00:00Should I tell People Magazine I'm going to do something for the first time that I've never done?
00:04Everyone else does it all the time.
00:06Entertainers do it all the time.
00:08And I've never done it.
00:09Do you know what that is?
00:14Say I retire.
00:15I've never done that.
00:16I've never once said, you know what?
00:18I'm going to finish this and retire.
00:20I don't want to retire right this second, but I think it'd be fun to say it.
00:24Well, I was all about to call it on Old Town Road.
00:27Wish I could roll on back to that Old Town Road.
00:31I want to ride till I can't get out.
00:34I was going to do 2020 and just celebrate all the great festivals.
00:39And the record had went everywhere around the world and all the funnest festivals and shows.
00:46And I was just going to take 2020.
00:48Gave me a couple of Grammys in the month of January just to kick the year off strong, you know.
00:53Then about February, March, pandemic.
00:59Psh, world shuts down.
01:01I was sitting right here in this yard, me and my dog, Tommy Jack, looking around going, Tommy, I guess
01:05it's me and you.
01:06That's why I don't got no time to look back.
01:08I don't want to spend no time looking back.
01:09I like where everything looks right now and let's picture a great future, do fun things, creative things, songs that
01:19move you, hopefully move other folks, and striving for a purpose.
01:31All these years later and this album being with Brazen and with Noah and going back to our roots as
01:38a family and that my dad was such a part of our musical legacy and our, I want to say
01:45training, but none of us was trained.
01:48It's something in our ears, music, to play by ear.
01:52My mom had the same gift.
01:54She played everything by ear.
01:56I got lucky enough to get it and the kids got it.
01:59And to be in this moment with Brazen and Noah and this anniversary with Miley and it's just a great
02:07celebration of our family.
02:08I loved being Hannah then.
02:11I'm so living for it now.
02:13You know Hannah Montana?
02:15That's my child in real life.
02:17That's my little girl, Miley.
02:18Love you.
02:20That's both worlds.
02:21They was going to do that movie, the Hannah Montana, Back to Tennessee movie and shoot it in Louisiana.
02:29And I said, hey, guys, look, this would be great if Miley really did come to Tennessee.
02:35She ain't even going to have to be acting.
02:37And we're like, we'd love that, but there's no way they could compete with the incentives.
02:43I said, man, give it.
02:45Tennessee's good, man.
02:47Welcome to Tennessee.
02:49And I came here and scouted, took each location, including the field that you see out there.
02:54And you can picture back to the movie and the horses running and riding.
02:58So we came home, did the film here, then went back and did the fourth season of Hannah Montana.
03:04And now to gone through just a few weeks ago the 20-year anniversary and thinking, you know, wow, it's
03:14hard to believe that in 20 years, during that first year of the 20, my father died.
03:22Her grandfather, she called him Pappy.
03:25And he only got to see a few episodes.
03:29So for us thinking, too, that's 20 years.
03:32We were doing, oddly enough, one of the funnest, most popular scenes we did in the series.
03:38I want my mullet back.
03:42My old Camaro and my 8-track.
03:45I mean, worldwide, that song is as big for me as Achy Breaky or Old Town Road.
03:51As we were filming those early episodes of Hannah, my dad had started going to the doctor and he was
03:56going to see a specialist for cancer up in Boston.
03:59He had been to the doctor in Boston and he's calling to tell me on my answering machine, hey, bud,
04:05just letting you know things are going fair to Midland.
04:08And about that time, Johnny Damon, who had a mullet, who is actually the guy I wrote the song when
04:14I saw Johnny Damon from the Red Sox on TV for the first time.
04:19And it was the Yankees against the Red Sox.
04:21And this guy steps up with a mullet.
04:23His name was Johnny Damon.
04:24In that very moment, I just, this song just came out of the sky, really.
04:29I want my mullet back.
04:33My old Camaro and my 8-track.
04:37Going into the day we was going to do the episode, Disney called Time Out and called me to the
04:44side and said, my father had just died.
04:46And I was like.
04:48And he loved I Want My Mullet Back.
04:51He had had like the early demo.
04:53He said, Bo, this feels like a hit.
04:54Everybody wants their mullet back.
04:56It was a simpler time.
04:57Camaros.
04:58He loves ZZ Top.
05:00A lot of people don't think that.
05:01So I asked Miley.
05:02I said, what do you want to do?
05:04And we took a time out for a second.
05:06And then she said, what would Pappy say?
05:08And I'd say, you know what?
05:09I know what he'd say.
05:10He'd say, the show must go on.
05:12Me and you get up there.
05:13Let's do our song.
