Is "Sweet Old World" about someone in particular?

A quick response is in Rolling Stone 9.26.14, the “40 Saddest Country Songs of All Time:”
#22 “Written in tribute to a friend who committed suicide, “Sweet Old World” is a standout from Williams’ 1992 album of the same name, which is full of contemplations about life, death and all that we leave behind. Williams began writing the song in 1979 after poet Frank Stanford killed himself with three gunshots to the heart, but it didn’t see the light of day until more than 13 years later. Williams told the New Yorker she held the ballad “because my career has been distinguished by other people, who have always been men, telling me what I should sound like.” Sonically, it’s rather simple, with Williams singing into an empty abyss, bursting with both sadness and anger.”

And an in depth, intense discussion of her Southern upbringing and ‘love affair with loss’ is covered by Bill Buford in The New Yorker, 6.5.00:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/06/05/delta-nights

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