Kris Kristofferson: “Me and Bobby McGee” and 9 other important songs

Kris Kristofferson didn’t just write songs like he was destined for country music in Mt Rushmore; with his windswept hair and ragged face, the singer-songwriter also looked like a guy built for chiseled eternity. In the mid-1970s, Kristofferson’s rugged good looks led to a successful acting career in Hollywood, which included: a mostly shirtless role opposite Barbra Streisand in her rock ‘n’ roll remake of A Star Is Born. But it was Kristofferson’s depth and inventive writing – a talent he honed while studying literature at Pomona College and the University of Oxford – that distinguished a career that spanned from the late 1960s until his death Saturday at the age of 88. Here, in the order they were released, are Kristofferson’s 10 most important songs – his own recordings, recordings of other singers, and one selection that gives an idea 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 a rendition of this seeking 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 shot from his debut album that most clearly captures the despair at the bottom of the bottle of a guy who “woke up on a Sunday morning and couldn’t hold his head because it didn’t hurt.”

2. Sammi Smith, “Help Me Get Through the Night” (1970)

It’s another No. 1 on Billboard’s country charts, a bleak but deeply sensual description of a one-night stand: “Take the ribbon off my hair, shake it and let it fall / It lies soft on your skin like shadows on the wall” (!) – won the award Grammy for Country Song of the Year at a ceremony where Kristofferson was nominated in the category for three different songs.

3. Janis Joplin, “Me and Bobby McGee” (1971)

“Freedom is just another word for nothing to lose,” Joplin sang in her signature blues-rock shriek – perhaps the most famous piece of wisdom in Kristofferson’s very wise catalogue. “Me and Bobby McGee” topped the charts in March 1971, less than six months after Joplin’s death at the age of 27.

4. “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again)” (1971)

Kristofferson has never sounded more like Leonard Cohen than here, rhapsodizing in a parched croon about a woman’s saving devotion while producer Fred Foster sips just the right amount of easy-listening schmaltz.

5. “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33” (1971)

Jackson Maine Origin Story.

6. Al Green, “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 orderly rhythm brings to mind the loneliest heartbeat in the world.

7. “Why Me” (1972)

The only artist to top the charts as a solo artist finds him on his knees and begging God to use him as a vessel: “Maybe, Lord, I can show someone else what I’ve been through coming back to You.”

8. Willie Nelson, Please Don’t Tell Me How This Story Ends (1979)

It says something about the respect in which Nelson holds his old pal’s work that he followed up his collection of hit standards “Stardust” with an album of Kristofferson songs, including a gorgeous ballad of self-deception that culminates in one of the highest notes Nelson has ever sung.

9. Robbers, “The Robber” (1985)

Kristofferson reached No. 1 on the chart again with Jimmy Webb’s Metaphysical Dream, which he recorded as a member of the Highwaymen with Cash, Nelson and Waylon Jennings. With Kristofferson’s death, Nelson is now the only surviving member of the supergroup from that country.

10. “Sister Sinead” (2009)

Like Cash did with Rick Rubin, Kristofferson teamed up with producer Don Was to create a series of late-life LPs that not only reflected the ravages of time but also glorified them with resonant, close-mic vocals paired with intimate acoustic arrangements. In this warm and witty album track, “Closer to the Bone,” he uses this gray-haired perspective to double down on his support of Sinéad O’Connor, whom he famously defended after she was attacked for tearing up a “Saturday Night Live” photo of Pope John Paul II from 1992 “Sticking your neck out is asking for trouble / When it comes to purpose, big silhouette,” Kristofferson sings, “But some candles flicker and some go out / And some burn as true as my sister Sinéad.