Are you ready for the Country 2 : Kris Kristofferson

What a terrific collection of songs!  The first time I can actually remember hearing him sing was when Why Me?  made the 2ZM top 20 countdown some time in 1973.   However I would have known his songs earlier especially Bobbie McGee, Help Me Make it through the Night and For The Good Times.  For The Good Times by Perry Como was well known in our house as it is one of Mum's favourite songs. 

Kristofferson is an interesting character, a Rhodes Scholar, a graduate in English literature, an Airforce Helicopter Pilot, an instigator of one of California's key Rugby clubs.  He was to take up a lecturing position at West Point when he decided to be a musician instead and headed to Nashville.  He was the janitor at the recording studio when Dylan was recording Like a Rolling Stone and supposedly hawked Sunday Morning Coming Down  to Johnny Cash by landing a helicopter on Cash's front lawn.   

Sunday Morning Coming Down is certainly one of my favourite songs - the lyrics are so well constructed you can almost feel the hangover in the first verse 

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.

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.

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,
On the sleepin' city sidewalks:
Sunday mornin' comin' down.

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.

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,
On the sleepin' city sidewalks:
Sunday mornin' comin' down.

I do not have any of Kristofferson's original lps but I do have this great collection. It is never far from the stereo particular Side 4 with Sunday Morning, the Silver Tongued Devil and Jesus was a Capricorn.