About For Real

Willie Nelson, his sons Micah and Lukas, plus Jakob Dylan, Dhani Harrison and Amos Lee have teamed for an all-star cover of Tom Petty’s “For Real.” Petty originally recorded “For Real” in August 2000, but the song wasn’t released until this past February when it appeared on the posthumous retrospective, The Best of Everything. The new cover, released as “For Real — For Tom,” finds the Nelsons, Harrison, Dylan and Lee cranking up the jangle of the original while also giving the tune a breezy country sway complete with harmonica and some soothing choral vocals. “When I first was sent this song asking if I wanted to record it, I was quite frankly dumbfounded,” Lukas Nelson tells Rolling Stone. “It was the whole manifesto of our band [Promise of the Real] in a song. It just shows how connected artists who have integrity are with others who share the same passion and fire for being honest with their soul. Fearless and real.”