Record Label: Monument
Producer: Fred Foster
Released:1969 a
All songs by Kris Kristofferson, except where noted
To Beat The Devil
Me and Bobby McGee
Help Me Make It Through The Night
The Law is For Protection of The People
Caseys Last Ride
Just The Other Side of Nowhere
Darbys Castle
For the Good Times
Blame It On The Stones
Duvaliers Dream
The Best of All Possible Worlds
"Kristofferson"
Kris was going for a poet
A songwriter he would be
One of those dreamy people
Some people hate to see
Kris, he took slices of life
And salted it down into rhyme
He picked his own days and his ways
He arranged his own meter and time
Kris he went a sowing
Wild oats high and low, up and down
Now he's bringing it into the harvest
And the thresher hums sweet with the sound
(Poems don't come from machines
Machines can't sell life into rhyme
And you can't manufacture soul
Nor "gauge" and "chop" soulful lines)
Kris he was goin' for lonesome
Taking himself over the road
But he's got a receipt for the toll
And he's come to get paid for the load
But Kris, he was goin' for hungry
A helicopter pilot he made
His rhymes were in time with that chopper
And his words were as slick as the blades
(But poems and songs though they're pretty
Can slip right over the head
And tunes from the hungry be peasant
They're worth what they bring you in bread)
So Kris, he was goin' to sell 'em
His ragged levis cried "Don't fail"
But to most song-singers that got 'em
They were just one more piece of mail
Kris, he went for an oil-rigger
And down in the gulf on the rig
His melodies still were bubbling
Still going' for striking it big
But like the oil that covers the water
His songs covered everyone's floor
From five years of sending his demo's
And leaving them at every door
Kris, he was making a movie
Upon the screen his face would be
And while on a horse in Peru
His songs went on network TV
Someone had finally noticed
And singers of soul sang along
Now we've all gone to dig in our closets
For that lost Kristofferson song
P.S.
Kris, he was goin' for a singer
And up to the top would he go
When Kris is goin' for a grammy
(Next year I'll say)
"Hell, I heard that song five years ago"
-Johnny Cash
Gilt edged gratitude certificates are being issued to Kris Kristofferson for overcoming his reluctance to record, thus making this album possible. To Johnny Cash for his sensitive annotation, and general inspiration. To Jerry Kennedy, whose birth sign is Leo, and who is Mercury Records' top Lion in Nashville, for his peerless guitar picking, and his overall creative contributions. And also to Shel Silverstein who got a lot of phone calls, and had the decency to return them whenever he showed up.
-Fred Foster