“God’s Problem Child” is also an all-star collaboration, written by Tony Joe White and Jamey Johnson, sung by Nelson, Johnson and Nelson’s recently passed on friend, Leon Russell. He finds meaning in the song and claims it for himself.
The minor-key yet still optimistic “God’s Problem Child,” another song Nelson didn’t write, is one of many examples of his talent for interpretation. “And it wouldn’t be all it is without Merle.” Haggard’s guitarist son, Ben, and Alison Krauss are among the album’s guest stars. “When it comes to country music, he’s the world,” Nelson sings. They include “He Won’t Ever Be Gone,” a tribute to Nelson’s friend and fellow country outlaw, the late Merle Haggard. The selections they didn’t write compliment the original material beautifully. Nelson and his longtime producer, Buddy Cannon, co-write seven of the 13 songs. God’s Problem Child assembles songs about life, love, mortality and carrying on amidst adversity. Like any great album, it works as a complete statement about where the artist is in his life. It's simply an uncommonly strong latter-day record from Willie Nelson: there isn't a hint of fussiness and the songs and the performances are so understated, they only seem richer with repeated spins.Willie Nelson released his latest album, the wise and warm God’s Problem Child, on April 28, the day before his 84th birthday. His sense of humor remains sharp - "Delete and Fast Forward" is one of the best expressions of exasperation at the state of the world in the late 2010s - and his sentiment isn't sticky he salutes the late Leon Russell by leaving in his old friend's guest vocal on the title track and pays tribute to Merle Haggard with "He Won't Ever Be Gone." All these songs hang together - they're songs about love, loss, memory, and mistakes - but God's Problem Child isn't a song cycle, nor is it a major statement. Whenever Nelson looks at his twilight years, it's either with clear eyes or bemusement: he salutes his friends who have crossed over on the lovely "Old Timer" and admits that "It Gets Easier" when you get older because you can let your feelings fade, but he gets a kick that he's still around to experience it all. "Little House on the Hill" gets things off with a skip and the record regularly returns to a laid-back groove that's often punctuated by blues, honky tonk ballads, and lazy laments. Nelson is in better voice than he was in 2016, when he released two tribute LPs, and his band has a relaxed gait that harks back to his classic outlaw records of the '70s but feels mellowed with age. "Still Not Dead" provides a gateway to the rest of God's Problem Child, where Willie looks at the world with a blend of bemusement and melancholy suiting a road warrior who is still going strong in his eighties. Since that record, Willie lost several friends and he's also been the subject of several death hoaxes, a subject he tackles with a grin on "Still Not Dead," one of seven originals Nelson co-wrote with his longtime producer, Buddy Cannon. Mortality hangs over God's Problem Child, Willie Nelson's first solo album of original songs since 2014's Band of Brothers.
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