Back in the 1970, Willie Nelson had grown discontented with the role that those in the music industry in Nashville had tried
to impose upon him. He left the country music capitol and moved back to his native Texas. Sitting around in a hotel room in Austin with longtime friend Edwin "Bud" Shrake [Bud Shrake], the two devised a story about a songwriter who was going through hard times, trying to find himself. That discussion, and several others following it, would be the beginning of the script of "Songwriter." In fact, the very hotel in which the two first spoke, would later serve to lodge the cast and crew of the film.
Both Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson wrote over a dozen original songs for the movie, all performed live on film by the two singers, as well as their leading lady co-stars Melinda Dillon and Lesley Ann Warren.
Kris Kristofferson and the picture got Oscar-nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Music - Original Song Score, up against Jeff Moss for The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), but both lost out to Prince for Purple Rain (1984).
Some of the sites in Austin in Texas, USA used for the filming include the Austin Opry House, the scene of many a Willie Nelson concert off-screen; the Palmer Auditorium; the United Bank Building, which served as the Nashville headquarters of Rodeo Rocky Enterprises; and the Pedernales Country Club. The club, owned by Willie Nelson, boasted an impressive golf course, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, as well as complete recording facilities, which had turned out several of Willie's albums, earning Pedernales the nickname, "the cut and putt."
For Melinda Dillon, the role of Honey Carder represented the fruition of a longtime dream. Dillon explained: "I've always wanted to play a singer in a movie, and I've always been let down. I didn't get to play Patsy Cline in Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) [that got cast with Sissy Spacek], and I didn't get to play the woman [Rosa Lee] in Tender Mercies (1983) [that got cast with Tess Harper], and I wanted those parts. Then, old Honey came along, and I wanted to play her, because Willie Nelson was in it. Singing with Willie Nelson and his band was one of the most exciting things that I can ever imagine doing."