The 1970 song Kris Kristofferson wrote while working as a janitor: “Put me on the stage”
Kris Kristofferson has enjoyed a career that has seen him hailed as one of his generation’s most influential country artists.
Living a life of epic proportions as a result of his success, Kristofferson has inspired some of his most prominent peers with both his music and his acting career, etching his name into pop culture lore.
Whilst Kristofferson has many classic songs on his resumé, one of the greatest is undoubtedly the 1969 effort ‘Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down’. As is well known, the track is an early effort by the singer-songwriter from when he was still an unknown entity.
Ray Stevens first recorded and popularised the material before it appeared on Kristofferson’s debut album the following year. However, it was rebel country legend Johnny Cash who took it to another level. He delivered a rendition on The Johnny Cash Show in 1970 that became a number one hit on the Billboard US country chart.
Although Stevens helped introduce the song to a wider audience, it was Cash who fully unlocked its emotional weight. His weary delivery and outlaw persona perfectly suited Kristofferson’s lyrics about loneliness, regret and the hollow feeling that follows a night of excess.
As is well known, the song is about “coming down” on a Sunday morning after being stoned on Saturday night, which follows Kristofferson’s broader career trend of grappling with what happens after the fun is over. However, a less famous aspect of the song is that Kristofferson wrote it whilst living in a dilapidated tenement in Nashville, Tennesse, when working as a janitor for Columbia Records.
Symbolising the kind of meandering life Kristofferson has led, his job as a janitor came after achieving a master’s degree at Oxford University and rising to captain in the US Army. Wanting to be a songwriter as his profession, he turned down the role of a professor at the US Military Academy at West Point. Instead, he took the job cleaning Columbia’s offices while waiting for his big break.
There’s a bizarre tale surrounding Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and ‘Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down’. Kristofferson learned to fly planes in the military and allegedly flew his National Guard helicopter onto the Cash’s front garden to personally deliver the demo tape. The most common angle of the story is that this is the first time the pair had ever met, but in actuality, they’d known each other since 1965.
Clarifying the situation, Kristofferson told the San Luis Obispo Tribune in 2008: “I knew John before then. I’d been his janitor at the recording studio, and I’d pitched him every song I ever wrote, so he knew who I was. But it was still kind of an invasion of privacy that I wouldn’t recommend. To be honest, I don’t think he was there. He had a whole story about me getting out of the helicopter with a tape in one hand and a beer in the other.”
He continued: “John had a pretty creative memory, but I would never have disputed his version of what happened because he was so responsible for any success I had as a songwriter and performer. He put me on the stage the first time I ever was, during a performance at the Newport Folk Festival.”
Elsewhere, at the 2009 BMI Country Awards, Kristofferson was honoured as an icon of the genre, and at the ceremony, he took the opportunity to outline how the Grammy-winning artist, Ray Stevens, took a chance on the song when he was still just an unknown songwriter.
“Nobody had ever put that much money and effort into recording one of my songs,” Kristofferson explained. “I remember the first time I heard it – he’s a wonderful singer – I had to leave the publishing house and I just sat on the steps and wept because it was such a beautiful thing.”
Stevens then recalled that he was attracted to the track because he believed Kristofferson had a “spark”.
“He was very talented, very smart and right on time with his style,” Stevens continued. “A lot of people since then have copied those songs that he put out so at this point in time it doesn’t seem all that different. It still is of course. There are very few writers who get that spark at the right time.”
That spark ultimately helped Kristofferson redefine country songwriting in the 1970s. His blend of poetic introspection, vulnerability and rough-edged realism paved the way for a new generation of artists who wanted country music to feel more personal and emotionally exposed.
