To my mind, Kristofferson redeemed the country genre, which all too often was associated with leather boots and Stetson hats – and songs which could best be described as soppy sentimental cowboy kitsch.
But country has its roots in the blues, bluegrass and the folk ballads brought to the
Kristoffer Kristofferson
After a stint as an Army pilot, he declined a professor’s post at West Point and moved to
Interestingly, it was other performers, including Jerry Lee Lewis, who first made him famous by recording his songs. His first album, Kristofferson, released in 1970, was not a great success, but the following year Janis Joplin reached No 1 with her version of Me And Bobby McGee. On the strength of that, the album was re-released as Me And Bobby McGee and became a hit, alongside Jesus Was A Capricorn.
But Border Lord, released in 1973, was again a commercial failure. However, he won several Grammies that year for his songwriting.
Acting became another source of income. His first film was in 1971, with the most successful being “A Star Is Born” with Barbara Streisand, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor.
If any proof were needed that Kristofferson was considered one of the great composers of his time, it was the decision by
The first album by him which we had as teens was The Silver Tongued Devil And I (1971), which had a cover of the ultra-cool Kristofferson dressed in brown. This album was a classic, again immensely rich lyrically.
With Me And Bobby McGee coming out the same year, Kristofferson went through a period of being one of the world’s most popular performers. This album included most of his early songs, which others had covered with such success.
He cemented his popularity with the controversial Jesus Was A Capricorn (1973), in which his song-writing skills, if anything were at their height – despite the album apparently not being a great commercial success.
The title track no doubt had our apartheid-era censors in a tizz, but fortunately it appeared to survive their self-righteous, Calvinistic clutches. In fact, it had a message that the apartheid rulers could well have heeded, about accepting people for who they are. But we’ll get to that later.
Spooky Lady's Sideshow (1973) was the last great solo album by Kristofferson that I really listened to, although sadly I learn from Wikipedia that it too did not meet with great commercial success.
Kris clearly lived a tortured life, as he dealt with the problems of drugs, booze and women. This is reflected in several songs, such as Nobody Wins, in which he says that the “loving was easy, it’s the living that’s hard”. Many songs deal with psychological breakdown, such as Billy Dee, who was “driven towards the darkness by the devils in his veins”. The drunken lifestyle is reflected in Out Of Mind, Out of Sight, which starts: “Buddy tip the bottle back and climb about the bus…”, and goes in to tell of him being “scared to death of dying, so I do my best to live”. Wonderful stuff!
His most anti-war song, Good Christian Soldier, traces the anomaly of a Christian at war: “It’s hard to be a Christian soldier, when you tote a gun and it hurts to have to watch a grown man cry…” Elsewhere he writes how the soldiers (presumably in
Kristofferson was married to Rita Coolidge from 1973 to 1980, during which he cut three albums of duets with her. While Full Moon (1973) and the 1974 album, Breakaway, both with Coolidge, did not feature many of his own compositions, they were still listened to avidly by us. This was the great Kris after all.
The one early Kristofferson album I never got into was Border Lord (1972). It is something I plan to rectify, because in his day, Kris was probably the most exciting new talent to arrive on the pop music scene – and we lapped up his songs. I recall one English teacher at Clifton Park High (now
But, as the ’70s rolled along, we soon lost interest in Kris, and moved in other directions. However, I shall always treasure those five or six great albums when his song-writing was at its most crisp and incisive.
Sportsman
But let’s get a deeper insight into the man by seeing what Wikipedia can divulge.
First, it is important to remember that, like Leonard Cohen, he was a “late starter” in the pop world, having been born on June 22, 1936.
As noted, his father was a military man, Major General Lars Henry Kristofferson of the US Army Air Corps (later called the US Air Force). His mother was Mary Ann (nee Ashbrook). And yes, my assumption that Lars has a strong Swedish ring to it is confirmed by Wikipedia’s observation that his paternal grandfather was also an officer – in the Swedish Army.
Having followed his military family around, Kris graduated from
Happily for him, and us all, he broadened his horizons by earning a Rhodes Scholarship to
Soldier
As the Swinging Sixties got under way, in 1960, Kristofferson graduated with a BPhil in English literature, and married old girlfriend Fran Beer. But it was not an academic career he was in for. No, he then joined the US Army, achieving the rank of captain. He became a helicopter pilot and completed
Well Wikipedia says he sent some of his compositions to a friend’s relative, Marijohn Wilkin, a successful songwriter in
So here we have a highly educated man, honourably discharged from the Army, working, as we noted earlier, in odd jobs “while struggling for success in music, burdened with medical expenses resulting from his son’s defective esophagus”. Sadly, Wikipedia notes, “he and his wife soon divorced”.
Tragically, it seems that it is just these sorts of emotional hardships which spur great writers on to write their best work. Let’s see how things worked out for Kristofferson as the Sixties unfolded.
Wikipedia confirms that while sweeping those Columbia Studio floors he met Johnny Cash, but that while initially accepting some of Kris’s songs, in the end Cash opted not to use them. And, in 1966, as Bob Dylan finetuned Blonde on Blonde, the much older Kristofferson (now about 30) watched in awe, but dared not approach him for fear of being fired.
At least he had some skills to fall back on, and so did a stint as a commercial chopper pilot in
In 1966, says Wikipedia, one Dave Dudley had success with the Kristofferson song, Vietnam Blues. But was he pro or anti the war, given his military pedigree? I’ve not heard this song, but let’s check out the lyrics. “I was out on leave at the time just duckin’ the fog nosin’ around like a hungry dog / In that crazy place called Washington DC / I saw a crowd of people on the White House lawn all carrying signs about VietNam / So I went over to see what was goin’ on.” Doesn’t sound auspicious, does it? “It was a strange looking bunch but then I never could understand some people / Oh a fellow came to me with a list in his hand he said we’re gatherin’ names to send / The telegram of sympathy then he handed me a pen / I said I reckon this is goin’ to kids and wives / My friends over there who’re givin’ their lives / He said ah ah buddy this is goin’ to Ho-Chi-Min / I said Ho-Chi who he said Ho-Chi-Min people’s leader North VietNam / Oh I wasn’t really sure I was hearin’ him right / I though I’d better move before I got in a fight / Cause my ears were hurtin’ and my ball started hit my lick / Then I thought of another telegram that I’ve just read / Tellin’ my buddy’s wife that her husband was dead / It wasn’t too long till I was feelin’ downright sick / Another held the sign that said we won’t fight / I thought to myself boy ain’t that right / To leave a lot of our soldiers die instead / I said it’s a shame that every man who ever died up there that far off land / Was dyin’ for that you wouldn’t have to wake up dead / Course he looked at me like I was kinda crazy just another warmonger / Oh I left that place and I went downtown and hit first bar that I’d found / To cool myself off and pacify my brain / You see I was on orders to VietNam little old place just north to Saigon / Had about an hour to catch myself a plane / So all I mean to say is I don’t like dyin’ either but man I ain’t gonna crawl.”
Ouch! Yet I can sympathise with Kristofferson. We endured endless indoctrination in the SA military, and many found it very easy to get sucked into their view of events. But perhaps Kristofferson, now 30 with an extensive university education, should have been a trifle more sensitive. I know it was just a song, probably aimed at conservative country music lovers, who, as Merle Haggard once made all too clear, consider patriotism as meaning my country, right or wrong.
The Highwaymen, with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson
But how to get his own recording success? Next, says Wikipedia, Kris signed with Monument Records, who put out his debut album, Kristofferson, in 1970. Despite including many songs which others had turned into hits, as well as a few new songs, “sales were poor”. But, as noted earlier, it would become a success upon being rereleased as Me & Bobby McGee. Meanwhile, his songs, covered by others, continued to reap success, with For The Good Times by Ray Price winning Song of the Year in 1970 from the
With Janis Joplin
But 1972 would see him really come into his own with Jesus Was A Capricorn. Sales were initially slow, but the successful single, Why Me, stimulated interest.
As noted earlier, there were later albums that caught our attention, like Spooky Lady’s Sideshow, but for the next few years, says Wikipedia, Kristofferson focused on acting. Best known, probably, was his role alongside Barbra Streisand in A Star Is Born (1976), for which he won a Golden Globe award for best actor.
But despite his celluloid popularity, his album, Shake Hands with the Devil, says Wikipedia, failed to find the charts.
In 1973, my second last year in high school, he married singer Rita Coolidge and to cement their relationship they released an album, Full Moon, which was “another success buoyed by numerous hits singles and Grammy nominations”. But, says Wikipedia, his fifth album, Spooky Lady’s Sideshow, released in 1974, was a commercial failure, “setting the trend for most of the rest of his career”.
While others continued to record his material with success, Wikipedia says his “amazing yet rough voice and anti-pop sound kept his own audience to a minimum”.
And here’s one I had not heard of. It seems in 1979, as I was about to spend two years as a military conscript in
So by now my interest in Kristofferson had waned, while always savouring those pioneering sounds he produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
With Dolly Parton
Look, it was the 1980s and I had gone reporting in
From a guy who, in that early song mentioned above, had decried those who questioned the
By the early 1990, says Wikipedia, his solo recording career was slipping, though the Highwaymen retained their success. But there was also cinema to fall back on, and he had various roles during the decade.
Accolades achieved included a Songwriters Hall of Fame induction in 1985 and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame induction in 1977. In 1999, he teamed up with Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits), Steve Earle and Jackson Browne for The Austin Sessions, which I’d love to hear. A live album, Broken Freedom Song – no doubt arising from the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon – was recorded in San Francisco, says Wikipedia.
The awards continued, with him being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2004. He received the Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006. The same year he released This Old Road, his first album of new songs in 11 years. He was 70 years old. Wikipedia quotes Kristofferson as being “really honoured” to receive CMT’s Johnny Cash Visionary Award in 2007. In July that year he featured on CMT’s Studio 330 Sessions, playing many of his hits. In June 2008, he played in a PBS songwriters series. In 2009, he released a new album of original tracks, Closer to the Bone. Ever humble, that same year on receiving special recognition for his songwriting at the BMI Country Award, Wikipedia quotes him as saying that the “great thing about being a songwriter is you can hear your baby interpreted by so many people that have creative talents vocally that I don’t have”.
As late as December 2009, says Wikipedia, it was revealed that Kris would play Joe in an album, Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, which is “a collaboration between rock singer John Mellencamp and novelist Stephen King”.
Who’s interested in his personal life? In
But what of those key first few albums which shaped our lives and made him an international country rock star?
Me and Bobby McGee (aka Kristofferson)
Wikipedia tells us the album was recorded in 1969 at Monument Recording Studio and produced by Fred Foster. Classified as country and released in 1970 on Monument Records, suddenly the world was faced with the prospect of hearing the composer of all those hit songs performing them himself. Of course, as we now know and as Wikipeida puts it, “the album was initially a commercial failure”. However, they add that it “managed to reach No 10 on the country album charts”. But of course for us it was way more than just another country album. This was one of the great songwriters of the time, a man who combined melody and lyrics sublimely, and had a unique voice which transcended the crooner schmaltz which characterised so much of the genre. Kristofferson was a man for the enlightened youth of the late 1960s and early 1970s, people raised on Dylan, Hendrix and the Beatles.
As also noted earlier, it was Janis Joplin’s cover of Me & Bobby McGee in 1971 which helped this generation of hip music lovers to see more clearly what Kristofferson was all about. If one of the great icons of the 1960s,
A quick perusal of the 12 tracks shows what a wealth of material was on offer here. These are some of the all-time Kristofferson classics, and fortunately I was able to pick up a vinyl copy of the album. A South African pressing, it was released in 1974. The cover features a close-up photograph of the bearded Kristofferson, while on the back there is a black-and-white shot of him and four band members sitting on a wooden fence among the bushes somewhere. Kristofferson, in his tight jeans, T-shirt and corduroy jacket – all dark – is again the height of cool. The back cover features a moving tribute from Johnny Cash.
