I’ve mentioned before that I am Extremely Not A Country Fan, but there is an exception to every rule, and mine is Willie Nelson. One of my earliest memories is riding with my Dad in his red pickup truck out into the pasture, him softly singing along to a cassette tape of Stardust; he was in his late-30s and I thought that such an impossibly distant age to be…

Of course, a major part of my affection for Willie lay in the fact that he’s not strictly a Country artist (I mean, ever heard his reggae album?). Stardust in fact is a great example of his eclecticism, since it’s actually a collection of old Tin Pan Alley covers, favorites from the age of Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. The 1977 LP was initially met with disapproval by his record label, who were understandably expecting yet another country album; but Willie went ahead and released it anyways, and had the last laugh when Stardust became the biggest seller of his career. (He was Outlaw Country not just from the sheer amount of weed he smoked, but from how often he shot from the hip).

Willie was perhaps emboldened to release Stardust because he had just been through this same process only 4 years earlier in 1973, when he recorded an album of old Gospel standards called The Troublemaker. The record was rejected by Atlantic before being released by Columbia, where it promptly became a hit itself. In retrospect, its weird that Atlantic ever thought the album too big a gamble, since it sure seems like a record of old-timey Gospel tunes would be catnip to the Country crowd; but then, it does contain one original that was definitely not intended to flatter a predominantly-conservative audience:

The title-track to “The Troublemaker” is a quick little dittie about this no-good jobless layabout, a groovy hippie peacenik runnin’ around in long-hair and sandals, “stirrin’ up the young folks/till they’re nothin’ but a disrespectful mob.” After airing his list of grievances against this itinerant ne’er-do-well, the narrator concludes with some satisfaction that they arrested the troublemaker last Friday “and sentenced him to die, though its not great loss,” only for the totally wild, unpredictable, left-field twist to be…are you sitting down for this? I think you should be sitting down for this, because this’ll blow your SQUARE FREAKIN’ MIND…the twist is–seriously, are you sitting down? You might have a fainting-spell after this reveal, you’ve had fair warning–that they took “him to a place called Calvary,” to “hang that troublemaker to a cross.”

SAY WHAAAAT???!!! You’re never gonna believe this, but the troublemaker was Christ the Savior all along! WHODA THUNK?!1!2?!

Visible from a full country mile away? Of course. A timely reminder to the Vietnam War-supporting Country crowd that Christ was the Prince of Peace, who taught us to turn the other cheek and love our enemies? You betcha. A timeless reminder that Christianity should not be a passive religion of the status quo, but should all be anxiously engaged in what the late Rep. John Lewis called “the good kind of trouble?” A thousand times yes. Still cheesy and sanctimonious as all get-out? Absolutely.

Still on my Sunday Morning playlist? Guilty as charged.

But we must all grow older; and though Willie Nelson has seemed to be 80 years old damn near his entire life, he really was in his 80s when he released “God’s Problem Child” a solid 44 years later in 2017.

Widely-hailed as a late-period (and I mean really late-period) minor masterpiece by the likes of Pitchfork and Rolling Stone, God’s Problem Child was co-written by Jamey Johnson and Tony Joe White, and features some deep-throated guest vocals from the late Leon Russell on the title-track. (Gentle reader, did I have to look up who the hell each of these people were? Reader, I did. Still Extremely Not A Country Fan.)

The lyrics are sparse, disconnected, bare. You can pick out vague, threadbare allusions to Icarus & Dedalus, or to being “Washed in the Blood” of the Lamb of God, but overall, it’s much more like a Low song (which you know coming from me is high praise indeed), in how it communicates less a message than a mood–the Sunday Morning mood, specifically.

It’s a song-title seemingly custom built for Willie Nelson, one of the last men standing of ye oulde Outlaw Country, coming to grips with his long-standing reputation now that he is just that much closer to returning to his Heavenly Father. Yet even as a “Problem Child,” he still seems to recognize that at least he is still a child, “for of such is the kingdom of heaven,” whom none can return to God without becoming–that indeed all are an enemy to God unless we become as little children^[1]Mosiah 3:19.

Yes, even problem children–maybe even especially problem children. I’m reminded here of Christ’s parable from Luke 18:10-14:

¹⁰ Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.

¹¹ The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.

¹² I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

¹³ And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.

¹⁴ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

In the end, God’s problem child is exalted even above the Pharisees and the self-righteous, precisely because he knows that he is a problem child. He smites his breast, begging God to be merciful to him a sinner; instead of calling out others for their hypocrisies (as he did on “The Trouble-Maker”), he has turned that critical eye firmly on himself. That is, he is repenting–which we all must do.

Hugh Nibley once said that it’s not your location on the stairway that matters, but which direction you are facing: a person on the top of the stairway looking down is in a far worse place than one at the bottom facing up. For that matter, Joseph Smith taught that the reason Christ leaves the 99 to go in search of the 1 lost sheep is because “the 99 are too righteous to repent. They are damned anyhow, you cannot save them.” For all who humble themselves will be exalted, and the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Willie Nelson seems to intuit the same.

Gentle reader, is this song also on my Sunday Morning playlist? Reader, it most assuredly is.