Kris Kristofferson not only wrote songs like he was destined for country music’s Mount Rushmore; with his windswept hair and rough face, the singer and songwriter also looked like a man destined for sculpted eternity. By the mid-1970s, Kristofferson’s rugged good looks earned him a successful acting career in Hollywood, including a largely shirtless role opposite Barbra Streisand in her rock ‘n’ roll remake of “A Star Is Born.” But it was the depth and invention of Kristofferson’s writing – a talent he honed while studying literature at Pomona College and Oxford University – that distinguished a career that unfolded from the late 1960s until his death on Saturday at the age of 88. released are 10 essential Kristofferson songs – his own recordings, those made by other singers and a selection that gives a sense of the lyricism he admired.
1. “Sunday Morning Comes” (1970)
Johnny Cash gave Kristofferson a No. 1 country hit — and opened countless doors for him in Nashville — with his rendition of This Fiery Drunk’s Lament, which Cash recorded live at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium during a taping of his popular ABC variety show. But it’s Kristofferson’s own version from his self-titled debut that most clearly captures the desperation at the bottom of the bottle of a guy who “woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head without hurting me “.
2. Sammi Smith, “Help Me Get Through the Night” (1970)
Another No. 1 on the Billboard country singles chart is this dark but deeply sensual tale of a one-night stand: “Take the ribbon from my hair, shake it and let it fall / Lay soft against your skin, like “Shadows on the Wall” (!) – won the Grammy Award for Country Song of the Year in a ceremony in which Kristofferson was nominated in that category for three different songs.
3. Janis Joplin, “Me and Bobby McGee” (1971)
“Freedom is just another word for there’s nothing left to lose,” Joplin sang in his signature blues-rock howl – perhaps the very wise man’s best-known piece of wisdom Kristofferson catalog. “Me and Bobby McGee” topped the Hot 100 in March 1971, less than six months after Joplin’s death at age 27.
4. «Loving Him Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do)” (1971)
Kristofferson has never sounded more like Leonard Cohen than he does here, rhapsodizing in a dry song about a woman’s redemptive devotion while producer Fred Foster loads in just the right amount of easy-listening schmaltz.
5. “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33” (1971)
An origin story of Jackson Maine.
6. Al Green, “For the Good Times” (1972)
A year after Gladys Knight showed what a soul singer could do with Kristofferson’s material in her 1971 recording of “Help Me Make It,” Green recorded a version of “For the Good Times” (first popularized by Ray Price) whose refined groove evokes the loneliest heartbeat in the world.
7. “Why Me” (1972)
Kristofferson’s only track record as a solo artist finds him on his knees, begging God to use him as a vessel: “Maybe, Lord, I can show someone else what I’ve been through when I come back towards you. »
8. Willie Nelson, “Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends” (1979)
The fact that he followed his collection of hit standards, “Stardust,” with an album of Kristofferson songs, including this magnificent ballad of self-delusion, which climaxes with one of the highest notes, in speaks volumes about the esteem in which Nelson holds his old friend’s work. Nelson has always sung.
9. Highwaymen, “Highwayman” (1985)
Kristofferson hit No. 1 again with Jimmy Webb’s Metaphysical Reverie, which he recorded as a member of the Highwaymen alongside Cash, Nelson and Waylon Jennings. With Kristofferson’s death, Nelson is now the only surviving member of this country supergroup.
10. “Sister Sinead” (2009)
Like Cash with Rick Rubin, Kristofferson teamed up with producer Don Was to make a series of late-life LPs that not only acknowledged the ravages of time, but glorified them with growling, close-up vocal performances set against a backdrop of acoustic arrangements intimate. In this warm, witty track from his album “Closer to the Bone,” he uses that grizzled perspective to double down on his support for Sinéad O’Connor, whom he defended after she was attacked for tearing a photo of Pope John Paul II on “Saturday Night Live” in 1992. “It takes trouble to crane your neck / In terms of target, a tall figure,” Kristofferson sings, “But some candles flicker and some candles go out / And some burn as true as my sister Sinéad.
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