Not all the songs are Kristofferson solo originals – there are a few collaborative efforts, such as the incredible opening effort, Blame It On The Stones, which he wrote with John Wilkin. Unfortunately, neither the album cover nor Wikipedia can enlighten me on who performed with Kristofferson on the album, although there is a short note on the back cover saying that Jerry Kennedy contributed “peerless guitar picking” – surely a hallmark of the album. We also learn, from Wikipedia, that Bergen White did the string arrangements.
So Blame It On The Stones starts with a solid country rock sound, with drums, lead guitar and organ prominent. Kristofferson’s voice is deliberately harsh, almost sneering. At 2:46 minutes it is a short song, but what was it all about? “Mister Marvin Middle Class is really in a stew / Wond’rin’ what the younger generation’s coming to / And the taste of his martini doesn’t please his bitter tongue / Blame it on the Rolling Stones.” Aha. I’d always heard that reference to the Rolling Stones and not realised this was deliberate. I’m not sure if there is a saying in English, “blame it on the stones”, but after this song there surely ought to have been. It might also have included the many other far-out musos I’ve dealt with thus far, each of whom contributed to Mister Marvin Middle Class being in that stew. In a sense, I guess, this is Kristofferson’s take on Dylan’s Mr Jones in Ballad Of A Thin Man. While he doesn’t have Dylan’s almost esoteric approach, what Kristofferson brought to songwriting was a delight in the English language and a playful use of words. That martini cannot please his bitter tongue. The backing vocalists help him out on the chorus: “Blame it on the Stones; blame it on the Stones / You’ll feel so much better, knowing you don’t stand alone / Join the accusation; save the bleeding nation / Get it off your shoulders; blame it on the Stones.” These were the conservatives who saw a nation’s youth subsumed by sex and drugs and rock and roll, and they were worried. Man. Kristofferson’s personality shines through on the next verse as he even includes a little chuckle, ala Dylan. “Mother tells the ladies at the bridge club every day / Of the rising price of tranquilisers she must pay / And she wonders why the children never seem to stay at home / Blame it on the Rolling Stones.” And so the chant, so they know they’re not alone, blaming it all on Jagger and the lads. I’m a great lover of the texture of music. It doesn’t have to be played loudly, with masses of bass. Provided the overall feeling is interesting and excites the right parts of the brain, it’s good. This song has that texture. “Father’s at the office, nightly working all the time / Trying to make the secretary change her little mind / And it bothers him to read about so many broken homes / Blame it on those Rolling Stones.” Touche. The hypocrite neatly encapsulated in a few lines. The song ends with that chorus repeated, with some interesting piano work backing it up.
Who wouldn’t be impressed by the spoken entrée to the next track, To Beat The Devil, which runs to 4:43 minutes. With the acoustic guitar gently picked behind him, Kristofferson speaks the following words in a deep, rich voice. “A couple of years back, I come across a great and wasted friend of mine in the hallway of a recording studio; and while he was reciting some poetry to me that he’d written, I saw that he was about a step away from dyin’ and I couldn’t help but wonder why. And the lines of this song occurred to me. I’m happy to say he’s no longer wasted and he’s got him a good woman. And I’d like to dedicate this to John and June, who helped show me how to beat the devil.” Having seen the biopic on Johnny Cash, Walk the Line, I can only assume this is a reference to him and his wife, June. With the acoustic guitarwork out of the top drawer, he continues speaking as the song gets going. “It was winter time in
Then that famous third track, which I suppose catapulted Kristofferson to fame on Janis’s back. Me And Bobby McGee was co-written with Fred Foster and runs to 4:23 minutes. To the clang of a few opening guitar chords, Kristofferson, as if sensing that the hip cult raised on rock might still have an anti-country prejudice, says: “If it sounds country man, that’s what it is. It’s a country song.” Then, after a slow, “1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4” and with just his acoustic guitar for backing, he sings those immortal opening lines. “Busted flat in
Kristofferson’s uncanny way of juxtaposing paradoxical emotions continues on another of his finest songs, Best Of All Possible Worlds, which runs to 3:01 minutes. This is a fast-paced country rock, with the musicianship superb and Kristofferson’s vocals at their brilliant best. Consider the pace at which this moves. “I was runnin’ thru the summer rain, try’n’ to catch that evenin’ train / And kill the old familiar pain weavin’ thru my tangled brain / When I tipped my bottle back and smacked into a cop I didn’t see / That police man said, ‘Mister Cool, if you ain’t drunk, then you’re a fool.’ / I said, ‘If that’s against the law, then tell me why I never saw / A man locked in that jail of yours who wasn’t neither black or poor as me?’ / Well, that was when someone turned out the lights / And I wound up in jail to spend the night / And dream of all the wine and lonely girls / In this best of all possible worlds.” His use of rhyme and rhythm is superb here. I have also heard that reference to black people being locked up willy-nilly for the first time. But the beauty here lies in the fact that this down and out lad still has dreams of wine and lonely girls, which makes him the eternal optimist. “Well, I woke up next mornin’ feelin’ like my head was gone / And like my thick old tongue was lickin’ something sick and wrong / And I told that man I’d sell my soul for something wet and cold as that old cell. / That kindly jailer grinned at me, all eaten up with sympathy / Then poured himself another beer and came and whispered in my ear, / ‘If booze was just a dime a bottle boy, you couldn’t even buy the smell’ / I said, ‘I knew there was something I liked about this town.’ / But it takes more than that to bring me down, down, down. / ’Cause there’s still a lot of wine and lonely girls / In this best of all possible worlds.” Isn’t that a superb bit of writing? Comparing a frosty to that cold, wet cell – a wonderful touch, followed by that wonderfully sympathetic jailer. And all the time, an electric guitar clicks alongside the vocals. “Well, they finally came and told me they was a gonna set me free / And I’d be leavin’ town if I knew what was good for me / I said, ‘It’s nice to learn that ev’rybody’s so concerned about my health.’ / (They were obsessed with it) / I said, ‘I won’t be leavin’ no more quicker than I can / ’Cause I’ve enjoyed about as much of this as I can stand / And I don’t need this town of yours more than I never needed nothin’ else.’ / ’Cause there’s still a lot of drinks that I ain’t drunk / And lots of pretty thoughts that I ain’t thunk / And lord there’s still so many lonely girls / In this best of all possible worlds.” I think there is a quadruple negative in there somewhere. But I just love what is essentially a parody of the gung-ho, macho Wild West image.
Kristofferson has underservedly acquired a reputation for being a country crooner, and it is probably due to cover versions of such great songs as the next track, Help Me Make It Through the Night, again a shorty at just 2:24 minutes. The song starts with some snappy acoustic guitar and bass, with Kristofferson’s vocals impeccable as he lays that lovely melody on you. Acoustic lead guitar and even some slide and organ make for a mellow piece of music marked by marvellous musicianship. But was the song really a schmaltzy piece, or did it have Kristofferson’s trademark literary depth? Let’s look at those lyrics. “Take the ribbon from your hair, / Shake it loose and let it fall, / Layin’ soft upon my skin. / Like the shadows on the wall.” If Dylan had written those lines and couched them in his type of music people would have called it brilliant songwriting. I believe it is. Consider the allure, the sensuousness, of that simple action – a beautiful woman taking a ribbon from her hair, shaking it free and allowing it to fall on your skin. “Come and lay down by my side / ’till the early morning light / All I’m takin’ is your time. / Help me make it through the night.” It is in the nature of men who respect women that they acknowledge that they NEED them – to get through the night, to get through life. And we can get quite desperate for female company. Here the song becomes somewhat more insistent as the chorus kicks in. “I don’t care what’s right or wrong, / I don’t try to understand. / Let the devil take tomorrow. / Lord, tonight I need a friend.” That melody churning along merrily, the song returns to its earlier pace. “Yesterday is dead and gone / And tomorrow’s out of sight. / And it’s sad to be alone. / Help me make it through the night.” He repeats the chorus and that last verse, as if underscoring the fact that this song simply sets down a few timeless truths and nothing more needs to be said on the matter.
Consider that on Side 1 there is still another song to come, and we have already had a wealth of music. The Law Is For Protection Of The People, again short at 2:40, is one of Kristofferson’s greatest pieces of songwriting. Starting with very low bass notes, backed by drums and other rock instruments, the song kicks off at quite a pace. Kris has another story to tell. “Billy Dalton staggered on the sidewalk / Someone said he stumbled and he fell / Six squad cars came screaming to the rescue / Hauled old Billy Dalton off to jail.” We’ve seen it the world over. When real crimes are committed, you can’t find a cop for looking. But for small, often imagined, infringements, the response is massive overkill. Kristofferson’s chorus drips with sarcasm as he contemplates how law enforcement agencies are often the worst offenders. “ ’Cause the law is for protection of the people / Rules are rules and any fool can see / We don’t need no drunks like Billy Dalton / Scarin’ decent folks like you and me, no siree.” Again, the musicianship is superb, with sublime slide guitar, harmonica and female backing vocals complementing lead vocals which are so good one simply takes them for granted. “Charlie Watson wandered like a stranger / Showing he had no means of support / Police man took one look at his pants cuffs / Hustled Charlie Watson off to court.” Now I’m not sure I recall that verse, but it too ends in that ascerbic chorus, with a special reference to old Charlie. “ ’Cause the law is for protection of the people / Rules are rules and any fool can see / We don’t need no bums like Charlie Watson / Scarin’ decent folks like you and me, no siree.” I never really heard the next guy’s name, so it’s good to see it written out here. “Homer Lee Hunnicut was nothing but a hippy / Walking thru this world without a care / Then one day, six strapping brave policeman / Held down Homer Lee and cut his hair.” Let’s see why they did it. “’Cause the law is for protection of the people / Rules are rules and any fool can see / We don’t need no hairy headed hippies / Scarin’ decent folks like you and me, no siree.” Then the final verse, which really puts it all into focus. “So thank your lucky stars you’ve got protection / Walk the line, and never mind the cost / And don’t wonder who them lawmen was protecting / When they nailed the Savior to the cross.” Kristofferson deals with this issue again on Jesus Was A Capricorn, and I think it was a commonly held view in the late 1960s that the conservatives of that era would surely have rejected Jesus’s teachings. Kris sums it up in the final chorus. “ ’Cause the law is for protection of the people / Rules are rules and any fool can see / We don’t need no riddle-speaking prophets / Scarin’ decent folks like you and me, no siree.”
Side 2 starts with a song which typifies Kristofferson’s ability to marry melody and lyric seamlessly. There is a lovely sense of foreboding as Casey’s Last Ride gets under way, the bass guitar and other rock instruments backing up that strummed acoustic guitar. “Casey joins the hollow sound of silent people walking down / The stairway to the subway in the shadows down below; / Following their footsteps through the neon-darkened corridors / Of silent desperation, never speakin’ to a soul. / The poison air he’s breathin’ has the dirty smell of dying’ / Cause it’s never seen the sunshine and it’s never felt the rain. / But Casey minds the arrows and ignores the fatal echoes / Of the clickin’ of the turnstiles and the rattle of his chains.” Phew, that’s quite a lot to digest. What’s it all about? Having lived in
The next song, Just The Other Side Of Nowhere, (3:39) strikes a different note, with somewhat jaunty acoustic guitar and subtle rock backing. Kristofferson’s voice is again superb. “I’ve come from just the other side of no-where, / To this big time lonesome town. / They got a lotta ice an’ snow here, / Half as cold as all the people I’ve found. / Every way I try to go here, / Seems to bring me down. / I seen about enough to know where I belong.” Lovely stuff – particularly that reference to the icy reception he gets from the locals. The chorus is aspirational. “I’ve got a mind to see the headlights shinin’, / On that old white line between my heart and home. / Sick of spendin’ Sundays, wishin’ they were Mondays, / Sittin’ in a park alone. / So give my best to anyone who’s left who ever done me, / Any lovin’ way but wrong, / Tell them that the pride of just the other side of nowhere’s goin’ home.” That is one meaty chorus to unpack, full of typical Kristoffersonisms. There is a vulnerability to his voice which is possibly the key to its charm. The man doesn’t just sing, he pours his very soul into those vocals, whilst around the voice the musical texture is again rich and interesting. “Takin’ nothing back to show there, / For these dues I have paid, / But the soul I almost sold here, / And the body I’ve been givin’ away. / Fadin’ from the neon nighttime glow here, / Headin’ for the light of day. / Just the other side of nowhere, goin’ home.” So the “big time lonesome town” has taken its toll and he must flee its neon nighttime glow and head for the light of day on his lonely way back home. After that intriguing chorus, the final verse is repeated, rounding off another absolute classic piece of songwriting.
