This story will only repeat. A voice on early morning radio informs us of another musician’s death. A musician whose life paralleled ours, whose music lives in your heart along with lyrics that name your fears and hopes, joy and sadness. Gone.
That morning, I pictured the cover of an album in a wooden
crate in the shack. On it is a picture
of the long-haired singer/songwriter as a young man. There is a shadow image beside him. His thumbs are tucked behind his belt buckle,
and between his fingers is a lit cigarette.
In my mind, he walked a path I also traveled. Perhaps creating that feeling of familiarity was
his gift. I walk into our bedroom as my
wife is waking up.
“Kris Kristofferson died.”
“I’m sorry. I know how
much you liked him. Which of his songs was
your favorite?”
“Want me to sing it for you?”
“Sure.”
I struck up an acapella version of “The Silver Tongued Devil
and I” while putting on my socks. It had
been running through my mind since I heard the news.
I took
myself down to the Tally Ho tavern
To buy
me a bottle of beer.
I sat
me down by a tender young maiden
With
eyes just as dark as her hair.
And as
I was searching from bottle to bottle
For
something unfoolish to say.
That
silver tongued devil, just slipped from the shadows
And
smiling, stole her away.
Chorus
I said
‘Hey, little girl, don’t you know he’s a devil?
He’s
everything that I ain’t.
Hiding
intentions of evil, under the guise of a saint.
All he’s good for is gettin’ in
trouble,
And shifting his share of the
blame.
Some people swear he’s my
double,
And some even say we’re the
same.
But the silver-tongued devil’s
got nothing on me
I’ll only live till I die.
We take our own chances, and pay
our own dues,
The silver-tongued devil and I.
(In my head a spare dobro and a
tinkling piano back his voice)
Like all the fair maidens who’ve
laid down beside him
She knew in her heart that he
lied
But nothing that I could have
said
Could’ve have saved her
No matter how hard that she
tried
Cause she’ll offer her soul to
darkness and danger
Of something that she’s never
known,
And open her arms at the smile
of a stranger
Who’ll love her and leave her
alone.
Repeat Chorus
@1971 Combine Music Corp. Used without permission. Apologies to the
Kristofferson estate.
“I’m amazed you still know the words.”
“I think I knew all the songs on that album at one time. “
“Which others?”
“When I Loved Her.
Jody and the Kid. Black and Blue. Loving Her Was Easier Than Anything I’ll Ever
Do Again.”
The Silver Tongued Devil and I was also the name of Kristofferson’s
second album, recorded in 1971. It was a
bigger success than his first, both coming before he became Grammy winner, a movie
star, and a legendary Nashville songwriter.
But it was his life as much as his songs that drew me to
Kristofferson.
He grew up in a military family, his father an Air Force
pilot who retired as a major general. His
son followed in his footsteps though unlike his dad Kris first went to school as
an English major at Pomona College, California. At Pomona he studied creative writing and was named
a Rhodes scholar, enabling him to complete his studies at Oxford University in
England. It was 1960.
In Europe, Kristofferson’s life expanded. At Oxford, he continued to write and studied
in detail the works of William Blake, a visionary English poet and visual
artist of the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. Kristofferson also used his time in Europe to
travel.
In an interview with David Letterman, Kristofferson
described a trip he made following the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway. Kristofferson said “I figured if I wanted to
become a writer I had to go out and live.
One of the ways I did that was trying to be as much like Hemingway as I
could, doing all the wrong things he did except, you know, blowing my brains
out.”
Kristofferson became an aficionado of bullfighting, running
with the bulls in Pamplona, and attending bullfights throughout northern Spain.
As he recounted the trip to Letterman,
he was young and “thought of myself as immortal, impossible to kill.”
In the Spanish town of Burgos, he and several friends gathered
outside a hospital where matador Luis Miguel Dominguin was taken after a near
fatal goring in the bull ring. As they
waited to receive word on his status, a car pulled up and from it emerged
Ernest Hemingway. He described their
encounter to Letterman this way.
