It’s hard to imagine the landscape of American song without him. Kristofferson had an inimitable sensitivity – in his works sadness and melancholy mixed with warmth and gratitude.
This wasn’t supposed to be this way. For several months, I have been running a series of short entries on my Facebook about songs and artists who shaped me. Two weeks ago I wrote down: “Write an episode about Kris Kristofferson by the end of September.” Today is the last day of the month. When I open my eyes, I find out that Kristofferson is dead. He passed away at the age of 88.
I met him at the cinema. He acted in films starting in 1970 and Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie. He won a Golden Globe for his role in “A Star Is Born”, he also appeared in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” by Martin Scorsese (later, Travis buys his album for the girl in “Taxi Driver”), in “Heaven’s Gate” by Michael Cimino, several times with Sam Peckinpah – primarily in the brilliant, elegiac “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid”, where he played the role of the Kid. Thirty years ago, he created an interesting role in “On the Border” by John Sayles, and also appeared in the popular “Blade” series.
But it was not cinema that became the art of his life. In his youth, he was involved in many activities – he was an athlete, a bartender, a military pilot (his father was a general, Kris himself served in Germany in the 1960s), but also, as a graduate of philosophy and English literature, a lecturer. All this before he was really drawn into music, the sounds of Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. His songs were then sung by the greatest, including Elvis Presley and Janis Joplin.
It is difficult to imagine the landscape of American song in the second half of the 20th century without him. When he achieved independence, it quickly turned out that Kristofferson had an interesting voice and inimitable sensitivity – sadness and melancholy mixed with a kind of warmth and gratitude. After all, the famous “Why Me?” it is, yes, a request to God for help, but the title question does not sound like a complaint, rather a psalm of a man who does not understand why Someone has saved him so many times.
A similar thing happens in the declining song “Wonder”: the singer complains that life is slipping away from him, dreams will not come true, and the sky seems gray and empty. Then he notices the “starry glory of love” and is calmed down like the dying Knulp from Hermann Hesse’s book. In Kristofferson’s work, it is not very clear why good things happen, but we know that we need to thank the Creator, fate, love, a loved one for them (“Thank You for a Life”).
Maybe that was his strength, his secret? He was able to find a glimmer of light in the darkest darkness, not to despair, but to appreciate the past. As in “When I Loved Her”: I don’t know why I lost her, but it doesn’t change the fact that she “brightened up the day like the morning sun”, “made what I was doing worthwhile.” I loved her because she made me “feel like I was coming home.” Or “For the Good Times”: I know that we are parting, but let’s stay together for a while, let my eyes be filled with your look, which I will keep within me “for better times”. After all, there is always someone in the dark who will help us get through the night (“Help Me Make It Through the Night”).
Moreover, Kristofferson was excellent at telling a story in his works. In the late “Hall of Angels”, there are guys sitting in a bar drinking to memories that are “crushing” them. Suddenly, a stranger emerges from the darkness and begins to tell the story: he had a daughter whom he loved most in the world, but he lost her, the child died. When he wanted to take his own life, he had a dream. A host of children stood before him – whom he called “angels”. They all held lit lanterns in their hands, all except his daughter. When he asked her why, he was told, “Dad, every time I try to light the candle, your tears extinguish the flame.” Touching, right?
In turn, the song I wanted to describe in my series is “Epitaph”, a simple story of a girl whose friends gather at her grave and admit that they let her down. She died alone, so far from home. She dreamed beautiful dreams that never came true. Why was she born at all if everything was gone? But… are you sure that’s all? There is someone who understands the pain of the deceased, her loneliness, disappointments, dreams. He understands and writes an epitaph in honor of the lost girl.
When I think of this song, I think of another piece by Kristofferson, almost forty years older. “This Old Road”, the musician’s penultimate album, closes with “Final Attraction”. In this piece I find the following lines (my own translations):
Once in my life
You dared to feel
So many emotions
That it completely ruined you
But people loved you
For sharing their sorrows
So take your guitar
And fill your heart with regret.
Fill your heart with regret or literally, “let your heart break.” As Hank Williams, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Janis Joplin did it before. Like Kris Kristofferson, who – I recall Miłosz – “was sent to absorb as much as possible / Colors, tastes, sounds, smells, experiences / Everything that is / Participated by man.” To transform human emotions into inexpressible ones, i.e. into music. And take it back to where it came from.
Read also: Letting love go, or how I fell in love with Willie Nelson’s sadness
