This is the first country album I ever owned. Up to the age of 18, country music seemed like a hick joke — on a par with the Dukes of Hazzard, a domain presided over by the immaculately groomed white hair and beard of Kenny Rogers, occasionally accompanied by a blow-up Dolly Parton. When I listened to Kris Kristofferson properly for the first time, I realised there was more to it than that. I started to get an inkling of how you could be artless and artful, clichéd and profound, at the same time.
This is another story that goes back to the week I spent at Jeremy's in 1983 (see 1, 2). He sat me down and put a beaten up copy of Me and Bobby McGee (a.k.a. Kristofferson) on his dad's stereo, and talked me through it. As to the provenance of the record, J answers my text message: "Requested by my mum. Prob purchased by dad. They were played it on a yacht holiday [the line of influence extends!]. Latterly listened to by me."
As 18-year-olds it was Sunday Morning Coming Down that appealed most, but we also loved those spoken parts of To Beat the Devil: the brilliantly throwaway stylistic tic of "I left my pride and stepped inside a bar / Actually I guess you'd call it a tavern," and "He said, 'You ain't makin' any money, are you?' / I said, 'You been readin' my mail'". It had everything that Hesse's Siddhartha had, but with extra high tar cigarettes.
I bought this record a few weeks later. It's got sleeve notes by Nat Hentoff. If I ever recorded an album, I'd have it written into my contract that it would have sleeve notes by Nat Hentoff (as luck would have it, he's still alive, almost exactly my dad's age).
Help Me Make it Through the Night could hardly be more simple and yet more difficult for most to write. Each word has to both sound and fall right. One wrong image or one tangled rhythm can break the spell. This one is flawless — as flawless, I believe, as certain folk ballads which have endured for centuries. I think this one will.
The same goes for just about all the songs on Side 1. They're the equal, or better, of Willie Nelson's best, and that's saying something. Side 2 can't quite sustain this quality, otherwise this record would be a certainty for my Top 50.
MusicBrainz entry for this album
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