Video: Particle Kid & Willie Nelson, ‘Die When I’m High (Halfway To Heaven)’

Kevin Bronson on June 19th, 2022

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Particle Kid — aka Micah Nelson — released his folk-psych-experimental opus of a third album, “Time Capsule” (all 26 tracks of it), in April, and his legendary father Willie makes a couple of appearances, notably on the poignant closing song, “Amerikan Lyfe.”

Father and son get together again on the new tune “Die When I’m High (Halfway To Heaven),” released Friday in advance of their acts going on tour together as part of the Outlaw Music Festival road show. (Willie Nelson & Family will play Pasadena’s Palomino Festival on July 9, as well.)

If the title sounds like a bit of profound dad humor, well …

“Sometime back in December 2020, in between endless rounds of chess and dominoes, my dad looked up at me and said, ‘If I die when I’m high, I’ll be halfway to heaven,’” Micah says. “It took me a second to process, but I said, ‘Dad, that’s the best song title I ever heard. You better write the rest of it quick.’ He said, ‘Why don’t you write it?’ So I did. That night I wrote it for him, about him. It’s really just a love letter to him. A tribute.

“At the same time, I realized it’s also a sort of ‘fuck you’ to anyone who ever thought of me as some lost prodigal son who doesn’t understand him or respect his legacy just because I’ve never imitated his style or pandered to his audience. He is the one who gave me my Particle Kid moniker after all.

“We are both freaks, in our time. I’m no prodigal son. I am his Particle Kid. I would never try to be him, or even pretend, because nobody will ever be him. But believe it or not I do relate to the Willie fans because I am one of them. They know how incredible and one-of-a-kind he is. So this song is for the real Willie fans, too. They get it.”

||| Watch: “Die When I’m High (Halfway To Heaven)”