Like all of us, this man is a product of his time and place. He was the quintessential middle class over achiever who had his mid-life crisis early:
- an athelete scholar who loved Blake and wrote a failed novel in his youth;
- studied in England as a Rhodes scholar;
- ordered to West Point to teach English literature as an Army captain – but resigned his commission instead;
- flew helicopters to make money for his child support payments;
- disowned by his mother when he left respectability and went to Nashville
…
In essence he was a dreamer in disguise, a failed novelist who turned to song-stories as a way to get to the heart of it all. Mark Knopfler, that genius guitatrist, said so succinctly and sardonically about singers: money for nothing and the chicks are free.
Except they aren’t free, not really – which is the point of Knopfler’s song if you listen closely. Kristofferson, the ‘straight arrow’ of youth, probably surprised himself as much as anyone when he totted up the price of fame. But I’ll bet he’d pay it all over again, including the costs borne by those ‘hostages to fortune’(whom he probably petitioned for pardon on a regular basis) – his children.
This first part of Kristofferson’s biography, below, covers his childhood and on up to a delayed-fuse-Big-Rebellion, where he ends up as a janitor looking for the chance. It’s easy for us to see that his flight to fame ought to have begun earlier, when he was younger and unemcumbered by children. But he must have been fighting his Scandinavian DNA where you do what is expected of you…and then, American-style, throw it all away for the chance to be heard. Americans are a people of second or even third chances, of re-inventions of self while we struggle to find the center. Doing it over until you get it right.
Makes you wonder what his epitaph will be; there are so many good lines in his oeuvre from which to choose. The Baron – when going out on a limb in his unexpected reincarnation as a member of the Counterjihad – frequentlly quotes the tagline from KK’s “Bobby McGee” – “nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’, but it’s free”. That’s probably the one they’ll use, but I hope they choose an alternative, equally humorous but edgier, line for Mr Kristofferson’s headstone: I never beat the Devil, but sometimes I drank his beer for nothing…
This started out to be a zydeco video by a group called L’Angelus from Louisiana…Fayetteville? Lafayette? I forget. But deep in Catholic Cajun country, and mostly for their zydeco, but also for the wonderful energy of one of the young women – she never stops moving. I even tried to get their performance in Norway for “The Tall Ships” but nothing seemed recorded well.
So then someone suggested “On the Road Again” – that old Willie Nelson favorite. It was good for a detour through Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, even Janis Joplin. She wasn’t here long; a crying shame. But there she was on You Tube singing a Kris Kristofferson perennial – though it was hardly a ‘perennial’ when she sang it.
It was then I remembered reading recently that Kristofferson said he’s got “memory problems” – as in, his short term memory is pretty much gone and dementia is waiting in the wings. He does remember all his songs though so he still performs. Recalling the interview, I wanted to find a version of his own recording of “Sunday Morning Coming Down”. The man has always been able to write visual, story-telling lyrics, and with this one he cuts to the heart of loneliness at the center of a young songwriter’s struggle.
It seemed best to go with an early recorded version, when his voice was still strong and sure. Finding out about his approaching dementia, I knew immediately this was the song. The loss of love is only alluded to, this is really about the self in the daylight when all the bars are closed and there is no escape from your mistakes. Even though he’s old now and looking at – as he calls mortality – “that empty blue horizon”, this young man’s rail is still apropos.
The fan who uploaded this version said of the scenes he used to highlight the track he’d put up:
This is all Kris. The scenes are from his movies “Cisco Pike” (1971) “Trouble in mind” (1985) “Heaven’s Gate” (1980) “Semi-tough” (1977) “A star is born” (1976) a tiny scene is from the bio -docu about Kris and a tiny effect is from “Millenium”
I had no idea Kristofferson had been in all those movies. I never saw “Semi-Tough” but I read the book., which appears to be in print still:
Hilarious, especially the stages of drunkeness. Oh wait, that list might be in “Baja Oklahoma”, another Texas tale:
The author of both books, Dan Jenkins, is a chicken-fried steak genius of Texan humor. His description of those professionally cute young women as “steel-bellied air heads” is perfect. And the implausible tale one character tells in order to avoid his wife’s wrath and disbelief, ending with the fellow’s adamant, “that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it”? It’s become one of those sayings our family uses…but I digress – and even more so with the Baron away right now.
Here’s Kristofferson’s young voice (1970’s I think):
[NOTE:For non-Americans who might not be familiar with what used to be part of American urban life, look at the brief scene ~3.50. Those hands you see lifting him up are probably not policemen. Based on their uniforms, they appear to be Salvation Army workers. That couldn’t happen now. Yes, the Salvation Army is still here, but their hands are already more than full.]
In this same fan’s notes I found the following background:
Kris said in an interview, “This song probably was the most directly autobiographical thing I had written. In those days I was living in a slum tenement that was torn down afterwards, but it was 25 dollars a month in a condemned building, and “Sunday Morning Coming Down” was more or less looking around me and writing about what I was doing.
One time, some people broke into that place, and I had to call the police station to answer some questions about it, and the guy said, “Yeah, they really trashed the place when they went in there.” But I hadn’t noticed that it was any different. There were holes in the wall bigger than I was.
It was quite a place, so “Sunday Morning Coming Down” is kind of more or less what I was living at that time. I guess it was depressing, I don’t know, but the chorus was kind of uplifting. … What I was really trying to do was to keep the feeling of loss and of sadness. For me at that time, it was the loss of my family and looking at a little kid swinging on a swing and his daddy pushing him. That was the feeling I wanted to get for the whole song. I think Sunday was the choice because the bars were closed in the morning and nobody was at work, so if you were alone, it was the most alone time…”
Somehow, the listener could always tell the place in his soul this sad song originated. Many other singers have sung his songs, and some have done them better. But this one? No, this one is most particularly his.
