Chris Stapleton is not one to make political statements. But it’s hard not to read into his Wednesday night appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. The Grammy-winning Nashville songwriter didn’t perform one of the countless country songs he’s written, but rather “Living in the Promiseland,” made famous by Willie Nelson.
Written by David Lynn Jones, “Living in the Promiseland” is a pro-immigrant song about the American dream. Nelson cut it for his 1986 album The Promiseland and released it as a single, taking it all the way to Number One on the country charts. Onstage at Colbert, Stapleton offered a solo rendition of the ballad, backed only by Nelson’s longtime sideman, harmonica player Mickey Raphael, who played on the original recording.
“Give us your tired and weak/ And we will make them strong/ Bring us our foreign songs/ And we will sing along,” Stapleton sang to begin the performance, accompanying himself on electric guitar as Raphael offered subtle harmonica accents.
Last summer, Nelson, who turned 93 in April, used the song and its poignant music video to open his performances on the Outlaw Music Festival Tour. The video features images of immigrants, many of them people of color, arriving on the nation’s shores in search of a better existence. Today, however, that existence is especially elusive, as the current administration has worked to vilify immigrants while targeting them in an aggressive deportation campaign.
“Give us your daily bread/ We have no shoes to wear/ No place to call our own/ Only this cross to bear,” Stapleton sang, driving home the song’s message. At the end of the performance, Stapleton beckoned the talk-show host over and handed him a glass of whiskey. “I want to thank you publicly for all the good that you’ve done for me and so many musicians that have come on this show,” he said to Colbert. “You are a gift to the world.”
While a radio hit for Nelson in the Eighties, he retired “Living in the Promiseland” in 2005. A decade later, he returned to the tune at a time when Syrian refugees were fleeing a civil war in their country. “I think this is one of the most appropriate songs that we could do for this period in America,” he said onstage at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., where he was receiving the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, “Many years ago, I recorded this song and I felt like this might be a good time to kind of try to bring it back.”
Stapleton is currently on his All-American Road Show Tour. He’s also nominated for six awards, including Entertainer of the Year, at the upcoming ACM Awards, set for May 17 in Las Vegas.
Colbert’s series is in its final season and will conclude its run on May 21. Last year, CBS announced it was canceling The Late Show for “financial” reasons. It’s been speculated that CBS’s parent company Paramount nixed the late-night show to curry favor with President Trump and the FCC to ensure a proposed merger between Paramount and Skydance would be successful.
In a recent interview with former president Barack Obama, Colbert joked about people who suggest that he run for president. “The bar has changed,” Obama said. “Put it this way: I think you could perform significantly better than some folks that we’ve seen. I have great confidence in that.”