The Hammock Papers: Kristofferson

Showing posts with label Kristofferson. Show all posts

22 June 2026

Happy Birthday, Kris Kristofferson

A true artist, a lyrical genius, and a faithful man of principle, Kris Kristofferson, was born on this day in 1936.

"The Best of All Possible Worlds," featuring the pedal-steel gun-slinging of Robby Turner ...

19 January 2026

Kris Kristofferson, "They Killed Him/Don't Let the Bastards Get You Down"

With a dream of beauty that they could not burn away

Just another holy man who dared to make a stand ...

05 October 2024

The Highwaymen, "The Last Cowboy Song"

04 October 2024

Kris Kristofferson, "You Show Me Yours (And I'll Show You Mine)/Stranger"

03 October 2024

Kris Kristofferson, "The Best of All Possible Worlds"

02 October 2024

Kris Kristofferson, "Why Me, Lord"

01 October 2024

Kris Kristofferson, "The Pilgrim"

30 September 2024

Kris Kristofferson, "Shipwrecked in the 80s"

29 September 2024

Kris Kristofferson, Rest in Peace

He made the good times better and the hard times easier. This evening I got the news from Kurt that the best of the best, Kris Kristofferson, has passed.

"To Beat the Devil"

The old man was a stranger
But I’d heard his words before
Back when failure had me locked out
On the wrong side of the door,
When no one stood beside me
But my shadow on the floor
And lonesome is more than a state of mind.

See the devil haunts a hungry man
If you don’t want to join him,
You gotta beat him.
I ain’t saying I beat the devil,
But I drank his beer for nothing
And then I stole his song …

25 July 2023

Mild.

Who's Jimmy Aldean?

If, by chance, you're open to suggestions, listen to Jerry Jeff, Kristofferson, or Willie, and let ol' Jimmy stick to doin' what he does best ... mild sausage.

Jackie Jack, "Takin' It as It Comes" ...

22 June 2023

Happy Birthday, Kristofferson

A true artist, a lyrical genius, and a faithful man of principle, Kris Kristofferson, was born on this day in 1936.

"The Best of All Possible Worlds," featuring the pedal-steel gun-slinging of Robby Turner ...

09 July 2022

Kris Kristofferson, "Smile At Me Again"

22 June 2022

Happy Birthday, Kristofferson

"Here Comes that Rainbow Again" with The Highwaymen ...

22 June 2021

Happy Birthday, Kristofferson

Kris Kristofferson was born on this day in 1936.

As soon as you learn to never give up, you have to learn the power and wisdom of unconditional surrender, and that one doesn’t cancel out the other; they just exist as contradictions. The wisdom of it comes as you get older.

Kris Kristofferson

"The Hero/They Killed Him" ...

20 February 2021

Kris Kristofferson, "Shipwrecked in the 80s"

So long, Tonto ...

09 January 2021

The Highwaymen, "The Last Cowboy Song"

It's sandwich time.

27 June 2020

Kris Kristofferson, "El Coyote"

There's a part of his heart up in heaven

And a part that will always be wild

And all he can leave them is love and a reason

To run for the rest of their lives

Lonesome coyotes survive

22 June 2020

Kris Kristofferson, "To Beat the Devil"

Todd Snider does it well ...

Understand.

You're the only one that you are screwin'
When you put down what you don't understand.

Kris Kristofferson, from "If You Don't Like Hank Williams"

Happy Birthday, Kristofferson

Kris Kristofferson was born on this date in 1936.

A Golden Gloves boxer with top grades at Pomona College in California, Kristofferson earned a Rhodes Scholarship to study literature at the University of Oxford in London.

But after he graduated, he joined the U.S. Army, became a helicopter pilot and rose to the rank of captain. He volunteered to fight in Vietnam, but the Army assigned him to teach English at West Point.

Kristofferson resigned his commission.

He traded in a promising military career to try making it as singer/songwriter in Music City.

CONNECT

"Shipwrecked in the 80s" ...

BARRY HINES

"That's why it makes me mad when I take her out and I'll hear somebody say, 'Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk. I could shout at 'em; it's not a pet, Sir, hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me, right. And that's why it's great.Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk.' I could shout at 'em. It's not a pet, Sir. Hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained, that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me right. And that's why it's great." (A Kestrel for a Knave)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

WALT WHITMAN

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."