There is a lesson for us all in the next song, Darby’s Castle, which starts with a complex acoustic guitar opening, before the song mutates into a gentle, melodious piece. Organ, subtle drums and solid background vocals provide support for the Kristofferson voice as it unfolds the story. “See the ruin on the hill, where the smoke is hanging still, / Like an echo of an age long forgotten. /There’s a story of a home crushed beneath those blackened stones, / And the roof that fell before the beams were rotten.” The stage is set. “Cecil Darby loved his wife, and he laboured all his life, / To provide her with material possessions. / And he built for her a home of the finest wood and stone. / And the building soon became his sole obsession.” Then that chorus with its portent of doom. “Oh, it took three-hundred days, for the timbers to be raised, / And the silhouette was seen for miles around. / And the gables reached as high as the eagles in the sky, / But it only took one night to bring it down, / When Darby’s castle tumbled to the ground.” What I like about Kristofferson’s writing – a bit like Bruce Springsteen – is that he deals with real-life situations, especially the tricky parts of our lives where love and affection are involved. Poor Darby finds out the hard way. “Though they shared a common bed, there was precious little said, / In the moments that were set aside for sleepin’. / For his busy dreams were filled with the rooms he’d yet to build, / And he never heard young Helen Darby weeping.” Then the shock discovery. “Then one night he heard a sound, as he laid his pencil down, / And he traced it to her door and turned the handle. / And the pale light of the moon through the window of the room, /
Some songs seem completely timeless. Of course Kristofferson wrote For The Good Times, and of course it’s one of the great country-rock songs of our time. So why can’t I remember how it goes? Well you do, the moment the melody is unleashed courtesy of bass and strings in a slow, mellow song which, again, borders on the sentimental, yet as usual is salvaged by Kristofferson’s inordinately good taste and literary skill. “Don’t look so sad, I know it’s over. / But life goes on, and this old world will keep on turning. / Let’s just be glad we had some time to spend together. / There’s no need to watch the bridges that we’re burning.” It’s pretty ordinary till that last, incredible, line. It reminds me of a certain politician in
Who isn’t familiar with arguably Kristofferson’s most famous composition, Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down, which runs to 4:34 minutes? It is the classic hangover tale, and something we could easily relate to once we acquired a taste for beer and what else beside during our high school years. The song uses simple, subtle acoustic guitar, bass, drums and tambourine. “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. / An’ I shaved my face and combed my hair, / An’ stumbled down the stairs to meet the day.” Eish! Which is a delightful South African exclamation. Would that I could’ve had hangovers where my head didn’t hurt. Certainly the old “regmaker”, as the Afrikaners call the hair of the dog, is not recommended, but this guy clearly needed it. “I’d smoked my brain the night before, / On cigarettes and songs I’d been pickin’. / But I lit my first and watched a small kid, / Cussin’ at a can that he was kicking. / Then I crossed the empty street, / ’n caught the Sunday smell of someone fryin’ chicken. / And it took me back to somethin’, / That I’d lost somehow, somewhere along the way.” What? Like family barbecues and a sense of belonging somewhere? Personally, I have experienced such dislocation several times in my life, and don’t recommend it. Then cometh that immortal chorus. “On the Sunday morning sidewalk, / Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned. / ’Cos there’s something in a Sunday, / Makes a body feel alone. / And there’s nothin’ short of dyin’, / Half as lonesome as the sound, / Of the sleepin’ city sidewalks: / Sunday mornin’ comin’ down.” That lonesome feeling continues in the next verse. “In the park I saw a daddy, / With a laughin’ little girl who he was swingin’. / And I stopped beside a Sunday school, / And listened to the song they were singin’. / Then I headed back for home, / And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringin’. / And it echoed through the canyons, / Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.” Naturally, a bell does chime at the appropriate time in that verse, as the song concludes with the chorus repeated, and then plays out with some melancholy humming. “Do do do do do do do do, / Do do do do do do do, / Do do do do do do do do, / Do do do do do do do.”
And so ends one of the great debut albums of all time – one that was far too long in arriving. There are a handful of albums that I have dealt with in this project that literally teem with quality songwriting and songs, and this is one of them.
The Silver Tongued Devil and I
Incredibly, given that Kristofferson was such a great songwriter, Wikipedia has only the bare bones about this album. It notes that among those cited in the famous spoken introduction to The Pilgrim, Chapter 22, are Johnny Cash and Dennis Hopper, who later performed that song on The Johnny Cash Show. Furthermore, Epitaph, we are told, is about Janis Joplin, who had just died. And The Pilgrim was even immortalised in a film, Taxi Driver, from 1976. Wikipedia says Travis (Robert De Niro) buys the album for Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) after she quotes from the song to describe him as “a prophet, he’s a pusher … partly truth and partly fiction … a walking contradiction”.
What is noticeable is the large contingent of top musicians who backed him on this album, including three guitarists and three bass players, among them Billy Swan (also mentioned in that spoken intro). Drums, keyboards, dobro, percussion and Charlie McCoy on harmonica/vibes/trumpet are also included. And I was correct in identifying the inimitable voice of Joan Baez, who accompanies him on The Taker, although on the cover she is only credited as The Lady. Billy Swan, Donnie Fritts and Rita Coolidge are the other backing vocalists. The album charted at No 4 on the
The album cover was again inspirational to young teenagers seeking their own identities. Here, the ultra-cool Kris is dressed in dark brown denim jacket, and dark (almost black) jeans and shirt. He stands with thumbs tucked into the belt of his jeans, a cigarette in his right hand. Clean-shaven, his hair is long and dishevelled. Cleverly, they have created a softer version of the same image and placed it behind and slightly to the left of the original, perhaps symbolising this other persona that the title track seems to be about. On the back, dressed in similar clothes, he is almost silhouetted in a black-and-white photograph while sitting on rocks at the seashore.
So what was so good about this album, and how could it possibly compete with that hit-laden first album? Well the opening track, also the title track, sets the tone for some incredible songwriting. The Silver Tongued Devil And I starts with some jaunty piano, along with various other country rock instruments. There is great bass work and is that the sound of a steel guitar or a dobro, which Wikipedia tells us is a “resonator guitar” like the one on the cover of Dire Straits’s Brothers In Arms. Anyway, this fine music sets the melody for another piece of Kristofferson lyric magic. “I took myself down to the Tally Ho Tavern, / To buy me a bottle of beer. / And I sat me down by a tender young maiden, / Who’s eyes were as dark as her hair. / And as I was searching from bottle to bottle, / For something un-foolish to say. / That silver-tongued devil just slipped from the shadows, / And smiling, stole her away.” So who was this “devil”? Well the protagonist doesn’t take things lying down. As the pace slows, Kristofferson sings: “I said: ‘Hey, little girl, don’t you know he’s the devil. / ‘He’s everything that I ain’t. / ‘Hiding intentions of evil, / ‘Under the smile of a saint.” I’m seeing those lines for the first time. I’d heard “I’d no intentions of evil”, which of course made no sense. Now, suddenly, it all gels. The Kris character continues: “ ‘All he’s good for is getting in trouble, / ‘And shiftin’ his share of the blame. / ‘And some people swear he’s my double: / ‘And some even say we’re the same.’” By now the tempo has increased markedly. “ ‘But the silver-tongued devil’s got nothing to lose, / ‘I’ll only live ’til I die. / ‘We take our own chances and pay our own dues, / ‘The silver tongued devil and
From this image of a womaniser par excellence, the next song, Jody And The Kid, presents a very different picture. Slow, gentle acoustic guitar provides the cushioning for the opening lines: “She would meet me in the mornin’ on my way down to the river, / Waiting patient by the China Berry tree; / With her feet already dusty from the pathway to the levee, / And her little blue jeans rolled up to her knees.” The stage is set, and now the melody picks up pace, with the full country-rock sound, including strings in the chorus and some fine harmonica further on. “I’d pay her no attention as she tagged along beside me, / Trying hard to copy ev’rything I did; / But I couldn’t keep from smiling when I’d hear somebody saying: / ‘Look a-yonder; there goes Jody and the kid.’” The relationship seems to be between an older boy and a little girl. “After we grew older, we could still be seen together, / As we walked along the levee holding hands; / For as surely as the seasons, she was changin’ to a woman, / And I’d lived enough to call myself a man. / And she often lay beside me, in the coolness of the evening, / ’Til the morning sun was shining on my bed; / And at times, when she was sleeping, / I would smile when I’d remember, / How they used to call us ‘Jody and the kid’.” I remember, as a youth, taking very seriously the line that he’d “lived enough to call myself a man”, because at that stage in life it is no laughing matter. What, indeed, constitutes being “a man”. But back to that song. “Now, the world’s a little older, and the years have changed the river, / ’Cos there’s houses where they didn’t used to be; / And on Sundays I go walking down the pathway to the levee, / With another little girl who follows me. / And it makes the old folks smile to see her tag along beside me, / Doing little things the way her Mamma did. / But it gets a little lonesome, when I hear somebody saying: / ‘Look yonder; there goes Jody and the kid’.” Call it sentimental, but as I noted earlier, Kristofferson loves to write about real issues – and having a daughter that reminds everyone of your wife when she was young is about the cycle of life itself. This song also seems tinged with tragedy, because why is he lonesome? The only conclusion one can draw is that he has lost the Mamma of that child.
Story songs. Just like Bob Dylan, Kristofferson loved to tell a narrative tale, and the next track, Billy Dee, is just that. Fast-paced, with the bass guitar backing feisty acoustic guitar, the lyrics are again pure magic. I mean consider the implication of these opening lines. “Billy Dee was seventeen when he turned twenty-one / Fooling with some foolish things he could’ve left alone / But he had to try to satisfy a thirst he couldn’t name / Driven towards the darkness by the devil in his veins.” So he grew up too quickly, and dabbled where he shouldn’t. The pace builds. “All around the honky tonks, searching for a sign / Getting’ by on getting’ high on women, words and wine / Some folks called him crazy, Lord, and others called him free / But we just called us lucky for the love of Billy Dee.” Clearly a charmer, he seemed to be the proverbial life and soul of the party. “Busy goin’ his own way and speakin’ his own words / Facin’ and forgettin’ every warnin’ that he heard / Makin’ friends and takin’ any crazy chance he could / Getting’ busted for the bad times and believin’ in the good.” It’s great songwriting. But one knows tragedy is in the wings. “Billy took a beatin’ from a world he meant no harm / The score was written in the scars upon his arm / Some felt he was payin’ for the life he tried to lead / But all we felt was sorry for our good friend Billy Dee.” Kristofferson’s voice takes on a low, confessional tone, as he continues. “It may be his soul was bigger than a body’s oughta be / Singin’ songs and bringin’ laughter to the likes of you and me / Cause the world he saw was sadder than the one he hoped to find / But it wasn’t near as lonesome as the one he left behind.” Again, brilliant writing! Then the denouement. “Yesterday they found him on the floor of his hotel / Reachin’ toward the needle, Lord, that drove him down to hell / Some folks called it suicide, others blamed speed / But we all called it crucified when Billy Dee O.D.’d.” And again, that’s the first time I’ve seen that last line. While the reference to the needle implied drugs, it is only now I discover that he O.D.’d, or over-dosed. It makes one wonder if this, like a couple of Neil Young songs, refers to a specific case that Kristofferson was familiar with, possibly a close friend. Clearly he was a musician.
