Babies grow up all kinds of ways

Willie Nelson has come out with a gay cowboy song – one written long before “Brokeback Mountain” became part of the public consciousness.

“Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other)” includes such lines as “What did you think all them saddles and boots was about?” and “Inside every cowboy there’s a lady who’d love to slip out.”

Available exclusively through iTunes, it debuted Tuesday on Howard Stern‘s satellite radio show.

It was written by Texas-born singer-songwriter Ned Sublette in 1981. Sublette said he came up with the idea during the “Urban Cowboy” craze and always imagined Nelson singing it.

Someone passed along a copy of the song to Nelson in the late 1980s and he recorded it last year at his studio in Texas.

The 72-year-old Nelson, whose hits include “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to Be Cowboys” and “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys,” also appears on the “Brokeback Mountain” soundtrack singing “He Was a Friend of Mine.”