They went downstairs and Wayne cut it immediately. Carson always used his buddies’ reactions as a “gauge” to determine how good a new song was and judging by Bobby Womack and Reggie Young’s enthusiastic responses, Carson thought “Always On My Mind” could be big. He and Moman couldn’t wait to get to Nashville to play it for head man Fred Foster. Foster, however, was totally unimpressed, saying “I don’t think the world’s ready for that,” and refused to release it. Well, both men were livid and by the time they got back to Memphis, Carson remembers the last thing Chips said about the whole incident: “Foster’s gonna rue the day that he turned this song down, because some day “Always On My Mind” is going to be a massive hit.”
Even though “Always On My Mind” was released by such stars as Brenda Lee and Elvis Presley (as noted earlier), Willie Nelson had never heard of it until Johnny Christopher played it for him during sessions for the “Pancho And Lefty” duet album with Merle Haggard. Nelson loved the tune, but Haggard didn’t quite hear it. In hindsight, the song probably wouldn’t have made a good duet anyway and they were cutting a duet album. So Haggard was probably right in that respect and hadn’t even realized it.
Although Merle had nixed “Always On My Mind,” Willie cut a solo version in his new Pedernales Studio in Austin, Texas after he and Haggard finished their “Pancho And Lefty” album. The brand new studio wasn’t quite up to par yet and the first tracks turned out unusable. According to session pianist Bobby Wood, it was so bad that, at first, the $70,000 piano in there sounded like a spinet, but the technicians put a lot of “highs” on the piano and it ended up sounding pretty good. Nelson’s wife Connie and his daughters persuaded him to make “Always On My Mind” the title of his new solo album as well as the LP’s first single, which ended up becoming the biggest of Willie’s entire career. It grabbed the number one position of Billboard’s country singles chart on May 8, 1982 and held it for two weeks.