Night is always a test of space.
The day blurs thoughts about the present, draws us into a whirlpool of meaningless and brilliant vanity, we climb out of our skin for fame and success, we rush to the finish line, and sometimes we reach it ...
The day is not kind to humanity.
The sun sublimes the juices of life, makes you grow, reach for the heavens.
Blue, out of reach.
And when it seems that there is absolutely no strength to endure the endless change of ourselves, a saving twilight comes.
Evening.
Coolness and pacification of the celestial stars waking up in the firmament.
Night is a time of rest and meeting with yourself.
The cosmos overturns the tub of the abyss above us, we drown in it, we seek salvation in meanings and dreams, we reflect.
We love.
We suffer without love.
We crave the impossible.
We do the unthinkable.
Who will tell about this for us?
Who told about this about us?
A long time ago, in a distant country, it seems, on June 22, 1936, a boy with character was born.
The boy is Texan.
Tramp boy, singer and hard worker, bully and merry fellow.
His father was an officer, his grandfather was an officer, almost all men in the family could not imagine any other career than a military one.
And young Chris Kristofferson had to go the same way at first.
No, he did not give up guitar and songwriting (back in 1958 Paul Lincoln signed a contract with him to record three singles with RankRecords, but the firm's legal problems buried the first demos), studied pretty well at Oxford (bachelor of philosophy in English literature) , and then, in 1960, went to military service - became a helicopter pilot.
By 1965, he was teaching literature at the US Military Academy, the family was proud of him, but quite unexpectedly ...
This is a correct, albeit hackneyed story - the hero's turn exactly in the middle of the stream of life and an attempt, desperate and seemingly insane, to swim against the current to the shore, which, perhaps, does not exist at all.
And the father (Major General of the US Air Force) disowned Chris.
And wanderings and adversities began, strengthening the heart and mind, leading - if, of course, not changing oneself and the path - to inevitable success.
Chris Kristofferson moved to Nashville - the heart of American country, got a job as a helicopter pilot for one of the oil companies of the Gulf of Mexico (however, he flew not only there - the sky is in his blood).
And every free day he wrote music and poetry, distributed it to everyone he could reach, never hesitated anything, went ahead.
Jerry Lee Lewis and Roger Miller gave up first, and Chris's first two songs went into circulation.
But that was not enough for him.
He dreamed of a solo album.
For months in a row, this madman with the appearance of a Scandinavian god on the run besieged Cash's wife, June Carter.
She (apparently out of despair) took several songs, "just to show them to Johnny and nothing more."
Johnny (and maybe his session musicians too) lost the demo.
Chris was not at all embarrassed by this turn of events and, after waiting about a month, paid a courtesy call to Cash - he landed on a working helicopter of the oil company right on his ranch.
And he asked a question as to whether "Mr." always in black "managed to get acquainted with his notes."
Cash was smitten.
June too.
The flywheels of stubborn fortune creaked in the right direction.
He was generally impudent, and in the lyrics too, this Chris Kristofferson.
Always softening the intensity of passions a little with the lyrical melancholy of his texts, he managed to open the nerve of life and squeeze a tear even from a stone.
They say that he was really touched, albeit tangentially, by Bob Dylan - a poet and a dreamer.
Yes and no.
Chris was hurt by life.
Desire not to bend in the wind.
Love for the sky, where the stars are within easy reach, the sensation of every sip of every day as an acceptance of the gift of God: now there is, and they are glad, and tomorrow - the lot of those who cannot and cannot live in today.
They say, among other things, that Chris was influenced by Jack Kerouac and his books - the great vagabond, the king of the beatniks and the poet of the unrecognized, not parted America, traveled far and wide in the United States in search of elusive truth, burned out like a torch in the wind.
Like a torch in the wind ...
Chris received a solo album.
Recorded in 1969 and released by Monument Records in June 1970 with a suspiciously modest yet daring title - Kristofferson.
A sales failure is an invariable condition for all success.
Praised by critics - the gracious smile of the gods of fate.
There were three main Chris songs on that album - Help Me Make It Through The Night, Me and Bobby McGee, For The Good Times.
At first, this is how the universe is arranged, we ask someone to share the night with us, then we share life with those who are near, and even later, when all the bridges are burned and there is nowhere to return, we part, keeping hope for the impossible - for that, that we will be together again in spite of everything, including the plans of the universe for us and our road in the middle of heaven and earth, in the middle of space.
Their short romance with Janis Joplin ended in friendship and thus relationship to each other, when nothing can darken the light of the first days.
Janice and helped Chris.
It's sad ... I helped from other areas, because lovers never part.
There is no time or distance for them.
Eternity alone.
Janice recorded Me and Bobby McGee a few days before her death, at the very end of September 1970.
Chris did not know about the recording, in general, one might say, he accidentally sang "something like about us", and Janice, appreciating the sincerity and literary depth of the text, sang the song ...
Four months after her departure, Janis Joplin's fourth studio album, the famous Pearl, was released, and Me and Bobby McGee took the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100.
And Kristofferson woke up famous.
And Monument Records reissued the Kristofferson album with unheard of speed, calling it Me and Bobby McGee, giving on the envelope a photo of Chris - a chic, weathered and tanned country tramp, looking into the unknown distance.
The sales have knocked down every decency barriers imaginable.
I'm not laughing...
It's a beautiful story.
About two people from very different planets.
Kristofferson recorded and wrote a lot.
Many sang and sing his songs.
Chris acts in films, plays both good and bad, plays well, with fire, with lively rage in his eyes.
He is young, despite his eighty-five, he will give odds to anyone.
Do you know why?
“Be able to let go and let go.
Know how to know and recognize love.
Know how to remember - yours is not, just enjoy.
Such a life.
Happiness is not in the possession. "
That is why.
When Janice was recording Chris's song, she switched places between the man and the woman ... And sang that "not he, but she missed him ..."
The world is always the story of two lovers.
It killed Cash, it also killed Joplin.
The madness of Chris Kristofferson.
His seeming madness.
The three above-mentioned Chris songs have long been dissolved both in the space of music and in the space of meanings.
They were sung and continue to be chanted countless times.
They sound in the background, almost imperceptible, coming gradually, like summer twilight, like the stars that appeared in the dying sky.
They, these three songs, break the heart and heal it.
Give hope.
Albeit unrealizable.
Although ... Who knows in which other worlds we will meet those whom we held by the hand, realizing: now and only now we are truly alive.
Remember those moments?
And how can you forget them?
Good night to you.
Good meeting with loved ones and with yourself.
Good night to us ...
***
Yesterday is dead and gone
And tomorrow's out of sight
And it's sad to be alone
Help me make it through the night ...
***
Freedom is just another word
for nothing left to lose,
Nothing, that's all that Bobby left me, yeah,
But feeling good was easy, Lord,
when he sang the blues,
Hey, feeling good was good enough for me, hmm hmm,
Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee ...
***
Don't look so sad, I know it's over
But life goes on and this old world will keep on turning
Let's just be glad we had some time to spend together
There's no need to watch the bridges that we're burning
Lay your head upon my pillow
Hold your warm and tender body close to mine
Hear the whisper of the raindrops falling soft against the window
And make believe you love me one more time
For the good times ...
For the good times ...
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.