05:14And then we'll go home and bury him.
05:17And that's what we did.
05:18And so anytime you see that, that was one take of I Want My Mullet Back.
05:22And it was that take.
05:23And then that was a wrap.
05:33I love that thing that Noah did with my dad, Pappy.
05:39And it was the title track of her newest album, I Want My Loved Ones To Go With Me, written
05:47by my grandfather.
05:47My dad sang that song with the Crownsman Quartet.
05:51But Noah changed the name to Appletree.
05:55And only Noah would change that song to Appletree, which is so appropriate.
06:00And she wrote a whole other beautiful Noah story, marinated it with my dad's gospel quartet.
06:07And that is the title track of her album.
06:09She's got that one song, honestly, that saved my life.
06:15It's called Don't Put It All On Me.
06:17Brazen wrote that.
06:19And that was, I think, one of the only songs on her album that was not written by her.
06:25And Brazen wrote it and she cut it.
06:28Don't put it all on me.
06:31I became, I want to say, not only addicted to the song, but it became necessary, repetitive
06:39every morning, every day, all day long, all through the night.
06:43Me and my dog, Tommy Jack, would just sit and we would play, just play the song all day long.
06:48It was the only thing that somehow gave me a little bit of peace in that moment.
06:54I got really sick and almost died.
06:58And I was like, as I was trying to stay alive, at times they sent me home from the hospital
07:06and I'd be there with Tommy Jack, but my body was blowing up.
07:10And there was a toxicity of some type of whatever.
07:15And if it had erupted, I would have died.
07:18In the last moment, I had a prayer answered.
07:21There was a prayer rock.
07:23And I found my, this knee, this white knee, part of the reason why it's so white is I started
07:31getting on that rock every morning, every day, every sunset, every night.
07:35And I go put my knee in that hole and say, God, please, I need a miracle.
07:39I need a miracle.
07:40Tommy Jack would be sitting there with me going, he needs a miracle.
07:43He needs a miracle.
07:44Like, please, he needs a miracle.
07:45Lo and behold, they was going to do one last surgery.
07:47I got to the hospital, they said, Mr. Cyrus, get your, it's gone.
07:54He healed.
07:55Had a miracle.
07:56Love, hope, music, joy, things that I'd really have forgotten exactly maybe what they felt
08:06like.
08:06And I go, oh, even to dream again.
08:09To dream again of what?
08:10I don't know.
08:11Maybe write a song that somebody gives a about.
08:14Maybe go try and sing.
08:15And I go, I can't sing.
08:17I've been stricken with a disease and I have no voice.
08:20I can't talk.
08:21And I start believing.
08:22Once I had the first miracle, I said, Cyrus, you can't talk or sing now, but believe you
08:28can.
08:29Believe you can.
08:30I said, I said.
08:31And that's where I found leaning into that song with Noah.
08:35I just loved it so much.
08:36And to me, that's what it felt like.
08:38And I do credit, that particular song was saving me.
08:42It's part of it for sure.
08:46She came into my life in the making of this album.
08:50My knees so weak, I can hardly stand.
08:52I'll get where I'm going.
08:53I don't give a damn.
08:55Cause it's all right.
08:56I thought, wait, I've never seen anybody that in some ways has more in common with the
09:03insanity that I have lived through this crazy business called show business and then mix
09:11in other personal good things and tragedies.
09:17She's like me when she has a good one.
09:19It's a really, really good.
09:21But when it's bad, it's bad.
09:23We found a commonality in that.
09:25Why are you hiding out on a little Caribbean island singing in a beach bar?
09:30I reckon everybody on this island asking that same question.
09:33That's how we met, yeah.
09:34Christmas in Paradise.
09:36I flew to do this movie in the middle of the Caribbean only because I needed a distraction
09:46at that moment from real life.
09:48And being this character named Jimmy that they'd written for me and I said, go be Jimmy with
09:53Kelsey Grammer.
09:54That sounds fun.
09:56And the morning I flew to do it was Easter morning.
09:59Landed down there and then realized that maybe they had oversold their budget and their capabilities
10:05of making like a great movie.
10:08But at that point, I was like, I did it.
10:12And then I flew home.
10:14And then, like, I don't even know.
10:17But I think they cut our scene out.
10:18Actually, she and I had one scene together and it was a really deep conversation about
10:23her father dying, played by Kelsey Grammer.
10:27And I thought we did really good in it, but they didn't make the movie.
10:32I don't know if anybody's ever seen it.
10:34I'm very pleased to say that she reached out of a text because she had my phone number
10:40because she was a producer of the film.
