Thrifty Tunes 10.10.09: Kris Kristofferson - Jesus Was A Capricorn
Posted by Paul Hollingsworth on 10.10.2009
His best known songs were hits for other people. He starred in a movie with Barbara Streisand. Still, he may be the coolest musician on the face of the planet.
The first time I saw a picture of Kris Kristofferson, when I was a kid in the 70's, I thought he was Jesus. He had long hair, a thick beard, and always seemed to have a smile on his face, just like all the pictures of Jesus pasted to the walls in my Sunday school room and in my red covered children's bible. I knew nothing else about Kristofferson, and didn't really have an opinion on his music. When he appeared again, at least on my radar, he was singing with Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings in a band called The Highwaymen. Cash and the others were so iconic, even to a non-country fan like me, that Kristofferson was, at best, 'the other guy' in the group. The next time I saw him, he was hugging Sinead O'Connor after being booed off the stage shortly after her Saturday Night Live faux pas of ripping up a picture of the Pope and urging people to fight the real evil. Again, he sort of looked like Jesus, although a bit greyer, when he spread his arms to console the weeping and shaking O'Connor.
It wasn't until I fell in love with Janis Joplin, during my second year of college, that I became interested in Kristofferson's music. (It certainly wasn't the Streisand movie and song or the Blade movies, for that matter.) When I learned he had written "Me & Bobby McGee", and had actually recorded it before Janis, I immediately went out and found a copy of his debut album. I was sort of underwhelmed. (Roger Miller's version, also, left me mostly indifferent.) There was also another song on that album, "Sunday Morning Comin' Down", that I rather liked, although that song also sounded better when Cash sang it.
I tried a handful of other Kristofferson albums, most of them pulled from out of dollar bins at record stores, but I didn't connect with any of them. While individual songs were good, and I made one or two all Kristofferson mix tapes, there never was an whole album I loved from beginning to end. There was too much country for me in some and too much polish on others. It wasn't until I found Jesus Was A Capricorn, however, that I found a Kristofferson album I liked from beginning to end.
The album opens with the title track, and combined with the smiling picture of Kris on the front cover, brought back my memory of Kristofferson as Jesus from childhood. The song is one of his best, and the lyrics, as almost always, are top shelf good. The song also opened up my eyes to the fact that not all musicians labeled as 'country' sing only about drowning their sorrows in their beer or about grandma's cooking or any other stereotypical notion most have about country. This was a political statement, something country musicians hardly ever did, except for empty chest beating for patriotism and hollow lines about God and guns. (The song also led me directly to the rest of the 'outlaw' country music of the 70's, which in my mind, isn't that far from punk as the most important musical development of the decade. Sadly, both genres are nearly extinct now, except for a handful of deeply underground bands and singers.)
There are a handful of broken love songs on the album, ("Nobody Wins" maybe the best of the bunch.) but the purest, most heartfelt song is "Why Me" which ends the album. I'm, at best, an agnostic these days in matters of religion and faith, but this song manages to capture a feeling that everyone, regardless of their own situation at the time, can relate to. Gospel music, for the most part, is a genre of music I don't care too much for, because it usually comes across as too preachy, or too forced. (Although I will admit, back in the 80's, I was a fan of bands like Stryper and White Cross, but it wasn't so much about their message as it was about the fact that they had loud, distorted guitars.) However, gospel songs like this I can appreciate, because they feel honest and lived in. That's the sort of Jesus, and faith, I can believe in.
Complete Track Listing: (1972 release on Monument Records)
Side One:
1. Jesus Was A Capricorn (Owed To John Prine)
2. Nobody Wins
3. It Sure Was (Love)
4. Enough For You
5. Help Me
Side Two:
1. Jesse Younger
2. Give It Time To Be Tender
3. Out Of Mind, Out of Sight
4. Sugar Man
5. Why Me
Kristofferson will always be known more as a songwriter for other people than as a singer in his own right, which is a shame. There are songs on this album as good, and as well performed, as any of his songs performed by other musicians. This record is definitely one of the highpoints of his solo releases, and covers lots of musical ground. There's plenty of country, but there's also gospel, blues, folk and a hint or two of rock. It's musically diverse in all the right ways, and is about as personal as an album can be and still be accessible to anyone.
