent on the LP's closing tracks: the heartfelt "Girl I Can Tell (You're Trying to Work it Out)" and the Shel Silverstein ballad "Whistlers and Jugglers."  Even Waylon's cover of Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line" is reinvented as a ballad (Jennings and Cash, who shared an apartment together between marriages in the late 1960s, would score a hit duet with "There Ain't No Good Chain Gang" in 1978). However upsetting the turmoil in his personal life may have been, it seemed to spark Jennings' creativity; he wrote or had a hand in writing five of the ten songs on the LP, his biggest songwriting contribution to one of his own albums up to that point.
  Jennings also pays tribute to his late friend and mentor Buddy Holly with a medley of the fellow-Texan's hits.  Jennings had famously given up his seat on the fatal flight that claimed the life of Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper, forever immortalizing himself in rock and roll trivia.  Jennings, who was years getting over the tragedy, alludes to the flight on "A Long Time Ago," singing "Don't ask me who I gave my seat to on that plane, I think you already know, I told you that a long time ago" (he also name-drops fellow outlaw Willie Nelson in the song).  In the liner notes to The Essential Waylon Jennings, Wade Jessen quotes the singer: "Buddy was the first guy to ever have faith in me as a singer.  He was a rhythm guitar picker, and that's basically what I am.  He taught me that you can take country songs and put different rhythms to 'em...But mainly, what I learned from Buddy was an attitude.  He loved music, and he taught me that it shouldn't have any barriers to it."  The cover of Merle Haggard's honky tonk classic "The Bottle Let Me Down" was an ironic choice for Jennings who, despite his fondness for pills and drugs, never indulged in alcohol.
  The album cover, which features the singer scowling menacingly at the camera, became one of his iconic images.
caption: Signpost near the Clear Lake crash site
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