Jesus Was a Capricorn was produced by Fred Foster and, like his previous album Border Lord, features more elaborate instrumentation than his first two LPs.
[2] Malone wrote, "'Why Me, Lord'" - as the song is sometimes known - "may seem greatly out of character for Kristofferson, but it can be interpreted as his own personal religious rephrasing of 'Sunday Morning Coming Down.'
Malone described Kristofferson's gruff vocal styling as "perfect" for the song, since "he sounds like a man who has lived a lot but is now humbling himself before God.
Johnny Cash's memoir Man in Black, reiterated the story that Larry Gatlin sang "Help Me" at the Evangel Temple, which inspired Kristofferson to write the song.
The song would also be recorded by George Jones, Merle Haggard, Conway Twitty, Willie Nelson, Connie Smith, and David Allan Coe.
Although “Why Me” revealed another side of Kristofferson's songwriting, the subject matter in his songs remained rooted in the grim realities of life, exploring broken relationships, lost family, drug addiction, and prostitution.
As Michael Striessguth put it in his book Outlaw: Waylon, Willie, Kris, and the Renegades of Nashville, “By 1972, singer-songwriter meant James Taylor and Carole King, whose soft sounds and safe lyrics appealed to radio, while Kristofferson's music continued to mine the oil-stained streets for inspiration, producing ruminations on prostitution, dissipation, and getting high that proved too thorny for the broadcast airwaves.”[4] This uncompromising artistic stance might be most apparent in the song “Sugar Man,” “a noirish study of a woman prowling the streets, selling her body, and injecting heroin.”[5] Kristofferson, who fell out with his parents after rejecting a career at West Point to pursue a career as a songwriter, addresses his lost family in “Jesse Younger,” his anger evident in the performance, which contains much of the sarcastic aggressiveness found in “Blame It on the Stones” from his debut album.
Frank Sinatra covered “Nobody Wins” for his 1973 comeback album Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back, while Brenda Lee took the song to the country Top 5 the same year.
As on his previous album, girlfriend and soon-to-be wife Rita Coolidge sings on the album, contributing vocals to “Give It Time to Be Tender” and “It Sure Was (Love),” and Kristofferson also duets with Larry Gatlin on the Gatlin's composition “Help Me.” The first two singles from the album, the title track and “Jesse Younger,” both stiffed,[clarification needed] and "Jesus Was a Capricorn'" faded down the charts, but the label released “Why Me” as the third single and it quickly entered the country and pop charts, hitting number one in country in July 1973, and peaking in the pop Top 20 after a slow climb in November.
Record World called the title track a "funky song with a sing along kind of chorus with timely and clever lyrics delivered with appropriate gusto by Kris.