Sunday Morning Coming Down - Kris Kristofferson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR6dn_8btos

Kris Kristofferson died last September 28th. Although a songwriter who had no less than 8 US Hot 100 albums plus a top ten hit single and many terrific songs to his name, including "Me and Bobby McGee" (see last post), "Help Me Make it through the Night" and "For the Good Times", he wasn't a great singer by any stretch of the imagination. His songs were often massive hits, however, when sung by other performers such as Janis Joplin, Gladys Knight, Roger Miller and even Perry Como, to name a few.

The son of a US Air Force officer, Kristofferson initially followed his father's wishes and became a a US Army helicopter pilot, stationed in West Germany, and was lucky not to be posted to Vietnam before leaving the forces in 1965. Earlier he'd gained a Rhodes Scholarship to study literature at Oxford University, representing Merton College at Rugby Union and was even awarded a "Blue" at boxing.

Although he achieved some success acting in movies as well as as a musician, Kristofferson always regarded himself a writer. admitting with disarming honesty "I'm not a great singer".

While working as a janitor in Nashville, he met June Carter and asked her to give husband Johnny Cash a tape of his songs, hoping he'd like and record one; weeks later, having heard nothing back, and by now having got a job flying choppers commercially, he famously landed in Cash's back garden to demand the country star's attention. It worked: Cash listened to the tape and recorded "Sunday Morning, Coming Down" which subsequently won 1979 "Song of the Year" at the Country music Association Awards, launching Kristofferson's musical career.

Kristofferson was a charmer, a drinker, a classic blokey rebel-rouser. Initially he was pro US military involvement in Vietnam, but changed his mind after ex US pilots told him of throwing live prisoners out of their helicopters. Over the years, perhaps surprisingly considering his origins and the musical genre he espoused, he supported many left wing causes such as the American Farmers' Union and consistently opposed US overseas militarism.

Kristofferson himself credited "Sunday Morning Coming Down" as the song that enabled him to leave his day job, and become a full-time songwriter.

At his worst Kristofferson sounds like a a bargain basement Lee Hazelwood. At his best, he sounds like a man who's just turned over a new leaf, as he does here on "Sunday Morning Coming Down" in which Kristofferson draws on his hard-drinking life as a struggling musician and nails the morning-after feeling of lonely hopelessness perfectly:

"Well, I woke up Sunday morning

with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt,

and the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad

so I had one more for dessert.

Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes

and found my cleanest dirty shirt

and I shaved my face and combed my hair

and stumbled down the stairs to meet the day......"

with the smell of someone frying chicken taking him

".....back to somethin' that I'd lost

somehow, somewhere along the way".

Kris Kristofferson wasn't the best actor, but he had his good moments, he wasn't a great songwriter or singer too, and as a person he left a lot to be desired too; but he projected an honesty, so that the whole sum of him was mostly pretty damn good, just like this song.

It's that same lack of pretentiousness that's reflected in Kristofferson's request for these opening words from Leonard Cohen's "Bird on a Wire" to be engraved on his gravestone:

"Like a bird on the wire,

like a drunk in a midnight choir,

I have tried in my way to be free."