10:44I saw her for the first time personally on March the 3rd of last year.
10:49It was our first time to see each other.
10:51And she was like, man, everybody's coming to Tennessee.
10:55I said, yeah, man, everybody's coming to Tennessee.
10:58It's the hot spot to film.
10:59And so she came over to explore why Nashville is so happening.
11:05She ended up staying.
11:07And then, lo and behold, then she told me it was my turn to go there.
11:11I finally leave Williamson County for the first time of five years and go to London.
11:16Craziest thing I've ever done.
11:18But I had to do it.
11:20It felt like something just said, try again, try again.
11:26Gosh, man.
11:27Okay.
11:28It feels like something real.
11:30It feels like something real.
11:32The first time we ever, then I made it to London, and I just got there and made it to
11:38her house.
11:38And I was like on the wrong time zone and everything, and her and D-Man said, hey, we've decided
11:44to go to Rome, to the big Valentino exhibit.
11:51When's the car tomorrow?
11:52What?
11:52And next day, I don't know.
11:53There we go.
11:54And then we're getting out, and then she's got on that pink dress.
12:00I'm in all black.
12:01There was something in the opposites of us, I think, that maybe not only got other people's attention, but maybe
12:11even got our own attention.
12:13Elizabeth would say to me, do you understand your voice is coming back?
12:16She encouraged it to the point to where, I mean, I don't want to point a finger at nobody, but
12:21she's the one that had me do Masked Singer.
12:24And she said, you need to do it to challenge yourself.
12:29Ain't no sunshine when she's gone, and this house just ain't no home, anytime she goes away.
12:39She is so smart to say that, because that affects me in my, to say, well, she's right about that.
12:46And so I go, if you don a 250-pound owl suit and go out on national worldwide television and
12:55try to sing,
12:57then you, therefore, are a singer, and it's time to get back.
13:01And she said, you can't sing.
13:03She said, you've got to do this.
13:04It's important to your spirit.
13:06Where the sun rises on the hill, put me there, bury me there.
13:16The oddest part about it is, is that was the beginning of Brazen saying, Dad, I don't know what's going
13:22on with your voice,
13:23but this is the most I've ever loved your singing.
13:26And him and Noah started, you know, comparing it to some of, you know, Larry Cohen, Johnny Cash.
13:35They started comparing it to some really great sound that Christopherson, one of them, had mentioned.
13:40It's going, man, and I'm going, I'm not there, but I hear what you're saying if I'll just keep working
13:48my voice.
13:50So I do the album and we cut the tracks, but then I do go to England, give my voice
13:58back, go do the Masked Singer, challenge myself.
14:03And in the latter part of the fall, I'm back on my home turf with my studio and my voice
14:08is back.
14:09It was God's timing for me to go beat every vocal that I had done seven months earlier.
14:15So we brought the studio here and finished it up really strong.
14:21Noah and I came into this barn and made the video, you know, and then for us to go full
14:27circle to stagecoach and Brazen join us on that show.
14:31What more could I ask for? I don't have anything to complain about.
14:35I certainly don't even want to take time looking back.
14:38Whatever happened is in the rearview mirror.
14:41And the present and the future looks so good and feels good.
14:49I love this music and I feel really, really like a full plate of what this music is.
15:01And even I've wrote so many new songs with new stuff.
15:05I've got two or three albums in the can.
15:07And I point this way because that's where the studio is there in the house.
15:12I'm up to speed on the music and I love it right now.
15:15I'm going out on tour and playing, taking it to the people.
15:18That's a fun part.
15:19But I've also got some creative things that I want to do and acting in particular right now.
15:26As my dad said, like, life is a series of adjustments.
15:30Sometimes it's fair.
15:31Sometimes it's not fair.
15:33I think that's maybe sometimes good for everyone, you know, to just go life is a series of adjustments.
15:40I saw that crazy old man in the pink cardigan say that.
15:43He said it.
15:44And they go, yeah, it's actually true.
15:47And you make the adjustment to whatever the cards are that life has dealt you.
15:51So that's kind of, you know, always been for me, sometimes change is scary.
15:59And I'll keep doing the wrong thing for a long time because I'm scared of change.
16:04But when I finally do get the courage up to commit in my mind and say I'm going to do
16:08this,
16:09then that's the way it is.
16:11No looking back.
16:12I don't got a lot of time left.
16:14Well, however this story goes, that's the way this story.
16:17Probably going to end somewhere close to that.
16:19Whatever happens from here, this is my legacy.
16:22Thanks, Lee.
16:23Thanks, Lee.
16:24Thanks, Lee.
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