Remember that early single he wrote for someone in the mid-1960s, condemning the anti-Vietnam war protesters? Well in the fourth track on this album, Good Christian Soldier, which was written by Bobby Bare and Billy Joe Shaver – he expresses sentiments that speak of a very different perspective on war. Acoustic guitar and that slide/steel/dobro sound kick this off at a medium tempo. “Not so long ago in
But let’s see how the side concludes. Breakdown (A Long Way From Home) has a lighter air, with sprightly acoustic guitar, piano and strings launching the melody. Then that somewhat gravelly voice. “The clubs are all closed and the ladies are leaving / There’s nobody nobody knows on the street / A few stranded souls standing cold at the station / And nowhere to go but to bed and to sleep.” Again, the clever use of a double negative serves to enhance the sense of disconnectedness. The full sound of strings, backed by piano, launches that famous chorus. “Lord would you look at you now that you’re here / Ain’t you proud of your peers and the long way you’ve come / All alone all the way on your own who’s to say / That you’ve thrown it away for a song / Boy you’ve sure come a long way from home.” Word wizardry. The song continues: “So it’s so long, so many so far behind you / Fairweather friends that you no longer know / You still got the same lonely songs to remind you / Of someone you seemed to be so long ago.” The song concludes with that chorus repeated, whilst female backing vocals and some lovely harmonica work add to the texture. These lyrics, like Dylan’s, have many layers and will, in time, be recognised, I believe, for the nuggets of genius that they are.
Side 2 opens with what, going by the title, must surely be a simple love song. Or not? Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again) starts with acoustic guitar and violin, while Kristofferson’s voice rambles forward in typically laid-back style. “I have seen the morning burning golden on the mountains in the skies. / Achin’ with the feelin’ of the freedom of an eagle when she flies. (Some lovely flute comes in about here) / Turnin’ on the world the way she smiled upon my soul as I lay dying. / Healin’ as the colours in the sunshine and the shadows of her eyes.” So what’s that about? I’m not at all sure, but it’s beautifully written. “Wakin’ in the mornin’ to the feelin’ of her fingers on my skin. / Wipin’ out the traces of the people and the places that I’ve been. / Teachin’ me that yesterday was something that I never thought of trying. / Talkin’ of tomorrow and the money, love and time we had to spend.” This is surely about pure existentialism. How does having a woman in your life affect your view both of the past and the future? Clearly, from the one-line chorus, she was a tonic. “Lovin’ her was easier than anything I’ll ever do again.” There is a change of mood: “Comin’ close together with a feelin’ that I’ve never known before, in my time. / She ain’t ashamed to be a woman, or afraid to be a friend. / I don’t know the answer to the easy way she opened every door in my mind. / But dreamin’ was as easy as believin’ it was never gonna end.” This is the sort of creative writing which just sparkles with both meaning and a sheer delight in the use of words. Again the verse ends with the one-line chorus and a few la-la-laas.
The next track, The Taker, was written by both Kristofferson and Shel Silverstein, and is the one which features the voice of Joan Baez. Big bass and horns give this a grand opening, as fast-paced acoustic lead guitar adds to the mix. Here the melody drives the song forward. “He’s a giver he’ll give her the kind of attention that she’s never known / He’s a teacher he’ll teach her to open the doors that she can’t on her own / He’s a lover he’ll love her in ways that she never has been loved before / He’s a getter he’ll get her by getting’ her into the world she’s been hungerin’ for.” Again, it is the brilliant use of a simple yet highly original lyric construction which lies at the heart of this song’s success. “He’s a charmer he’ll charm her with money and manners that I never learned / He’s a leader he’ll lead her across pretty bridges he’s plannin’ to burn / He’s a talker he’ll talk her right off of her feet but he won’t talk for long / Cause he’s a doer he’ll do her the way that I never damned if he won’t do her wrong.” There is a full vocal backing on the chorus, before Baez takes a leading roll. “Cause he’s a taker he’ll take her to places and make her / Fly higher than she’s ever dared to / He’ll take his time before takin’ advantage takin’ her easy and slow / And after he’s taken the body and soul that she gives him / He’ll take her for granted / Then he’ll take off and leave her taking all of her pride as she goes / Yes he’s a taker...” And so this devious womaniser’s plot is exposed, with Baez having brought her unique talents to bear on another brilliant Kristofferson original. With great staccato-like piano, the song comes to a nicely constructed ending.
Predictably, the next song, When I Loved Her, is slow and laid back. It starts with Kristofferson speaking: “One, two, three, four”, before gentle acoustic guitar lays down the melody. “Well, she didn’t look as pretty as some others I have known, / And she wasn’t good at conversation when we were alone. / But she had a way of making me believe that I belonged. / And it felt like coming home when I found her.” The full country sound has now kicked in, with some bluesy harmonica adding to the mix. There is a wonderful croaky male voice that joins Kris on the chorus. “Cause she brightened up the day like the early morning sun / And she made what I was doing seem worthwhile. / It’s the closest thing to living that I guess I’ve ever known. / And it made me want to smile when I loved her.” This is an unalloyed love song. “’Cause she seemed to be so proud of me, just walking, holding hands, / And she didn’t think that money was the measure of a man. / And we seemed to fit together when I held her in my arms. / And it left me feeling warm when I loved her.” It may seem schmaltzy, but Kris carries it off with aplomb. And again that intelligent use of words shines through, like the triple alliteration in money not being the measure of man. There is more fine writing in the last verse: “I know some of us were born to cast our fortunes to the wind, / And I guess I’m bound to travel down a road that never ends. / But I know I’ll never look upon the likes of her again. / And I’ll never understand why I lost her.” The chorus sums up his intense sense of loss.
Then the song that really captured our attention. Because here was Kristofferson talking, about people who helped shape his life, and his song. The Pilgrim, Chapter 33, starts with gently picked acoustic guitar, before Kris starts talking in that rich, deep voice of his. Try as I may, I have been unable to find the exact words spoken by him. From memory it goes something like: “I started out writing about Paul Seaward … ended up writing about … Johnny Cash, Billy Swan, Jerry Jeff Walker ... Rambling Jack Elliott had a lot to do with it.” Anyway, what that list of country music icons has to do with the song, I hope to discover from the lyrics themselves. “See him wasted on the sidewalk in his jacket and his jeans, / Wearin’ yesterday’s misfortunes like a smile / Once he had a future full of money, love, and dreams, / Which he spent like they was goin’ outa style / And he keeps right on a’changin’ for the better or the worse, / Searchin’ for a shrine he’s never found / Never knowin’ if believin’ is a blessin’ or a curse, / Or if the goin’ up was worth the comin’ down.” This, surely, is a tale about all those country singers who followed similar flight paths, walking a fine line between success and self-destruction. Then that famous chorus: “He’s a poet, he’s a picker / He’s a prophet, he’s a pusher / He’s a pilgrim and a preacher, and a problem when he’s stoned / He’s a walkin’ contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction, / Takin’ ev’ry wrong direction on his lonely way back home.” Again, superb songwriting. And there is good solid male backing on that chorus. But Kristofferson expands on the subject. “He has tasted good and evil in your bedrooms and your bars, / And he’s traded in tomorrow for today / Runnin’ from his devils, Lord, and reachin’ for the stars, / And losin’ all he’s loved along the way / But if this world keeps right on turnin’ for the better or the worse, / And all he ever gets is older and around / From the rockin’ of the cradle to the rollin’ of the hearse, / The goin’ up was worth the comin’ down.” The chorus ends with the addition of the line: “There’s a lotta wrong directions on that lonely way back home.”
I am grateful (again) to Wikipedia for the insight into the somewhat sombre final track on this ablum, Epitaph (Black And Blue), which was written by Kristofferson and Donnie Fritts and is apparently about Janis Joplin, who, it will be recalled, really helped launch Kristofferson’s career with her version of Me And Bobby McGee. This song is a remarkable slow bluesy piece dominated by what sounds like an electric piano. Slowly and deliberately, Kristofferson sings this plaintive tribute. “Her close friends have gathered. / Lord, ain’t it a shame / Grieving together / Sharing the blame. / But when she was dying / Lord, we let her down. / There’s no use cryin’ / It can’t help her now.” This must have come as a great shock to the rock world, along with the deaths of Hendrix and Jim Morrison. This song, then, in a sense mourns the passing of the age of innocence that was the 1960s. “The party’s all over / Drink up and go home. / It’s too late to love her / And leave her alone.” The emotion in his voice is palpable. “Just say she was someone / Lord, so far from home / Whose life was so lonesome / She died all alone / Who dreamed pretty dreams / That never came true / Lord, why was she born / So black and blue? / Oh, why was she born / So black and blue?” That is some powerful writing. Battered from within by her own tormented soul, it was small wonder that Janis Joplin sang the blues like no other woman, black or white, has done before or since. And Kristofferson’s tribute is a fitting, heart-felt one. It is also one of his finest pieces of writing.
How much can you fit onto one vinyl album? In this case, a couple of lifetimes’ worth, at least.
Border Lord
Wikipedia tells us this, his third album, was produced again by Fred Foster and released on the Monument Records label in February 1972. And that’s it, apart from a list of the musicians, which is also on the album cover, beneath a black and white photograph of Kris and some fellow musicians on a stage bedecked by arty posters. The cover also carries a short note from Kristofferson, who says: “We put a lot of road between this album and the last one, back and forth across the
To get an idea of what the music quality is like, you need only check out the 16 or so musicians who accompany Kristofferson, among them Rita Coolidge on vocals, Pete Drake on steel guitar, several other top guitarists, Charlie McCoy again on keyboards and harmonica, a couple of bass players, keyboard players, drummers, a percussionist and Tommy Jackson on fiddle.
While there is not the same nostalgia factor listening to this album as the other early ones, I found the songwriting and musicality of the same high standard. This is still vintage Kristofferson, make no mistake.
The opening track, Josie, starts typically with acoustic guitar, drums and bass. A gentle country rock, with a taste of electric lead guitar and organ later on, along with backing vocals on the choruses, it is again the lyrics, sung in that unique voice, which steal the show. “I’ve been chasing after Josie since the day I could run / Even though I didn’t know it at the time / And I followed her from
Steve Stills wrote a song about the cost of freedom. What was Kristofferson about on the next track, The Burden Of Freedom? The song starts with gentle acoustic guitar and quiet bass. There is some subtle organ in their somewhere, along with female backing vocals on the chorus and understated electric guitar. “I stand on the stairway, my back to the dungeon / The doorway to freedom so close to my hand / Voices behind me still bitterly damn me /For seeking salvation they don’t understand.” Then the chorus, which should cast some light on what’s going down here. “Lord, help me to shoulder the burden of freedom / And give me the courage to be what I can / And when I am wounded by those who condemn me / Lord, help me forgive them, they don’t understand.” I’m still somewhat in the dark. “Their lonely frustration, descending to laughter / Erases the footprints I leave in the sand / And I’m free to travel where no one can follow / In search of the kingdom they don’t understand.” There is a subtle change in the chorus next time round, with a woman’s forgiveness being sought. “Lord, help me to shoulder the burden of freedom / And give me the courage to be what I can / And when I have wounded the last one who loved me / God, help her forgive me, I don’t understand.”
