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NASHVILLE SKYLINE: Willie Nelson's Timeless Christmas Song

"Pretty Paper" Was Written About a Real Person

Editor's note: In what has become a CMT.com holiday tradition, we're sharing a classic Nashville Skyline column written by CMT editorial director Chet Flippo.

Roy Orbison made it a standard of his forever when he recorded it, but Willie Nelson wrote his lovely Christmas song, "Pretty Paper," about a guy I knew slightly. He was a man who had lost both his legs above the knee and -- in those pre-miracle artificial limbs days -- had his leg stumps covered with heavy leather padding and wore thick gloves to pull and slide and scoot his way up and down the sidewalk by the palms of his hands and on his stumps.

He sold pencils from a tin cup affixed to his back and also peddled paper and ribbons at Christmas time, as I recall. He mainly worked the sidewalks by Leonard's Department Store in Fort Worth, Texas, where I was working parttime in high school. I have sadly forgotten the man's name, but he always had a smile for everyone and a great sales pitch, and I sometimes would stop and say hello when I would see him. Every time I hear "Pretty Paper," I see this man in my mind's eye, to this day.

Willie, who was then also living in Fort Worth (I met Willie years later and asked him about the source of "Pretty Paper"), obviously noticed this man, too, and was affected enough to write a lasting tribute to this now-anonymous, handicapped street peddler. Willie later recorded the song, but when Orbison found it in 1963, he made it famous worldwide. Other artists who have recorded the song include Glen Campbell, Kenny Chesney, Chris Isaak and Freddy Fender. Here are some of the lyrics to "Pretty Paper":

Crowded streets busy feet hustle by you

Downtown shoppers, Christmas is nigh

There he sits all alone on the sidewalk

Hoping that you won't pass him by

Should you stop better not much too busy

Better hurry, my, how time does fly

And in the distance the ringing of laughter

And in the midst of the laughter he cries

Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue ...

Merry Christmas.

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