Willie Nelson has crafted more than his fair share of timeless, touching ballads. In It Gets Easier, the country music legend sings about a sense of freedom that comes with advancing years and the inevitable of challenges that come our way.
With over six decades worth of experience in the music industry, 89-year-old Willie Nelson can tell you a thing or two about country music and about life.
Willie lost two of his best friends in 2016—Merle Haggard in April, Leon Russell in November—so it was no surprise that his album, God’s Problem Child, has its fair share of death songs. The album became known as the first chapter in his mortality trilogy. Everyone’s favorite track from it? It Gets Easier.
Co-written with longtime friend Buddy Cannon, who also produced God’s Problem Child, the song not only applies to the advantages of aging, but also to Willie and Buddy’s collaborative process.
“We have a system that works,” Nelson told Rolling Stone Country. “I write a verse and he’ll write a verse and next thing you know we’ve got a song completed. Then we’ll get a melody, and he’ll go in the studio with a band to record it and put his vocal on there. Then when I get a chance, I go [into] the studio and I’ll record my vocal. Over the years, we put out four or five albums. It’s been really easy to do it that way.”
The video, which is shot completely in soulful black-and-white, opens with a cinematic shot of blades of grass gently blowing in the wind and the sun on the horizon. The outdoor scenes are interwoven with footage of Willie seated in a recording studio before a microphone, gently singing the song using his signature elastic phrasing, no unnecessary frills are needed to enhance his wispy-around-the-edges voice. Just Willie Nelson, his voice, and his trusty old guitar:
It gets easier, as we get older / It gets easier to say “not today.” / It gets easier, as we get older to say “go away, not today.” / I don’t have to do one damn thing that I don’t want to do except for missing you / And that won’t go away.
This song makes us feel all sorts of feelings. What is your favorite song from God’s Problem Child? Let us know in the comments and be sure to pass this story along to your friends and family who haven’t yet heard It Gets Easier.