![god god](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Up4AAOSwPwVef5Lt/s-l300.jpg)
There have been difficulties along the way - struggles, misfortunes, mistakes, as well a kind of universal recognition that at times caused the music industry and others to take Nelson for granted. The considerable volume of work (in all, Nelson has recorded something like 110 albums, not including live sets or compilations) has been, at times, a testament to the music and artists that shaped him. He passed every audition, he’d made masterpieces that opened doors for both himself and others, and he’d shown confident and impeccable instincts. Nelson never second-guessed his music, and didn’t pause for anybody who did. One of the things that passes with time for an artist like Nelson is the need - or at least any obligation - to prove anything more to any of us. “He Won’t Ever Be Gone” from Willie Nelson’s new album GOD’S PROBLEM CHILD The singer faces the knowledge with both humor and with gravity - an earned honesty and self-possession. But as with most of the new music here, at the heart of the song there’s an awareness that time passes. It’s sort of like having the last laugh well ahead of time. I mean, fuck ’em, I don’t care.” Buddy Cannon - God’s Problem Child’s producer, and Nelson’s co-writer on seven of the album’s tracks - says: “I don’t know anybody else who would have a sense of humor enough to write a song that says ‘I woke up still not dead again.’ That makes me laugh every time I hear it. When I asked him the day after the song’s live debut if the internet’s frequent death rumors had troubled him, he shook his head with a slightly scornful smile.
![god god](https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/Hd415b4b724014fe8bbb8f83c51e0b6b0W/Never-Underestimate-A-Woman-Who-Listens-To-Willie-Nelson-And-Was-Born-In-June-Tshirts.jpg)
It was one of those occasions that signifies Nelson’s good-humored self-rule, and how it stands for the fans he has heartened for so long. An April 2015 website report, in particular, was enough to upset many fans: “A groundskeeper scheduled to perform yard maintenance on Nelson’s property reportedly found the singer/songwriter unresponsive on the front lawn and immediately called 911.” On stage at the Venetian Nelson delivered a riposte: “Well, I woke up still not dead again today/The gardener did not find me that a way…/I woke up still not dead again today.” The audience listened closely they caught the japes and laughed at a volume to match the band’s. “Still Not Dead” is a tuneful wisecrack, a high-stepping honky-tonk number inspired by the many death report hoaxes that have dogged the singer - and family, friends and band - in recent years. “I’m not sure if everybody in the band even knows it yet.” The five musicians alongside Nelson accompanied him into “Still Not Dead” - a song from his new album, God’s Problem Child - as if it was a moment they’d been long awaiting. On February 1st this year, in the middle of an opening date at Las Vegas’s Venetian Theater, Willie Nelson announced a new song he hadn’t sung in public before.