Nelson received a tape of the song from Saturday Night Live Band bassist Tony Garnier after performing on the show in the mid to late 1980s. According to Sublette, "Willie took it from there" though Nelson recently found that demo in a drawer among a stack of his own while recording unreleased songs for iTunes at his Spicewood, Texas home studio. Nelson says, "I thought it was the funniest goddamn song I'd ever heard. I had it on the bus for 20 years, and people would come in and I'd play it. When "Brokeback Mountain" come out, it just seemed like a good time to kick it out of the closet".