FILE - In this April 12, 2019, file photo, Kris Kristofferson performs in concert at The American Music Theatre in Lancaster, Pa. Kristofferson surprised customers when he performed with an acoustic guitar at a North Dakota bar after a band taped a request to the singer-songwriter's tour bus. Kristofferson stopped at Dempsey's Public House in downtown Fargo on Saturday night, Nov. 9, 2019, and asked to sing with the band 32 Below. (Photo by Owen Sweeney/Invision/AP, File)

For a number of people across many different generations, the reality that country music legend and songwriter extraordinaire, Kris Kristofferson, is now an old man crossing the threshold into his twilight years is difficult to accept. For in the minds of many, myself included, there will always be an indelible image of him as a ruggedly handsome and fiercely independent young rebel perpetually clad in a jacket and faded jeans.

His personal story is amazing. Having battled and defeated the demons of drugs, alcohol, and even memory loss that turned out to be the effects of Lyme disease after having been misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s, and has now taken a turn for the better, he is widely recognized as being one of the greatest songwriters of all times. I have always subscribed to the belief that this Texas-born tunesmith just might be the most brilliant songwriter that America has ever produced. Across an illustrious career as an accomplished singer, songwriter, actor, and a lifelong badass, he has paved the way for many country music artists who came after him. A few months ago Kristofferson announced his retirement after more than five decades as a luminary in the entertainment industry.

His portfolio of songs has been delivered to the world in a ragged singing voice that has always carried the tune of a rusty door hinge. Even in his younger years Kristofferson always sounded older. The genius lyrics that he has crafted across the decades remain viable, and they still have the power to draw one in, resonating in a compelling way. No matter how many times I listen to them, the depth of raw human emotion that they convey is still stunning. His songs tell stories by painting pictures in the mind as they are a reverberating echo of lost love, regrets, and desperation. His songs are tattered tales offered-up from the perspective of a world-weary soul. They slip inside of you and linger in corners of your mind.

Kristofferson is an intimate artist who is a bit like an old friend. In those solitary late night settings, his music is often a catalyst that finds one pausing to look inward and reflect on the people and places that have drifted through their lives across the years. When, in that distinctive cigarette smoker’s voice, he sings about being down and out, and about traveling down the sometimes rough and rocky road of life, you know that he’s lived it for real. It bleeds through, as his lyrics are haunting self-portraits set to music. A case in point is his song, “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33,” where he shared, “See him wasted on the sidewalk in his jacket and his jeans, wearing yesterday’s misfortunes like a smile. Once he had a future full of money, love and dreams, which he spent like they was going out of style.” Another poignant example are his lyrics of “The beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad, so I had one more for dessert. Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes and found my cleanest dirty shirt” from “Sunday Morning Coming Down’. It is his ultimate lament to wresting with a bad hangover, and a page torn out of the book of his own life experiences.

Over the years, a host of his songs have been covered by a wide array of popular artists. “Help Me Make it Through the Night” went to the top of the country and adult contemporary charts for female country artist Sammi Smith. “Me and Bobby McGee” was done by Canadian music legend, Gordon Lightfoot, and immortalized by the late Janis Joplin, becoming a rock anthem for the 1960’s with the timeless lyric, ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.’ “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” became one of Johnny Cash’s biggest hits.

Kristofferson’s life reads more like a novel than reality. With an IQ of 160, he is, like his friend Dolly Parton, a member of the genius organization, Mensa. He’s a Rhodes Scholar, has worked as a janitor and a boxer, and is a former army helicopter pilot. Many years ago in a desperate attempt to get his musical idol, Johnny Cash, to record “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” he rented a helicopter and landed it inside the walls of Cash’s estate to get his attention. The stunt worked as Cash recorded the song, and the two men became close friends until Cash died in 2003.

Kris Kristofferson is certainly not sitting in God’s waiting room, however, in retiring and submitting to time’s steady and relentless march. In recent years he has been looking more through the autumnal glow of life’s prism. Lyrics from the title track of his 2013 album, “Feeling Mortal” have been dancing around in my mind as I think about him.

“Wide awake and feeling mortal

At this moment in the dream

That old man in the mirror

And my shaky self-esteem.

God Almighty here I am.

Am I where I ought to be?

I’ve begun soon to descend

Like the sun into the sea.”

In the grand design of life, perhaps we all share a common and deep-seated secret fear: to walk this earth unseen, unknown, unrecognized and unremembered. Such a fear is certainly not the fate of Kris Kristofferson. Today, he still stands strong and tall as one of country music’s most brilliant songwriters. His presence still looms large over the entertainment landscape. As an actor, he won a Golden Globe award in 1976 for his role, opposite Barbara Streisand, in “A Star is Born,” and he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2004. Even today, when I sit back and listen to his songs in the snug and safe harbor of my living room, they never fail to nudge me into thinking a little bit deeper. Through his songs, I think more about the people and the places that have passed through my life. His words are timeless, and they still resonate in a deep way that cannot be dimmed by the passing of time.

Paul Collins is a freelance writer from Southborough, Massachusetts.

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