The title of the next song, Stagger Mountain Tragedy, seemed familiar, and when I heard the first line, I realised it was. What sounds like a banjo is soon joined by a fiddle as this song gets going in almost bluegrass mode. “ I was born on stagger mountain in the sunshine and the snow / And leavin’ was the first mistake I made; / But I hungered for the shadows in the valley down below / And the girl that danced the tune the devil played. / Her smile was like the blindin’ light of sunshine on the snow / And the flashin’ of her hair was black as sin. / And her body set the smokes of hell a-boilin’ in my skull / When the fiddle of the devil made her spin.” So this is one mean femme fatale. Drums add impetus to the fiddle, while backing vocals flesh out the chorus. “Morning sunshine (sunshine) high on the mountain, / Where the air is pure and cold; / But there’s darkness in the shadows / In the canyons of my soul.” So where is this headed? “The lantern cast a shadow like a demon on the wall / And the naked sweat was breathin’ on her skin; / Then the room was spinning closer as her clothes began to fall / And the eagle started screamin’ in my brain; / Then I saw the laughin’ dagger and I heard the devil scream / And her bleeding heart was beating in my hand. / Then the darkness blew away and I was standin’ by a tree / With a hanging rope a-danglin’ from a limb.” That sounds like one nasty nightmare – a symbol perhaps for the perils of carnality.
The title track, Border Lord, Kristofferson wrote with Stephen Bruton, Donnie Fritts and Terry Paul. It starts with slow, expertly picked acoustic guitar. A slow, bluesy track, incisive drums, harmonica and steel guitar add to the tight sound. “Darkness had us covered when we split from Minnesota in the morning / In the rain / Black as I was feeling and the street was slick and shiny as a snake / Each of us was a-humming to a half forgotten echo / Hangin’ over in the brain / Tappin’ time and thinking of the time we never had the time to take / Losing to the rising cost of living high and loving hard / And leavin’ every yesterday behind / Learning every bridge you cross, is burning down before you’re off and running / Like the devil just in time.” A couple of subjects are starting to crop up too regularly in Kristofferson’s writing, bridges and devils among them. But let’s get to that chorus. “Breakin’ any ties before they bind you / Taking any comfort you can find / Running like you’re running out of time / Take it all-take it easy-till it’s over-understanding / When you’re headin’ for the border lord / You’re bound to cross the line / Good lookin’ women every time you stumble / Waitin’ there to catch you when you fall / Getting’ to you bad enough to let ’em / Keep you backin’ up till just before your back’s against the wall.”
The last song on the side is Somebody Nobody Knows, which again starts with slow acoustic guitar and bass. His vocals come in very low and gravelly. “Alone in a barroom / a young girl is sittin’ / and smilin’ at nothing at all. / And she smiles now and then / at the eyes of the men / in the mirror that hangs on the wall.” Bars seem another common setting for his writing. “She’s waitin’ for someone and knowin’ there’s no one / who cares if she comes or she goes; / just a soul in the shadows / the world never sees, / she’s somebody nobody knows.” A lonesome lass looking for a lad, perhaps. The chorus runs: “Someone no one’s ever known / smiling where no one can hear, / somebody’s dying alone / in a city where nobody cares.” It’s a bleak world out there, and this mood is compounded in the next verse. “Down in the gutter an old man had fallen / like somethin’ the world threw away. / And the late crowd was leavin’ / and nobody even / took time to look down where he lay.” A heartless place, too. “The old man was cryin’ and helplessly tryin’ / to wipe off the stains from his clothes; / just a soul in the shadows / that life left behind, / he’s somebody nobody knows.” The chorus is repeated as this sombre song ends.
Okay, so Dylan wrote “little girl lost, she takes herself so seriously”, or suchlike. But the first track on Side Two is called Little Girl Lost and it has a fastish rock sound, with lead guitar, drums and bass gradually slowing somewhat as the vocals begin. “See the little girl lost: walking through this world alone / She ain’t looking for a lover, she’s just looking for a home.” This, too, seems a regular Kristofferson theme. “If you want more than sympathy then look for something else / Cause she’s not true to anyone, not even to herself / She’ll have sixteen smiling strangers who are handing her a line / While she’s drawing dirty pictures on the black side of your mind / And that body she’ll let anybody hold, but the devil’s got her soul.” Oh dear. It seems Kris is falling for a fantastic young body, but the old devil’s has her soul – which probably means she’s no simple conquest. The chorus suggests there is a way to her heart. “But if you take her, take her easy / Treat her gentle, she used to love me.” Then: “See the little girl lost, pleading silently for help / Knowing no one understands her, she don’t understand herself.” I’m beginning to think this isn’t Kris’s greatest hour, or couple of minutes anyway. “She’ll feed your hungry ego till you think you’re quite a man / But you better count your fingers when she turns loose of your hand / Cause you’re just a game she’s playing any way that she can win / And you ain’t about to touch her any deeper than her skin / In that body anybody can control, but the devil’s got her soul.” The song ends with that short chorus. A redeeming feature here is some great Dire Straits-like electric lead guitar.
The next song, Smokey Put The Sweat On Me, borders, lord, on commercial pop. A quick-fire rock sound with electric guitar drums and bass, female vocals and harmonica are evident in the choruses. “ I’ve known some women in every state / From New York city to the Golden gate / I’ve lived with some and buddy I’ve loved ’em all, yes I did / But no one woman had a claim on me / ’Cause I still had a lotta world to see / And I sometimes stagger, but Sugar, I seldom fall.” And so to the chorus with it’s catchy last couple of lines. “ Then like a hungry man I went to Louisiana / Where the lovin’ and the livin’ was good / Without a care to hide and just as satisfied as I could be / A lotta women and wine and not a tie to bind me / And behaving just as cool as I could / Till a long-legged, sweet-walkin’, raven-haired and Cajun-lookin’ / Devil put the sweat on me / They call her Smokey, she’s a little bit of evil / Smokey, right as wrong can be / Smokey, she could shake the very devil / Smokey put the sweat on me / Oh,Smokey put the sweat on me.” No comment. “Oh, my pulse is a-beatin’ to the clickety-clack / Of this one-way ride that’s gonna take me back / And my body’s just a breathin’ in the Mississippi river smell / Well my feet wasn’t ready yet for settling down / But my soul kept tellin’ me to turn around / And the longer I tried to fight the harder I fell.” The lengthy chorus is somewhat altered the second time. “And like a hungry man I’m going to Louisiana / Where the lovin’ and the livin’ is good / I’ll get a brand new bride and be as satisfied as I can be / And I won’t even mind the world I’m leavin’ behind / Because I never really thought that I could / Till that long-legged, sweet walkin’, raven-haired and Cajun-lookin’ / Devil put the sweat on me …” And so the song ends with that sweat on me mantra. Again, though, the femme fatale idea, which is overused, if you ask me.
The next song, When She’s Wrong, opens with what sounds like an organ. There is electric guitar, bass and drums and it’s something of a slow blues. “Go on and take her, it ain’t no surprise boy / I knew that someday it had to come / Just let me offer a word to the wise, boy / Oh, take a good look at what you’ve won.” Again, the theme seems to be one of wariness about this sought-after woman. “Then turn around, boy, and try to forget her / She’s gonna hurt you, before she’s gone / ’cause, when she’s good, lord, there ain’t nothing better / But, when she’s wrong, she sure can be wrong.” He definitely got stuck in a bit of rut on this album. “She’ll bring you sunshine so good that it’s frightening / Oh, but soon as the sun shines, start lookin’ for rain / You’ll hear the thunder, before you see the lightening / As soon as it’s over, start lookin’ for pain.” Finally: “And you won’t be sorry that you ever met her / But you’ll be thankful she don’t last long / ’cause when she’s good, lord, there ain’t nothing better / But when she’s wrong, she sure can be wrong.”
Next up is the oddly titled Getting’ By, High And Strange, which is a quick-paced song initially set up with bass and acoustic guitars. Country-style electric guitar and good backing vocals combine to make this a fine country song. “New York City was a stitch in time when I stood all I could of LA / Patchin’ up the pieces of my tangled mind diggin’ somethin’ different every day yeah / Soon as I was better I was movin’ on getting’ it together getting’ good and gone / And by (getting’ by) high (good and high) and strange (gonna get some strange).” It’s a cumbersome construction, but somehow it works. “New ain’t nothin’ but a state of mind / Keeps a man from missin’ what he left behind / I’ll take anything that I can find anyhow anywhere anyway anytime / I’ll keep livin’ till the day I die as long as I can get it up for one more try / Getting’ by (getting’ by) high (good and high) and strange (gonna get some strange).” Somewhere in there he slips in a boyish chuckle. There is also a seriously Irish slice of logic about “livin’ till the day I die”.
The album ends with Kiss The World Goodbye, another slow, acoustic guitar-led piece, which soon picks up the electric instruments, drums, piano et al. “I never had no regrets, boys; / Not for nothing I’ve done. / I owed the devil some debts, boys, / Paid them all up but one. / And I don’t even regret the living / That I’ll be leaving behind. / I’ve gotten weary of searching / For something I couldn’t find.” This seems to border on the suicidal. “I’m going down to the shade / By the river one more time, / And feel the breeze on my face before I die. / I’m gonna leave whatever’s left of my luck to the losers, / Then bend me down and kiss the world goodbye.” It reminds me of the Cream song, Born Under A Bad Sign, where if it wasn’t for bad luck, he wouldn’t have no luck at all. “Come to lucky-in-lovin’ / I never had no complaints. / They never said I was evil, / But then, I wasn’t no saint. / I’m just a river that rolled forever / And never got to the sea. / I ain’t blaming nobody; / I had it coming to me.” With that rather maudlin chorus repeated, this song perhaps sums up an album which really does, in a way, show Kristofferson on the border of losing it. Happily he would regain his mojo on the next one.
Jesus was a Capricorn
But let’s check what the online oracle has to say about the album. As with the others, Wikipedia totally underplays Kristofferson’s importance. All we learn is that it is his fourth studio album, was produced again by Fred Foster and was released by Monument Records in 1972. It also notes that Why Me reached No 1 on the Country singles charts – and that the cover does indeed feature Rita Coolidge, “his soon-to-be wife”.
The backing group is again packed with talent and features two drummers, about 10 guitarists (not all at once, of course), two bass players, a slide dobro player and steel guitarist, five pianists and a strings section which includes Bach (Byron T Bach, that is).
