Aaahhhhh, dang it. You know how there are people you’ve never actually met who have had a greater effect on you than people you see every day. For me, some of them wrote novels, some wrote poetry, some wrote music. Kris Kristofferson was one of the latter. When I read this past Monday morning that he’d died I felt a sharp hurt. There were tears shed at our home on Monday at the sense of loss that was felt.
If Kris had only written the one tune, Me and Bobby McGee, it would have been enough to put him in my personal Hall of Fame, but he went on from there. He wrote the best hangover song I’ve ever heard in Sunday Morning Coming Down.
He also wrote some of the best breakup songs in For the Good Times and Loving Her Was Easier Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again.
And he wrote some songs that were at least partly autobiographical, using his wry sense of humor to great advantage. He was a good man who lived his life well enough that others can take lessons from it. Love the phrase from The Pilgrim: “He’s a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction, taking every wrong direction on that lonely way back home.”
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Kristofferson was a Rhodes scholar, football and rugby player, boxer, helicopter pilot in the US Army, actor, singer, and songwriter. One of those folks whose life story absolutely forces one to accept that they are just more interesting than you are. (At least than I am.)
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I haven’t talked about his movie career at all, but he appeared in nearly 50 films, including two of my favorite movies, which are Heaven’s Gate and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Here’s a clip from Heaven’s Gate, featuring him waltzing with Isabelle Huppert. Sweet.
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Now it follows as the night the day that some of Kris’ music was recorded and made famous by others. A prime example was Me and Bobby McGee, recorded by a former lover from Port Arthur, Texas.
While Kristofferson’s original version was typically laid-back, Janis Joplin’s was kick-ass. I include it because I can’t help myself. It’s a favorite of both Robin and I.
Kristofferson recorded his own version of the song on his debut album Kristofferson in 1970. … Janis Joplin recorded the song for inclusion on her Pearl album only a few days before her death in October 1970. … Record World called it a “perfect matching of performer and material.” Joplin’s version topped the charts to become her only number one single.
Wikipedia: Me and Bobby McGee
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Just a thought. If Janis Joplin had lived, she would be 80 years old. Instead, she is forever twenty-seven.
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Little Home In The Valley 