Kris Kristofferson: Country Music’s Poet Laureate and Revolutionary Lyricist Passes

News 60 Comments


Country music? Ha! It’s nothing more than a bunch of white trash hokum for cousin-kissing rednecks to blast out in the cornfield, completely undignified and ill-refined for anyone who takes arts and letters seriously. Nobody of any class would ever find themselves in the audience of the base racket that falls beneath the “country music” umbrella and expect to be accepted or even tolerated in polite society.

…and then came Kris Kristofferson.

Being simple and backwards wasn’t just the assessment of country music that many people in the United States believed before Rhodes Scholar, Army Ranger, and helicopter pilot Kris Kristofferson ditched it all to move to Nashville and take a job as a janitor to get his foot in the door of the music business. This was the assessment of Kristofferson’s own family. They disowned him for making the career move.

But through his songs and their transformational power in country music, Kris Kristofferson wouldn’t just prove his family wrong, he would revolutionize the mindset of the entire listening public, and clue them into the poeticism and the power that country music could wield through written word set to rhyme. This would open up the entire genre to an entirely new audience, and era.

Kris Kristofferson was so much more than a country artist. It’s just happened to be that country music could claim him as their own, and was proud to. From songs like the 1970 CMA Song of the Year “Sunday Morning Coming Down” recorded by Johnny Cash, to Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee,” Sammy Smith’s #1 “Help Me Make It Though The Night,” Kris Kristofferson defined what a song was for generations, and still does by continuing to influence composers across all genres.

Country music and popular American music boast a large and impressive population of popular composers, including many that were much more prolific than Kristofferson ever was. But none of them could write Kris Kristofferson songs, no matter how hard they tried. And they all did, because everyone wanted to capture the passion of moments in music like Kristofferson did. He was the pinnacle.

Kris Kristofferson was a shoo-in Country Music Hall of Famer when he was inducted in 2004, even though he only had one Top 40 hit his entire career—1973’s “Why Me” that went #1. He had four Top 10 albums to commence his career, including the #1 Jesus Was a Capricorn in 1972 that some proclaim is his magnum opus. But country music proper had no idea what to do with the guy. Luckily, his fellow performers did: record Kris Kristofferson songs. Over 500 artists have officially recorded songs by Kristofferson. Just let that stat sink in for a second.

Though he’s often overlooked in the conversation, Kris Kristofferson was unequivocally a country music Outlaw as well. It might have been Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings who reorganized the business of country music in the mid ’70s while bringing the genre its highest commercial success to date. But it was Kristofferson who opened up country music to themes previously considered forbidden in the format.

The physicality of his love songs was heated, making some of the blue hairs uncomfortable. The specificity of detail in his tales of destitution was candid to a capacity that stretched the limits of acceptability, and sometimes got songs outright banned. But this helped break the monopoly of the “Countrypolitan” sound and approach of Music City in the 1970s. Kristofferson opened the music up as much as anybody.

Even to this day, major periodicals like Rolling Stone act like is revolutionary when a country artist mentions getting “stoned” in a song, but Kristofferson crossed that Rubicon 55 years ago with “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” and thanks to Johnny Cash who recorded it. When it won the CMA Song of the Year, it assured it was a new era in the genre.

Kris Kristofferson was daring and bold, especially at the beginning of his career. While still working as a studio janitor and getting frustrated that nobody was paying attention to his songs, he took part-time work with the National Guard to help pay bills. To try and get Johnny Cash’s attention, Kristofferson decided to deviate from his flight plan in a helicopter while on a training run and land in Johnny Cash’s front yard in Hendersonville.

What happened next depends on who you ask, but according to Cash, Kristofferson came sauntering out of the helicopter with a beer in one hand, and his demo tapes in another, demanding to be heard. Kristofferson painted a more subdued picture, saying, “Y’know, John had a very creative imagination. I’ve never flown with a beer in my life. Believe me, you need two hands to fly those things. I still think I was lucky he didn’t shoot me that day!”

Whatever story you believe, Johnny Cash invited Kris Kristofferson to the Newport Folk Festival and invited him out on stage. This is when the world was officially introduced to Kris.

Of course, Kristofferson would reunite with Cash, and Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings—who he played with at all those early Dripping Springs/4th of July parties down in Texas—to create The Highwaymen. This wasn’t only the most legendary supergroup in country music history, it perhaps also gave Kris Kristofferson his greatest commercial success as a performer in his career.

Along with his achievements in music—including the 2019 CMA Lifetime Achievement Award, winning 3 Grammy Awards, and being inducted in every major songwriters Hall of Fame—Kris Kristofferson also acted in some 70 films throughout his career. In this capacity, be became one of country music’s greatest ambassadors, including playing across from Barbara Streisand in the 1976 version of A Star Is Born and winning a Golden Globe for best actor in that capacity, not to mention countless other early film roles.

Later in his career, Kris Kristofferson was regularly cast as the ultimate badass in movies, whether it was vampire killer Abraham Wistler in the film Blade, or the boss of bosses in the 1999 mob movie Payback.

But ultimately, it’s impossible to compose a proper summation of the career of Kris Kristofferson. You can’t tie a nice little bow around it, because it’s so bursting and effusive, and touches so many sectors of American society. Every author and publisher feels befuddled when trying to put pen to paper about the person who perhaps did it as good or better than anyone else, especially when it came to verse and rhyme. You just have to sit back, be awe struck at the legacy, and appreciate you shared a moment on this cold rock barreling through space with the man.

Meanwhile, it’s not possible to express the debt of gratitude country music owes to Kris Kristofferson. He was the bridge to millions, as a songwriter, as a sex symbol, and as a superlative songsmith that took simple 3-minutes movements, and made them feel like Shakespeare.

The world is a much colder place without Kris Kristofferson. But it’s also a much more glorious place because of him.

– – – – – – – – – –

Kris Kristofferson died at his home in Maui, Hawaii on September 28th. He was 88 years old.


This story has been updated.

© 2025 Saving Country Music

, , , ,