In the summer of 2012 with what felt like a last breath of grief, my brother, sister-in-law and I drove down the Abilene Highway that runs between Dallas and Abilene, Texas. With the hot summer wind on our backs, we rolled toward the small town where I was born, Winters, where my mother’s casket waited for burial between the graves of my 46-year-old brother and 34 year-old dad. It was a lonely trip.  At one point, these words came through the rent-a-car stereo:

 ” Yes, I understand every life must end, uh-huh……Stay with me, let’s just breathe…”

There are moments in life when just breathing seems like enough.

It was Willie Nelson and his 24-year-old son, Lukas singing the words of Pearl Jam’s song “Just Breathe.” It seemed they were singing to our moment there on that heart-worn highway. The vulnerability in their voices was palatable and touching.  Songs that provide a backdrop for moments like this is the reason why artists record and we listen. The impact is lasting. These artists with their songs & stories weave into our lives in unsuspecting ways. Even out in the West Texas wind.  Maybe especially there.

When I talked to Lukas Nelson months later about the “Just Breathe “video, he said his dad had recorded the song at his request. It was an act of love between father and son. “I really loved it by Pearl Jam, and I wanted to sing with my dad.”  During the phone interview I mentioned how clear their love comes across in the video that accompanied the release of the song, he sighed and said, “You know, Dad was talking with me and my brother the other day.  He looked at us and said, I don’t believe we’ve ever had a cross word to say to each other in all these years. The three of us looked at each other and realized it was true. We’ve always gotten along. There really never has been a cross word between us.”

The video is a low-key drive through the soul of a father-son relationship that captures both the love and the sense of mortality each must face. But there’s a faith to it that ends with a sense of hope even as they part with Willie driving down the highway and Lukas sitting alone in a room where they once shared music. It’s a gentle foreshadow of unwelcome, but inevitable closure.

One thing comes clear in both the video and the song, these two, although there is more than 50 years of age between them, share a strong and spiritual uncommon bond. It’s clear with one listen to the early work of Willie Nelson. On demo recordings of songs like “Funny How Time Slips Away,” and “Crazy,” there is a genuine soul that transcends country stereotypes and cuts to something universal in anyone who has tried to love and lost. Then, turning to two of his Lukas’ original songs, “The Sound of Your Memory,” and “All the Pretty Horses,” the same soulful thread weaves through.

During our short phone conversation, I made one comment to Lukas regarding the song and the video. “It seems like the two of you are just parts of the same soul.” He breathed a sigh and said with utter humility, “Well, I agree with that.  Yes.  That’s true. I couldn’t say it any better.”

As these two vital artists move on parallel paths, with their vocal sounds sometimes hauntingly similar, it’s their spiritual bond that is expressed in song that is becoming more striking.  Although Lukas plays with a passionate fury that approaches the mastery of his guitar heroes, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn and has collaborated on record and tours with the likes of Neil Young, when he writes and sings his own songs, it’s the continuation of the unique soul of Willie Nelson that comes through like a cool breeze.

The video and song of Pearl Jam’s great song, “Just Breathe,” is an apt homage and tribute to a father and son relationship that is unique in its spiritual bond and its artistic kinship. Although we all have to come to closure in this life, it’s good to know that Willie and Lukas Nelson still have some miles between them before that inevitable time.

Today, Lukas Nelson and his band, The Promise of Real, are on the road touring small venues his father used to frequent.  On March 5 he will be appearing at The Observatory in Santa Ana and The Bellwether in Los Angeles on March 6.   Willie, at 90, continues to record original songs with his writing partner, Buddy Cannon and tour.  He will be at The Stagecoach Festival on April 27th and as part of his Outlaw Series, he will be playing the Hollywood Bowl on July 31st with Bob Dylan and John Mellancamp.