“All of a sudden, Hemingway was standing beside me. I looked him right in the face. It was ravaged. I had no idea of the awful shape he appeared
to be in. I don’t know if he reacted to
the look on my face or what but without a word, he wheeled around, got back in
his car and sped away. He died within months
of that day.” Hemingway was 61. The year was 1961.
After Oxford, Kristofferson enlisted in the United States
Army. Stationed in Germany, he completed
Ranger School and went on to fly helicopters.
He volunteered to go to Vietnam as a pilot, but instead the Army ordered
him to report to West Point to serve as an English Literature professor.
When Kristofferson found out he would be required to turn in
lesson plans as a West Point faculty member, he is reported to have said that
the job “sounded like hell to me.” He resigned
his commission in the Army and moved to Nashville to pursue his interest in
songwriting. The year was 1965.
That decision was not without consequences. Upon learning their son gave up a promising
military career, his parents, both veterans, disowned him. Kristofferson claimed he had no regrets, believing
William Blake was correct in asserting these words; “anyone divinely ordered for
spiritual communion that buries his talent will be pursued by sorrow and
desperation through life and by shame and confusion for eternity.”
Heavy stuff, even for an English major. Kristofferson reframed Blake’s 200-year-old advice
this way. “Blake is telling you you’ll be miserable if you don’t do what you’re
supposed to do.”
Not that it was easy.
Kristofferson worked as a janitor at Columbia Studios in Nashville for
years, writing songs that went unheard, hoping to make connections. Unsuccessful, he began piloting commercial helicopters
to make a living. That led to his
boldest move.
Kristofferson flew one of those helicopters to Johnny Cash’s
home near Nashville, landed on his lawn, and personally delivered his idol a
demo tape. Cash listened to the tape and
liked it so much he recorded it. That
song was “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” And
the rest, as they say, is history. The
year was 1969. I was graduating from
high school.
Johnny Cash believed Kris Kristofferson fundamentally changed
songwriting and with it country music. Kristofferson
argues it was Bob Dylan, whose country album “Nashville Skyline” was recorded there. He’s quoted as saying “the direction Bob
Dylan was pointing made it (songwriting) a respectable thing to do.” I credit them both.
When this happens, I sit in the shack and listen to the
songs of my departed hero. Unlike
Hemingway, Kris Kristofferson was old when he died. During his career, Kristofferson was generous
to those around him. In 1992, he risked
and received criticism while publicly defending Sinead O’Connor. The troubled artist had protested sexual
abuse and its coverup within the Catholic Church by ripping up a photo of the
Pope on Saturday Night Live. In 2009 he wrote a song “Sister Sinead” about her.
But Kristofferson’s most memorable good deed happened on a
snowy night in Chicago. He was
performing in Chicago with Steve Goodman.
The conversation may have gone like this.
“Kris, I know
you want to get out of town, but there’s this mailman you gotta hear.”
“Because?”
“He’s special.”
“Does he write
like you?”
“Sort of. More clever maybe.”
“Tell me a song
of yours that compares to his.”
“Oh hell, I
don’t know.”
“Come on Steve,
give me something.”
“OK. The Dutchman.”
“Really? All right.
Let’s hear what he’s got to say.”
Soon they were knocking on the door of the Fifth Peg, a short-lived
folk club in Lincoln Park on Armitage. It
was closed. Prine was having a vodka and
ginger ale at the bar when they let in Goodman and Kristofferson. He unpacked
his guitar and played his songs to an empty house save for them. Within months John Prine signed a record deal
with the help of Kris Kristofferson. The
year was 1970.
And so it goes. Steve
Goodman left us way too early in 1994 at the age of 36. Johnny Cash died in 2003 at age 71. In 2020 the pandemic delivered a cruel blow when
COVID took John Prine from us at age 73.
84-year-old Gordon Lightfoot left the stage last year. And now 88-year-old Kris Kristofferson. Like old trees in a forest, they come crashing
down.
Bob Dylan is 83.