Kris Krisofferson has died.<\/p>\n
I knew I would have to write those words eventually, and probably sooner rather than later.\u00a0\u00a0 Kris has not looked good the past few times I’ve seen him on the tube.\u00a0\u00a0 His health has not been good for some years.\u00a0\u00a0 Still, one can hope.\u00a0\u00a0 The world was so much richer with Kristofferson in it, and it is poorer now that he is gone.\u00a0\u00a0 But we still have his songs, and what songs they are.<\/p>\n
I am no musician myself; that’s a gift I never had.\u00a0 I cannot sing, I cannot dance, I cannot read music.\u00a0 But that doesn’t mean I do not love music… or rather, songs<\/em>.\u00a0 Instrumental music, classical music, operas, those are all great, no doubt, but they are not for me.\u00a0\u00a0 I am a word guy.\u00a0 I want the lyrics.\u00a0 I want them to be audible, not drowned out by the instruments.\u00a0 I want them to be beautiful, I want them to touch me, to move me, to make me think, become a part of me.\u00a0\u00a0 Some of you may have noticed that the word “song” keeps appearing in the titles of my books and stories.\u00a0 A SONG FOR LYA, SONGS OF STARS AND SHADOWS, SONGS THE DEAD MEN SING, DREAMSONGS, A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH.\u00a0 There’s a would-be songwriter buried inside me, no doubt.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Oh, I managed some to do “The Rains of Castamere” and “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” (part of it, anyway) and “The Dornishmen’s Wife” and “The Last of the Giants,” but damn<\/strong>, <\/em>writing songs is hard, even if you’re only doing lyrics and leaving the actual music to the listeners.<\/p>\n I don’t know how Kris Kristofferson did it.<\/p>\n But he did it better than anyone else.<\/p>\n He has been my favorite singer\/ songwriter ever since I first heard “Me and Bobby McGee,” back when I was in college.<\/p>\n It was the Janis Joplin version I first encountered, as with most people.\u00a0\u00a0 Kristofferson was a songwriter then, but not yet established as a singer himself.\u00a0\u00a0 The song was a huge huge hit, the biggest Joplin ever had.\u00a0\u00a0 Sadly, it was a posthumous hit, since Janis had died shortly before it was released.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the days and years and decades that followed, many other people covered “Me and Bobby McGee; there was Roger Miller and Johnny Cash and Gordon Lightfoot and Reba McEntire and many many more.<\/p>\n I liked almost all of them, but the one I loved best was Kristofferson’s own version, when it was finally recorded and released.<\/p>\n