But while the cover may have been a hit with us youth – remember Kris was about 20 years older than me – it was the music, and especially the opening and title track, that obviously was the real focus of attention. At a time when, especially in South Africa, even to speak the name Jesus could be dodgy – with claims of blasphemy likely – this song was clearly controversial. Our hypocritical, avowedly puritanical Calvinistic apartheid rulers, had already roundly condemned Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar. But what was this song all about? The format is much like most of his others, starting with acoustic guitar and bass, with some powerful drumming, fine piano on the chorus and acoustic guitar lead, not to mention that slide dobro adding to the mix. Kristofferson is his laid-back self as the lyrics unfold. “Jesus was a Capricorn / He ate organic food / He believed in love and peace / And never wore no shoes.” At the time, of course, this was basically describing the look and lifestyle of a typical hippie. “Long hair, beard and sandals / And a funky bunch of friends / Reckon they’d just nail him up / If he came down again.” There are echoes, here, of that earlier song, The Law Is For Protection Of The People. Here, the chorus again explains why the authorities would take action against a Jesus revisiting. “ ’Cause everybody’s gotta have somebody to look down on / Who they can feel better than at any time they please / Someone doin’ somethin’ dirty decent folks can frown on / If you can’t find nobody else, then help yourself to me.” And, folks, that’s really the first time I’ve made head or tail of that chorus. Because it is actually clumsily constructed yet, given Kristofferson’s great writing ability, it somehow works. “Eggheads cussing rednecks cussing / Hippies for their hair / Others laugh at straights who laugh at / Freaks who laugh at squares / Some folks hate the Whites / Who hate the Blacks / who hate the Klan / Most of us hate anything that / We don’t understand.” Now that offered plenty of food for thought, especially for young white boys growing up in apartheid
Next up was Nobody Wins, which is a really progressive sounding country rock song, with slow, moody electric piano, wah-wah electric guitar and inspired bass. Kristofferson’s vocals again are the perfect fit, while the backing vocals again boost the chorus. Notice, again, how he moves words around to suit the melody and meter of the song. Instead of “It doesn’t matter anymore”, the song, of course, starts like this: “Any more it doesn’t matter / Who’s right or wrong / We’ve been injuring each other / For much too long / And it’s too late to try to save / What might have been / It’s over / Nobody wins.” We’ve most of us been there. A relationship fails, according to the divorce court, due largely to “mutual incompatibility”. No one’s to blame, but sometimes, in fact, both parties win, because they can then move on. Let’s see where this one went. “Make believin in forever / Is just a lie / And it seems a little sadder / Each time we try / ’Cause it’s a shame to make / The same mistakes again / And again / It’s over. / Nobody wins.” The song gets a trifle heavier, with that electric guitar upping the ante. “We’ve gone too far too long / Too far apart / The lovin’ was easy / It’s the livin’ that’s hard / And there’s no need to stay and see / The way it ends / It’s over. / Nobody wins.” I like those lines about the living being hard after the easy loving. That’s when reality kicks in, following those heady months and years of being “in love”. Ouch! Eina! It’s easy for me to say, yeah, just move on, but of course at the time you’re hurting real bad and really do feel that nobody wins – apart, that is, if one of the parties has been cheating on the other and swans off with a new partner…
Love, or its ramifications, remains a central theme in Kristofferson’s writing. In the next track, It Sure Was (Love), guitar, piano and drums – and Rita dueting on vocals – set the scene. “They said, ‘What do you think you would do / If she told you that she’d been untrue? / I’d say, ‘I won’t say I won’t be sorry, no. / It sure was love while it lasted.’” I’ve often felt Kristofferson seems to creep into his shell somewhat when accompanied by a female singer, but this song really works superbly. “They said, ‘How will you feel deep inside / When the love you believed in has died?’ / I ain’t sayin’ it won’t hurt me / It sure was love while it lasted.’” I think it’s about here that Kris takes over the lead vocals. “I’ll be livin off of the good times / That you’ve given me to face / I have had my share of the sunshine / I can stand a little rain.” Then the two sing together again. “So we don’t give a damn what they say / We’ve got something they can’t take away / ’Cause whatever comes tomorrow / It sure was love while it lasted / It sure was good while it lasted / It sure was love while it lasted.” This, of course, was a precursor to a couple of strong albums the pair would do over the next few years.
The Wikipedia tracklisting seems wrong at this point. They list Sugar Man at No 4, but on the vinyl album it is Enough For You, which is a slow, bluesy piece played on piano, bass and strings. The emotional power of Kristofferson’s vocals, alongside subtle electric guitar, sets this one apart. I also picked up some good steel guitar and acoustic lead guitar. “I’ve lived enough to know that love’s not everything you need / God knows I know there are still so many things you wanna be / I’ve seen enough to understand the pain you’re goin’ through / It’s just the shame to know I’m not enough for you.” Again, Kristofferson explores territory many a great bluesman has written about with tears falling across his guitar. “It hurts to see the hurt beneath your laughter and your lies / And try in vain to feel the painful secret locked behind your eyes / And I can’t even blame you for the things you’re turnin’ to / It’s just the shame to know I’m not enough for you.” Why do men put themselves in such positions? Why not, damn it! “I’ve given you the best of every thing I have to give / Now there’s nothing left for me to leave you but my will to live / I hope some day somebody somewhere loves you like I do / It’s just the shame to know I’m not enough for you.” Expect some serious drinking to follow such an admission.
Then a curious thing happens on this album. Someone else starts to sing. Larry Gatlin wrote Help Me and I see he is listed among the vocalists on the album cover. So clearly this is his song, which Kristofferson joins him on. Gentle acoustic guitar and bass launch Gatlin on his way. “Lord, help me walk / Another mile, just one more mile; / I’m tired of walkin’ all alone.” This is unashamedly Christian, a bit like Why Me, later on on this album. “Lord, help me smile / Another smile, just one more smile; / You know I just can’t make it on my own.” The song flows smoothly into the well-peopled chorus: “I never thought I needed help before; / I thought that I could get by by myself. / Now I know I just can’t take it any more. / With a humble heart, on bended knee, / I’m beggin’ You, please, Help Me.” The unique quality of Kristofferson’s voice is accentuated as he takes over the lead vocals for the next verse, its gruffness in stark contrast to the smooth Gatlin sound that precedes it. “Come down from Your golden throne to me, to lowly me; / I need to feel the touch of Your tender hand. / Remove the chains of darkness / Let me see, Lord let me see; / Just where I fit into your master plan.” With the strings and some plucky lead guitar boosting the melody, the chorus is repeated with great gusto.
Side 2 starts with a real belter, Jesse Younger. Heavy drums and bass and some wah-wah electric guitar give this a strong country-rock feel, but all the time the acoustic guitar keeps the song grounded. Kristofferson’s vocals are as assertive as ever. “Little Jesse Younger was a well respected lad / Doin’ all he could do to please his mommy and his dad / But he never planned to be the man they said that he’d become / Somehow or another now his little baby brother / Is his father’s and his mother’s only son.” So what became of the poor young lad? “Everyday the neighbours say that it’s a dirty shame the way / We spat upon his family and scandalised their name / And his parents never really ever said he’d been his own / Somehow or another now his little baby brother / Is his father’s and his mother’s only son.” This is an edgier Kristofferson sound, with the piano and lead guitar particularly strong on the chorus: “Oh Jesse Younger you’re a devil not a man / Can you dare to treat your parents so unkind / You have selfishly refused to live your life the way they planned / And you started goin’ your own way and speaking your own mind.” Of course that is dripping with irony. How dare a young man speak his own mind? “Jesse Younger’s parents wonder where it all went wrong / Now that Jesse’s name has turned to ashes on their tongues / But he chose to starve and try to carve a future of his own / And he got his druthers because now his younger brother / Is his father’s and his mother's only son.” I’ve often struggled with the words to that last verse, and the initial site I used had it completely wrong. A subsequent one seemed okay, but I still was unsure about that word, druthers. However, a wee Web search reveals that this is a very American shortening of the term “would rathers”, which itself is an Americanism, but it sort of make sense in the context of the song.
Give It Time To Be Tender, no Give ME Time etc. This next song, co-written by Kristofferson and Donnie Fritts, is another slow, moody piece built around piano and some lovely understated, snaking bass. Rita Coolidge is again prominent as a vocal accompanist. “I feel the hunger you feel in your touch / Burnin’ my body and soul / And it’s freightnin’ just wantin’ somebody so much / So close to losin’ control.” There is some cracking electric lead guitar as Coolidge joins in on the chorus. “But darlin’, don’t make me surrender too soon / I’m so afraid of the fall / Please give it time to be tender / And pretend that it won’t hurt at all.” I recall Coolidge goes solo, beautifully, about here. “Slowly, be gentle / Each step of the way / I’ve never been loved before.” Then Kristofferson rejoins the fray. “Let me believe / You won’t turn away / After I’ve opened the door / But darlin’, don’t make me surrender too soon / I’m so afraid of the fall / Please give it time to be tender / And pretend it won’t hurt at all / Please give it time to be tender / And pretend it won’t hurt at all.” I may have got the solo sequencing wrong, but the fact is this song is a vocal tour de force, and the electric guitar really adds a sharp edge.
Then time for some more wordplay on the next song, Out Of Mind, Out Of Sight, which he co-wrote with Stephen Bruton. Since we were seriously into “the jol” at this stage, the injunction at the start of this track to knock back a bit of booze was all the incentive we needed to do just that. A chorus of voices launches the attack. “Buddy, tip your bottle back / Climb aboard the bus / Join your brothers in the band. / If you ain’t bombed in
Fortunately, we had outgrown drugs by then, and probably wisely since I suspect Sugar Man, the next song, is all about their deleterious effects. A slow, bluesy song with steady bass and wavering electric guitar notes, Kristofferson’s ability to inject lashings of emotion is fully evident here. “There are shadows on the sidewalks / Of the city streets at night, / And the alleyways and ugly things / Are hidden from the light. / And somewhere, son, my baby’s / Gonna sell her soul again, / For a custom-tailored lady-killer / They call
With so many songs about how readily we mortals fall from grace, it is perhaps fitting that the last track looks in awe at a God who would love us despite our failings. Electric piano launches Why Me, and is soon joined by bass and drums. Kristofferson speaks the opening three words, before again pouring his soul into his delivery: “Why me Lord / What have I ever done / to deserve even one / of the pleasures I’ve known.” The music stops momentarily, as he again asks a question. “Tell me Lord / What did I ever do / That was worth loving you / or the kindness you’ve shown.” Then, as the chords shift the mood vertically, the chorus: “Lord help me Jesus I’ve wasted it so help me Jesus I know what I am / Now that I know that I’ve needed you so help me Jesus my soul’s in your hand.” A hallmark of the album are the backing vocals, which gives choruses like this such force. And the lead guitar is again sublime, both bluesy and jazzy, alongside a whirling organ. Kristofferson then again takes stock. “Try me Lord / If you think there’s a way / I can try to repay / all I’ve taken from you / Maybe Lord / I can show someone else / what I’ve been through myself / On my way back to you.” The song ends on a powerful, plaintive note. “Lord help me Jesus... / Lord help me Jesus... / My soul’s in your hand.”
And there it is, one of the great albums of an era of great albums. And what makes it so good is Kristofferson’s belief in his unique qualities as a singer and songwriter. He stuck by his vision and carried it through to produce this great body of work.
Full Moon
This album was also very much a part of my upbringing, but sadly I no longer have a copy. Wikipedia notes that, unlike Kristofferson’s solo albums, this features several covers. A glance at the track listing reveals that, in fact, there are two joint Kris/Coolidge songs – It’s All Over (All Over Again) and I’m Down (But I Keep Falling), and two Kristofferson wrote alone: From the Bottle To The Bottom and Song I’d Like To Sing. The rest are by other composers, including Hard To Be Friends (Larry Murray), I Never Had It So Good (Roger Nichols, Paul Williams), Take Time To Love (Donnie Fritts, Tony Joe White), Tennessee Blues (Bobby Charles), Part Of Your Life (A and MA Rich), I Heard the Bluedbirds Sing (Hod Pharis), After The Fact (Stephen Bruton) and Loving Arms (Tom Jans).
