We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…..
Any list of the greatest American songwriters would have to include Kris Kristofferson. The quality of his collected songs is staggering. Me & Bobby McGee, Sunday Mornin Comin Down, Help Me Make It Through The Night, Lovin Her was Easier…and on and on. In 1971 Kristofferson released his second LP, “The Silver Tongued Devil & I”. It went Top 30 on the Billboard Chart and Top 5 on the Country Chart.
It also includes some of his most heartfelt songs including a sad song called Epitaph, a tribute to his friend Janis Joplin, a song he once said “was the kind of song you write because you have too, not because you want to.”
Other tunes just seem to slide off his pen…”Jody & The Kid, “Breakdown, ‘The Taker”. “Loving Her Was Easier” is here…As is a Billy Shaver song called “Good Christian Soldier”, who’s gentle anti-war lines, get delivered here by a former military helicopter pilot that passed Ranger school. And the title track which is a wonderful song about his own split personality…the real him and the other guy who comes out when he’s drunk.
And then there is ‘The Pilgrim, Chapter 33″ from which the title of this blog is taken. It may be my favorite Kristofferson song. It’s a look at a down and out guy who fell from the top to the bottom and he vocally dedicates it to a host of his friends and heroes including Johnny Cash, Jerry Jeff Walker and Ramblin Jack Elliot. It starts with the line ‘See him wasted on the sidewalk in his jacket and his jeans, wearing yesterday’s misfortune like a smile. Once he had a future full of money, love and dreams, which he spent like they was going out of style”. Man, if I could only write like that.
It also had a small part in the movie Taxi Driver….
He made a nice living having other people sing his songs, but like Dylan before him, can use an every-man voice to deliver his own lines as well as anyone else…Janis Joplin not withstanding.
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