Song of the Day # 934 Kris Kristofferson

This fellow is lauded by many who would know about such things as a singer-songwriter fit to rank among the very best. I'm not personally well enough acquainted with his stuff to make a judgement on his talent either way. But this alone, from his eponymous 1970 debut, argues the case for him pretty well. Of course the song is highly, if not almost entirely indebted to Cohen and Cash but there's nothing wrong with doffing your cap to the very greatest, especially if the end product is as good as this. The lyrics are all Kristofferson's and utterly wonderful. This is pure sixties turns seventies psychic melodrama.

'Casey joins the hollow sound of silent people walking down

The stairway to the subway in the shadows down below

Following their footsteps through the neon-darkened corridors

Of silent desperation, never speakin' to a soul

The poison air he's breathin' has the dirty smell of dying'

Cause it's never seen the sunshine and it's never felt the rain

But Casey minds the arrows and ignores the fatal echoes

Of the clickin' of the turnstiles and the rattle of his chains.'
........
Casey leaves the underground and stops inside the Golden Crown

For something wet to wipe away the chill that's on his bone

Seeing his reflection in the lives of all the lonely men

Who search for any thing they can to keep from goin' home

Standin' in the corner Casey drinks his pint of bitter

Never glancing in the mirror at the people passing by

Then he stumbles as he's leaving and he wonders if the reason

Is the beer that's in his belly, or the tear that's in his eye.'

Kristofferson