Sadly, I can’t recall many of those songs, though I know this was a splendid album. But purely as a matter of interest, let’s look at the lyrics of From The Bottle To The Bottom, which clearly was a theme close to Kristofferson’s heart. “You ask me if I’m happy now / That’s good as any joke I’ve heard / It seems that since I’ve seen you last / I done forgot the meaning of the word / If happiness is empty rooms / And drinkin’ in the afternoon / Well I suppose I’m happy as a clam / But if it’s got a thing to do / With smilin’ or forgettin’ you / Well I don’t guess that I could say I am.” You have to love his sarcastic definition of happiness – empty rooms and drinking in the afternoon – which makes him happy as a clam. The chorus takes you to where his hurting heart lies. “Did you ever see a down and outer waking up alone / Without a blanket on to keep him from the dew / When the water from the weeds had soaked the papers / He’d been puttin’ in his shoes to keep the ground from comin’ through / And his future feels as empty as the pocket in his pants / Because he’s never seen a single dream come true / That’s the way that I’ve been feelin’ since the day I started falling / From the bottle to the bottom stool by stool / Learnin’ hard to live with losin’ you.” Again, it’s clever writing. It takes a lateral thinker to present this image of a hobo who’s never seen a single dream come true and then relate it to how he’s feeling as he hits the bottle and falls from many a bar stool. There is almost a Dylan-like anger at this woman. “You wonder if I’m better off / With freedom now to do the things I choose / With all my times my own and I got nothin’ left but sleepin’ time to lose / There’s no one here to carry on / If I stay out the whole night long or give a tinker’s damn if I don’t call / I’m livin’ like I wanted to / And doin’ things I wanna do / And nothin’ means a thing to me at all.” So he presents the idyllic bachelor’s lifestyle in which he is “free to do the things I choose”, but of course in the last line he confesses that, despite all this freedom, life has become meaningless. The song ends with that lengthy, brilliant, chorus repeated, no doubt with Rita’s voice enriching the experience.
I’ve checked out the lyrics of the other Kristofferson solo composition and, while again a clever piece of writing, it perhaps does not have the gravitas of this track. The bottom line is I’d love to hear this album again. But later on we’ll give another Rita/Kris duet album a listen, so all is not lost.
Spooky Lady’s Sideshow
But let’s see what Wikipedia has to say about the album. Well, firstly this, his fifth solo album, was produced by David Anderle, who had produced Fool Moon. It was released – in May 1974 – on the Monument Records label. I’ve not been very interested in Kristofferson’s acting career, but Wikipedia does note that the album was recorded shortly after his appearance in the film, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. And, surprise, surprise, Wikipedia says the album “mostly consists of songs about decline due to alcohol and drug abuse”. It adds that this “theme of decline” proved unintentionally prophetic as it was his first album not to see commercial success “on a large scale”.
I have an old vinyl copy of the album, but a few of the tracks are dodgy. Let’s give it a shaky spin, anyway.
Phew! I had forgotten just what a great album this is. It is as if everything Kristofferson did before was building up to these 12 tracks. And I think I know exactly why it was not the commercial success of its predecessors. The simple fact is that, while Wikipedia classifies this again as “country” music, Kristofferson had actually moved on. No, while this may have some of the trappings of country, here we find Kristofferson making an unashamedly rock album. Everything about the production and arrangements points to a harder-edged rock sound, including the use of electric lead guitar and organ, along with a brilliant rhythm section comprising Sammy Creason on drums, Les Skiers on bass and Bobbye Hall on percussion. Whilst I didn’t spot it, there is even a sitar on here, played by Jerry McGee (any relation to Bobby?), who also plays sublime acoustic and electric guitar, harmonica and dobro. Mike Utley’s keyboards – notably piano and organ – are another key element. There are two sax players and two trombonists. Curiously, according to the album cover, Kristofferson plays “5 string and 11 string guitars”. I didn’t know such things existed. Rita Coolidge is again among the backing vocalists.
Oh, and as is to be expected, the songwriting here is probably Kristofferson’s finest. Not only are the melodies as pleasing as ever, but his lyric-writing teems with the special literary qualities which set him apart. Oh and that old album sounded okay on my 27-year-old Philips music centre. Indeed, listening to this, surface noises notwithstanding, I have to agree with those who assert that we are indeed losing something on CD. There is a warmth here, even when played softly, that I don’t think you get on CD.
Anyways, as Red Kowalski used to say on the Springbok Radio series Taxi, the album opens with, well, a song called Same Old Song. Acoustic guitar, piano and drums give Kris his platform. “I was just a young man / Working steady in a good time band / Pickin’ every single little lick I could / Just to please the man / Harlan sang the lead for half / And we split up the rest / Hangin’ on through the heavy times / And hopin’ for the best.” The wah-wah-type electric lead guitar really lifts this song, with the bass guitar providing an inspired complementary riff alongside real rock organ. Kristofferson’s voice takes on a tougher timbre for the next verse. “And I can’t recall the names of all / Them places that we played in / All them squirrely party girls / And pills we used to pop / Hardly ever sleepin’ in / Those cheap motels we stayed in / Hopin’ we could take it till we’d make it to the top.” Isn’t that a wonderful, one-verse encapsulation of the would-be rock star? The chorus, packed with backing vocalists, puts it into sharper perspective. “And them nights, get a little bit brighter / And them bars just a little bit better / And the sweet, just a little bit sweeter / But them blues, well it’s still the same old song.” Remember that by now Kristofferson is pushing 40. He’s more than paid his dues. “Now we’re stars and shining on / Them prime time TV shows / Every stranger knows our name / And every little where we go / Findin’ out the bottom ain’t so different / From the top / Just a few more friends that you’ll be losin’ / When you drop.” So, while he may have “made it”, he realises failure is always an imminent possibility. “And I’ve left some of my soul on / Every sweaty sheet that I could sleep on / Getting’ just as close to any body as I could / I don’t regret a single bed I’ve laid my body down on / Ever since the first I had / The worst I had was good.” This brilliant song, its musical qualities outstanding, ends with the chorus.
Slow-strummed acoustic guitar, backed by bass notes, launches the next track, Broken Freedom Song, which, with piano and acoustic guitar lead, alongside drums and percussion, has a subtle, almost muted quality. The organ again adds an interesting rock-orientated dimension, while those backing vocals help put oomph into the chorus. But again it is Kris’s strong vocals, and incredibly inventive lyrics, which are the pivot around which all else turns. “Got a song about a soldier / Ridin’ somewhere on a train / Empty sleeve pinned to his shoulder / And some pills to ease the pain.” It may seem a simple ploy, but instead of saying he’s lost an arm, Kristofferson describes that empty sleeve pinned to his shoulder. Clever. The song is tinged with anger. “Started drinkin in
This is one of those albums where, after just two songs, you start to wonder how the guy can keep up the standard. Well the good news is, he does.
Big chords, beautifully strummed on the acoustic guitar, with bold bass backing, launch the next song, Shandy (The Perfect Disguise). Again understated electric lead guitar gives the song a warmth and richness that is complemented by adroit piano work and superb vocals. “Shandy was somebody’s daughter, drivin’ to something insane / They busted her crossin’ the border, swift as a sniff of cocaine / All she could pay was attention, so all they could take was her time / Proving an ounce of possession, ain’t worth a piece of your mind.” The drug-bust hell-hole, captured in a chorus: “’Cause nightmares are somebody’s daydreams, daydreams are somebody’s lies / Lies ain’t no harder than telling the truth, truth is the perfect disguise.” Brilliant! Even if I can’t quite figure it all out. But what next? “Locked in the gold-handled bathroom, Martin was changing his mind / Shedding his humble pretensions, one careful toke at a time / And wiping the mask off a man in the mirror who really was Billy the Kid / Smiling at somebody dying, for something that he never did.” The chorus is followed by the final verse. “Soon as he sat down beside her, shining like Saturday night / Shandy was his for the saving, sweet as she looked in the light / And maybe they moved from the bar to the bedroom, maybe just stood there instead / Martin woke up wet and screaming, dreaming of blood on the bed.” Not surprising, after that shock, we return to a chorus which starts, “Cause nightmares are...” All in all, another Kristofferson gem.
Track 4, Star-Spangled Bummer (Whores Die Hard), is another superb piece which borders on the blues, given the great harmonica, piano and electric lead guitar alongside the acoustic guitar undertow. Indeed, the song opens with aggressively strummed chords on the acoustic guitar, followed by pregnant pauses, into which Kristofferson whisper-sings the opening lines. “Ring anvil for the deal / We dealt us by mistake / Our angel made of steel / Is big enough to break / Cause the rust is at his heel / And I swear I seen him shakin’ / But who’ll be here to bring this body home.” I love the sound of that opening gambit, even if its meaning is not entirely clear. The rhythm of the melody kicks in about here. “The cabaret was crowded / As her bed on payday night / Sammy hit a soldier / And the fools begun to fight / We scattered like the shadows / In the early morning light / But she remained to bring the body home.” Given the title is a play on the US flag’s monicker, one wonders how Old Glory fits into this bit of mayhem. “For longer than it seemed / She loved some honest man / Who chased her wildest dreams / And rode her like the wind / And they forged the bloody chains / For some wounds too deep for mendin’ / But she was there to bring the body home.” What, I wonder, is a barker? Well, as the word suggests, my dictionary says it’s a tout. “The barker stood there smilin’ / As he beckoned us inside / To see the shining creature that had / Grown too big to hide / Look here, he said, he’s harmless / And we wished he wasn’t lyin’ / ’Cause few remained to bring the body home.” The song concludes with that wonderful anvil ringing out in the chorus.
What intrigues me about this album is how each song is so distinct. There is not a track here which isn’t memorable, including the fifth, Lights Of Magdala, which was written by Larry Murray. Again, it is a simple picked acoustic guitar which lays down the melody, to be joined by bass and subtle electric guitar as Kristofferson’s vocals kick in. “Oh, the lights of Magdala flicker / Dimly on the shore / Holy sailor sailing on the sea / Patiently waiting she walked quietly / To the door / Another lonely night in Galilee.” A swirling rhythm, abetted by the organ, gives the chorus clout. “Magdalene, don’t wrap your dreams in sorrow / Save them for tomorrow if it comes / When we’ll meet within the circle / Round the sun / Oh, if heaven were a lady don’t you / Know you’d been the one.” It seems from Wikipedia, and there is clearly some uncertainty, that Magdala is widely held to have been the home of Mary Magdalene, a follower of Jesus. Is this song about her? “Through the streets of
Side 1 concludes with I May Smoke Too Much, a song which we really lapped up as naughty teens, because it basically seemed to give grudging approval for a somewhat dissolute lifestyle. All the rock instruments launch this at a saunter, with Kris’s vocals again spot on. But the feature here, of course, is a jaunty brass section, with the trombone particularly prominent. As usual, the lyrics drip with ironic self-deprecation. “Once my future was shiny as the / Seat of my pants are today / Then old mother luck and all her / Daughters started duckin’ me / When I finally got tired of just sittin’ there / Watching my life slip away / I said I better start takin’ all the living / That’s a-comin’ to me.” So, like so many of us have done at one time or other, he found solace in the barroom. The chorus is a masterpiece. “Now I love too much, fight too much / Stay out late at night too much / But you bet your butt I’m going to / Live before I die / And I may smoke too much, drink too much / Every blessed thing too much / It’s a low-down life, but it ain’t gonna pass me by.” As the brass section hypes this one up, a piano tinkles away tantalizingly. “I don’t care if the world don’t ever hear / The sound of my name / And old mother luck and all her daughters / Keep a-duckin’ me / As long as that cat that I gotta look at when / I shave ain’t ashamed / There ain’t no Jody in the world / I’d ever rather be.” Good to see he’s kept his self-esteem. The song ends with that fine chorus repeated.
Side 2 starts with some low notes on bass and piano, alongside Kris’s deep, dark voice, on One For The Money. The melody, as usual, is infectious. “I’ve seen you standing there stunned in the spotlight / I’ve seen the sweat streak the pain on your face / ’Cause you’re caught like a clown in a circle of strangers (great alliteration!) / Who do you screw to get out of this place.” The full rock band, with lovely understated electric lead guitar, launches the flowing chorus. “It’s one for the money / And too far to go / Three fingers of whiskey / Just for the soul / That lady you’re pleasin’ / Is hungry and cold / Don’t look in her eyes / You’ll see what you sold.” Again, it is a story of moral and social decline. “Too many bodies in too many bars / Too many feelings are fallin’ behind / ’Cause you’re easy to fool when you’re lost in the stars / Shoot out that spotlight before you go blind.” That is some mean songwriting. The Kristofferson sound has become progressive and sophisticated, while at the same time retaining his boyish irreverence. That brilliant one-too-three chorus is repeated as this song is brought to an end.