And yeah, Mr Kristofferson is no doubt one of the Hollywood left clueless ones. But in his prime, he wrote some mighty conservative lyrics.
Maybe next time I can find a L’Angelus video with good visuals to post. They are a world away from Kristofferson but they drink from the same cup, though for entirely different reasons. And their story is also worth telling, though they have a whole lifetime of music yet to make and a whole history of Acadian memories to give us…
The sidewalk scene looks awfully familiar — I believe it is St. Paul, Minnesota, on Sixth Street West, looking up toward St. Peter Street. Nice clip — thanks for posting it.
I’ll bet it’s changed since then -that’s a growing place. Do you know which movie it’s from?
Not a clue about the movie. Downtown St. Paul actually hasn’t changed much, which is why I recognized the sidewalk scene. The cars are different, but that’s about it. If you’re ever up there, one thing to see is the life-size bronze statue of F. Scott Fitzgerald that’s in Rice Park. It’s not on a plinth or anything, just right next to the sidewalk.
Haunting!
Big fan of Kris – went to see him when he played the Music Hall in Aberdeen a while back. Another guy you might like is the one and only Mr. Billy Joe Shaver.
This is new for me. I like his mountain-twanged twisted voice and those populist lyrics…”the guvenmint”.
Fine guitar, too. I could probably grow to recognize it eventually. However, for me Mark Knopfler’s guitar is so distinctive and so late 20th century…of course, he drew from this well of American music in order to create his own distinctive style. Influenced in part, no doubt, by his Hungarian-Jewish refugee father.
I love the traditions in back of all this. It began in Scotland mostly, transformed itself to the peculiar notation and intonations of the poverty-stricken Appalachains, then eventually moving to the flatlands – especially Texas and thereabouts.
It’s all good.
The guitarist in Billy Joe’s band for many years was his son Eddy. Sadly, not long after the death of Billy Joe’s wife & Eddy’s mother, Brenda, Billy Joe got the news that his only son had died of a drug overdose. Billy Joe went on stage that night and sang with Willie Nelson.
Billy Joe has been married 4 times that I know about, had a heart attack on stage, has been arrested for attempted murder, had nearly all the fingers on his right hand cut off with a bandsaw, and wrote almost all the songs on Waylon Jennings’ landmark “outlaw country” album Honky Tonk Heroes.
I saw Billy Joe playing at the Arches in Glasgow a few years back; I drove down with my uncle, who’s a massive fan. One of Billy Joe’s new songs is “The Git Go” which goes like this …
Politicians make promises that they can’t keep
They keep printin’ money ‘till they get in way too deep
It’s the same old lesson, they never learn,
They’re too busy workin’ on their next term
Politicians keep makin’ fools out of you and me
It’s been that way since the git-go
It’s always been that way …
Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings singing Ride Me Down Easy (by Billy Joe Shaver)
Willie Nelson singing I Couldn’t Be Me Without You (by Billy Joe Shaver)
Johnny Cash singing If I Give My Soul (by Billy Joe Shaver)
Billy Joe playing I’m Just An Old Chunk Of Coal (with Eddy)
Waylon Jennings singing Honky Tonk Heroes (by Billy Joe Shaver)
Pick it, Moon!
Billy Joe and Eddy Shaver playing Blood Is Thicker Than Water
Billy Joe and Eddy Shaver playing Highway of Life
Jimmy Dale Gilmore singing Heart’s A’Bustin’ (by Billy Joe Shaver)
Well, Nick it looks like only you and I are afficiandos of Twang (me Irish mither’s sniffy name for…actually, she liked Texas swing, but…)
The drug problem among the young is sadder than words can say…I’ve lost some kin to that scourge, too. But I never had to get up and perform. Just get up and go to work until fibromyalgia took over.
DA BARON B HOME. Back to Islam and mayhem, y’all.
Like I always say to the Patriot over at his blog, the day Islamic culture starts producing music like that is the day I’ll take the multicultists’ claim that all cultures are the same seriously. Until then, I’ll just keep listening to Billy Joe and the boys, and the multicultists can all go to hell.
Say hi to the Patriot, please. He’s in my thoughts…
Of course you know Islam doesn’t do music or much else concerned with Beauty or Goodness. It’s a heartless political supremacy – which is why, in the long run, it won’t dominate.
I like the Chinese attitude towards Western music: learning to read and play music enhances the parts of the brain concerned with the elements of mathematics.Thus, they imported Bach (the mathematician’s musician) and Beethoven and let bloom ( umm, make that ordered) millions of pianos.
Whilst I am indeed a big fan of The Twang, and other things country, I’d have to say you’ve neglected a wide range of quite exquisite Islamic music which does indeed literally abound in beauty and goodness.
I’m not an expert on the whole range of cultures whose religious music it makes up, but it’s worth investigating Qawwali music from the Sufis of Pakistan, the wide range of Berber music from North Africa and also the Madih Nadawi Arabic hymns. Even just these three examples show a variety of incredibly beautiful and moving devotional musical styles which are very comparable to western Christian religious styles.
There are also some quite extraordinary modern genres which match nationalistic and religious modes eg Malian touregs who have actually been victimized by Islamists for being too western!
Anyway, there’s an incredible diversity if Islamic music out there worth uncovering if have the interest and open mind.
Thanks for this information. I guess I believed the fatwahs and the Koran. I’m glad they figured out a work-around to Mohammed’s rules.
Do you have any You Tube videos to recommend?
btw do you really say ‘Mither’ (mi-ther) because that’s still in use up in the frozen north. I’ve also noticed the actors using ‘mither’ (pronounced differently: m-aye-thir) as a verb on Emmerdale, a Brit TV programme which is set in Yorkshire.