The old vinyl was a bit damaged on Late Again (Gettin’ Over You), but I still heard enough to appreciate the almost jazz-rock nature of the song, with the mood set from the outset by feisty piano and electric guitar. “Woke up late again this morning / ’Cause I was late again last night / In the mood that I was born in / And my skin was feelin’ tight / I took a short cut to the city / Had myself a drink or two / I got over feeling shaky / But I’m still not over you.” So he wakes up shaking like a new-born baby, has a hair of the dog and then ponders what went wrong with his girl. Astute drumming, virtuoso bass playing and some progressive sounding organ give this song a lovely blues-jazz-country-rock feel, as the chorus unwinds. “God, I might as well forget you / You ain’t never comin’ true / Seems like ever since I met you / I’ve been getting’ over you.” It is unclear here whether he is speaking to God our using his name as a remonstrative outlet. “I don’t crave no conversation / I don’t need no sympathy / All I want is my old lady / That old lady wantin’ me / So take me any way you want me / I’ll take you any way I can / I don’t want your sack of candy / Just some sweetness now and then.” In an altered chorus he continues his introspection. “I got to get myself together / With someone who wants some too / Maybe I can learn to love her / While I’m a-getting’ over you.”
Led Zeppelin are famous for Stairway To Heaven, but the next track here is Stairway To The Bottom, and again we’re dealing in a bluesy sort of way, with Kris’s continuing fall from grace. And blues is the word here, with slide guitar and piano providing a richly textured surface on which he paints his lyrics. Needless to say the melody is such that the song simply flows along almost ineluctably. “Well you’ve started again / With the wife of a friend / On another night you hope you won’t recall / And the wine that you’re drinkin’ / Doesn’t keep you from thinkin’ / Of the bitter taste that lingers in your soul / As you listen to your lies / Once again you realize / That she doesn’t mean a thing to you at all / And I watch you climb that stairway / To the bottom / Every evening in that mirror on the wall.” Kristofferson, probably more than any songwriter, explores the psychological incentives of the heavy drinker. Drinking to forget, or to stop thinking about something – but as noted here, it doesn’t work if the “bitter taste” of what is troubling you “lingers in your soul”. All along, that slide guitar and staccato piano keep a steady, somewhat muted, rhythm going. “You take pride in deceiving / One who tried hard believin’ in you / Even after all the lies you told / But each lie that you’ve spoken / And each vow that you’ve broken / Was a new nail in the coffin of your soul / If you think someone’s cryin’ / For the love that is dyin’ / With the trust that you betray each time you fall / Look around you on that stairway to the bottom / No one’s watchin’ but that mirror on the wall.” You can almost picture the scene, in a smoky room, as the last two lines are repeated. “Look around you on that stairway to the bottom / No one’s watchin’ but that mirror on the wall.”
Rescue
On the penultimate track, Smile At Me Again, it is a wonky wah-wah guitar that accompanies the bass on a slowish number that again is beautifully understated. “Monday caught me early / Comin’ down by surprise / Waiting for a signal light to change / Breathing something bitter / That was burnin’ my eyes / Thinkin’ I’d go drink myself / Back home on the range.” It’s another tale of torment, mitigated by softening alliterative sounds. “Shot down and sinking fast on Sunset Strip / Holding on to something in my head / Everything gets heavy when you’re / Losin’ your grip / Nothin’ looks as empty as a motel bed.” There is a lovely languid quality here as the backing vocalists join in the chorus. “Lord, I’m still a stranger / In this God-forsaken land / Farther from my future and my friends / I’m gonna take enough / To wake me up and make me one / Last one night stand / Then take me home to something’s / Gonna smile at me again.” With an organ filling out the background, chirpy electric lead guitar keeps the song bright and vital. “Break my connections / When I shake me loose / Give my old equipment to the band / Let my friend the devil / Pay the rest of my dues / Take me home to something’s / Gonna smile at me again.” With virtuoso piano joining in, a lovely instrumental section sees the song on its way.
The album ends on a high, bluesy, note, in the form of Rock And Roll Time, which Kristofferson co-write with McGuinn and Neuwirth. Brilliant slide alongside the acoustic guitar, with bluesy bass and piano set up the store. “Do I look like a loser? / Do I stand in your way? / A threat to your future / You planned yesterday / Well, I fought for my freedom / Some called it a crime / Convicted of running / On rock and roll time.” This is a nice concept, and something I suppose most of us did growing up. We really did run on rock and roll time – or at least rock time, the roll had already faded, in my mind, by the time Chuck Berry, Little Richard and, I guess, Elvis, had had their first hurrah and the Beatles and Stones had evolved their styles. But here, almost nostalgically, Kristofferson hankers for the escape that music offers as, backed by fine voices on the chorus, he sings: “I said rock and roll time / Please take me away / To the whiskey and wine / Of some better day / And if sometimes it seems / I’m falling behind / Remember I’m running / On rock and roll time.” Again, with the piano prominent, this song is a musical masterpiece, up there with the best in the game. “I’m judged in your airports / Each time that I fly / I’ve been locked in your jailhouse / Oh, but I’m getting by / Just hoping that heaven / Is happy and high / And everyone’s running / On rock and roll time.” The rocker as outcast … but don’t you love his wish that heaven itself will be “happy and high”. And we all know what high he’s thinking of. This great blues-rock song ends with that classic Kristofferson chorus repeated.
It’s hard to believe this album passes virtually under the radar when in my mind it is one of the great works of the 1970s. Kristofferson’s songwriting never fails to entertain, and offers ongoing food for thought.
Breakaway
Released in December 1974, Wikipedia tells us it was produced by Fred Foster, who was behind the earlier Kristofferson albums, and was again put out by Monument Records.
The second of their three duet albums, Wikipedia again notes that it features several cover versions. It also offered Kristofferson a chance to record two of his own songs which had previously provided hits for other artists, namely I’ve Got To Have You and I’d Rather Be Sorry.
While Wikipedia offers scant information, they do give the full personnel list – and it is interesting that Kristofferson is only listed as vocalist, with no mention of his playing the guitar. The musicians are many, including a fiddle player, keyboardist, several people on horns and on drums, several others on guitar, steel guitar, Moog synthesiser, percussion, keyboards, strings and background vocals. Among them is Charlie McCoy on harmonica and melodica.
So with all that musical power, did this album pack a punch? Let’s give the original vinyl disc a spin and decide.
Well the album certainly has power – but it was more sexually charged than anything else. There is no getting away from the fact – underscored by the images on the cover – that here were two beautiful people with beautiful voices who no doubt, for a time, had a rip-roaring sex life. So when they wrap their voices around each other – that rich baritone and Rita’s syrup-smooth alto – you can’t escape the fact that there is a subliminal frisson between the two which can lead only to the bedroom – or wherever else they decided to turn those emotions into action.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The album, to my mind, while beautiful almost to a fault, borders on the schmaltzy. It is in the nature of duets, I’m afraid. Gone is the devil-may-care attitude which marks so much of Kristofferson’s finest work. Instead, and it had to come, he has been domesticated. Sure it’s the same old voice – but he can no longer afford to sound off as he did previously about getting drunk and disorderly. Now everything he sings is tempered by Coolidge’s softening touch. Of course there will be many women who’d appreciate this more, but for me it’s just not the sound I came to associate with Kristofferson. That said, the musicians on this album help produce songs of the absolute highest quality – and there is also a nice variety of styles, from pure country, through bluegrass to straight rock.
The album starts with Billy Swan’s song – his swan song? – Lover Please, which features a lot of brass and the first taste of electric lead guitar which works superbly throughout the album. This is pretty traditional country rock, with the two lead singers alternating, while joining forces in the chorus.
The second track, We Must Have Been Out Of Our Minds, is by Melba Montgomery and starts slowly, with Rita’s crystal-clear voice somehow overshadowing that of Kris when he later joins in. On Larry Murray’s Dakota, it is the fiddle of Buddy Spicher which sets this apart. There is also some nice blues harmonica and even a bit of honky-tonk piano.
What’cha Gonna Do?, by Donnie Fritts and Jon Reid, sees Kristofferson’s vocals back up there. And when Rita sings her verses, it is crisp and clear. Again, one couldn’t help thinking that this was the aural expression of the horizontal intention.
Robert and Richard Sherman wrote The Things I Might Have Been, another musically superb showcase of these vocal talents. The side ends with Kristofferson’s own composition, Slow Down. Here there is a refreshing bit of aggro in his opening gambit: “I said slow down …”, with Rita and others echoing his lines.
Larry Gatlin’s Rain provides a delightful opening track on Side 2. It is nice to hear acoustic guitars once again prominent in this understated gem which features some of the finest harmonising you are likely to hear.
Then, on Floyd Gib Gilbeau’s Sweet Susannah, that fiddle of Buddy Spicher really sets up a vibrant bluegrass-type sound. I love the opening French chorus, before both lead vocalists surge effortlessly into the verses.
Kris’s composition, I’ve Got To Have You, features some sublime solo singing by Rita, backed by slow, bluesy piano and strings. There are some particularly pleasant piano bass notes when Kristofferson brings his powerful voice to bear.
The sexual, sorry I can’t get away from this, but the sexual chemistry between the two seems to reach its apotheosis on another Kristofferson song, I’d Rather Be Sorry, which while easy to dismiss as more country schmaltz, is so beautiful and charged with that overt romantic love, that it just blows you away. Add some of the finest lead guitarwork and you have a piece of magic.
The album ends with some great Kristofferson vocals on Crippled Crow, a Donna Weiss composition. “Beggar standing on the corner …” It was that man Chuck Berry, on a live version of My Ding-aling, who spoke of how the guys in the audience had to sing one part of the song and the girls another, with the girls “putting their part around the guys’ part”. In these songs there is no need for such salacious commentary, but the chemistry, evident in their vocal interaction as well as a series of pictures of Kris and Rita on the front and back covers of the album, leave one with little choice but to believe they were one of the sexiest couples around.
Small wonder that Kristofferson, who no doubt often loved and lost, could write so tellingly about matters of the heart, and how men broken by failed relationships so often try to drown their sorrows.
We, as teenagers, were, I believe, blessed to have grown up under the “spell” of Kris Kristofferson who, as I think I mentioned earlier, even our high school English teacher praised for his songwriting ability.
But of course we sort of moved on, after 1974, as other rock forces outweighed whatever Kris was doing.
Older now
In the first decade of the 21st century he had another three out. Add to this his ongoing role as an actor and he clearly was a prolific and productive artist in a long and, for a time in the early 1970s, incredibly illustrious, career.
3 comments:
Absolutely stunning post - The BEST I have read in a long time. Linking to it from kriskristoffersonfan.com. Thank you so much for all the hard work, Kin. Hearfelt read.
I swear I need sleep. Please excuse the typos.
Excellent post, Kin. Even though your post is quite old, I'm just seeing it and wanted to address one question you had, that I don't think I saw answered anywhere, that is the reference Kris made about the "eagle scream".. maybe you've since discovered its meaning but in case not, it's a reference to U.S. money...the bald eagle is/has been on various coins minted by the U.S. treasury. Heres's some background info for you:
The bald eagle first appeared as an American symbol on a Massachusetts copper cent coined in 1776. Since then it has appeared on the reverse side of many U.S. coins, notably the silver dollar, halfdollar and quarter, as well as the gold coins which were christened the eagle, half eagle, quarter eagle, and double eagle.
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