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charlene · 10-02-2009, 08:41 AM

part two
"Good Morning John" is a bit of a brutal song. Did Johnny Cash ever give you a reaction to it at all?

He never complained about it. It was the truth, and he was fighting that battle all the way to the end. Once you've found an easy way to erase the things that are tearing you up inside, it's hard not to go back to that. I think, at the end, he was unable to do anything to release his grief after June died. It was just a matter of a month or so that he was able to keep going. They told me that he used to cry every night. He had a little room that was about as big as a closet, and he was just too sad to keep going. They were probably tighter longer than anybody that I knew, you know, in face of all the things that can split you up if you're working together on the road. They were just one of a kind. They were that way from the time I met them in '65 to the end, so it had to be right. I think they both felt guilty because they both had other marriages, but they were in love. I remember all the way down in Peru, when I was down there making that movie with Dennis Hopper. I was in Lima, and there were all these headlines about Johnny Cash and they had pictures of John and June and their little boy, John Carter. John Carter has really measured up. He looked pretty wild there for a while when he was a kid out there on the road being a roadie. I remember Poodie [Willie Nelson's late road manager. Randall "Poodie" Locke] and some of those guys would sing, "Don't take your son to town, John. Leave your son at home." I guess it would be very hard to be John's son with John's genes and out there on the road. You know, the notion that he would straighten himself out as much as he's done is pretty hard to do.

One of the things that I really came away from the record with is, "Be who you are." When did you realize that you'd become who you are?

I think it was probably after [songwriter-publisher] Marijohn Wilkin showed me around Nashville back then. My platoon leader was a distant cousin of hers or something. That two weeks convinced me that this [Nashville] is where I belonged. Of course, the rest of my family and peers didn't share that enthusiasm, but it worked for me, and I hadn't connected that line with it until you just said it. I think that's probably why it was a successful move because it's who I was supposed to be, and I'll be it as long as I can.

Did your parents ever fully come to accept and realize what you became?

My mother was the one that was really against it, and my father just went along with it, but he told me one of the last times that I saw him, "I'll never understand what it is that you do, but I sure understand why you did it." He wanted to be a pilot, I guess, when nobody else wanted him to, and there was nothing going to stop him from it. He was a good one, and he ended up achieving things that he shouldn't have. He was a two-star general when he hadn't even finished college, you know, and he agreed with me. And my mother came to [agree] as well. I can remember her hugging Johnny Cash, who she had really disparaged in the beginning. She'd written a letter sort of disowning me when I was first here and it said some pretty harsh things about Johnny Cash. It said that nobody knew anything about him except that he was a dope addict. They were giving me an honorary degree out at Pomona College, where I did my undergraduate stuff, and she was up there on the stage hugging Johnny. And I thought, "Wow, we've come a long way!"

The album ends with a hidden track, "I Hate Your Ugly Face," which you wrote when you were 11. What about that song?

[New West Records president Cameron Strang] had second thoughts after I'd put it on the tape. He thought maybe we shouldn't put that on there. And it's true, I wrote that or made it up -- I didn't write it down back when I was raking the horse manure down in Brownsville, Texas. And I was 11 years old. And I'm sure I didn't know what a beer was, but "cryin' in your beer" was an expression. I like [the song] to this day, but it was a long time after that before I made it as a songwriter.

It's a precocious song. You compare your ex-girlfriend to a heifer.

My favorite line was, "A lot of singers wish their sweethearts happiness/I just hope you're miserable, you sorry looking mess." (laughs) That may be one of the best that I've ever written.

Did you remember that song after all those years?

Yeah. I can't remember what I had for breakfast, but I can remember most of my songs. And the family will get me to sing it all the time anyway because they were the people I used to sing it to -- my cousins and nieces and nephews.

10-02-2009, 08:41 AM	#4
charlene Moderator Join Date: May 2000 Posts: 16,004	Re: Kristofferson has new album part two "Good Morning John" is a bit of a brutal song. Did Johnny Cash ever give you a reaction to it at all? He never complained about it. It was the truth, and he was fighting that battle all the way to the end. Once you've found an easy way to erase the things that are tearing you up inside, it's hard not to go back to that. I think, at the end, he was unable to do anything to release his grief after June died. It was just a matter of a month or so that he was able to keep going. They told me that he used to cry every night. He had a little room that was about as big as a closet, and he was just too sad to keep going. They were probably tighter longer than anybody that I knew, you know, in face of all the things that can split you up if you're working together on the road. They were just one of a kind. They were that way from the time I met them in '65 to the end, so it had to be right. I think they both felt guilty because they both had other marriages, but they were in love. I remember all the way down in Peru, when I was down there making that movie with Dennis Hopper. I was in Lima, and there were all these headlines about Johnny Cash and they had pictures of John and June and their little boy, John Carter. John Carter has really measured up. He looked pretty wild there for a while when he was a kid out there on the road being a roadie. I remember Poodie [Willie Nelson's late road manager. Randall "Poodie" Locke] and some of those guys would sing, "Don't take your son to town, John. Leave your son at home." I guess it would be very hard to be John's son with John's genes and out there on the road. You know, the notion that he would straighten himself out as much as he's done is pretty hard to do. One of the things that I really came away from the record with is, "Be who you are." When did you realize that you'd become who you are? I think it was probably after [songwriter-publisher] Marijohn Wilkin showed me around Nashville back then. My platoon leader was a distant cousin of hers or something. That two weeks convinced me that this [Nashville] is where I belonged. Of course, the rest of my family and peers didn't share that enthusiasm, but it worked for me, and I hadn't connected that line with it until you just said it. I think that's probably why it was a successful move because it's who I was supposed to be, and I'll be it as long as I can. Did your parents ever fully come to accept and realize what you became? My mother was the one that was really against it, and my father just went along with it, but he told me one of the last times that I saw him, "I'll never understand what it is that you do, but I sure understand why you did it." He wanted to be a pilot, I guess, when nobody else wanted him to, and there was nothing going to stop him from it. He was a good one, and he ended up achieving things that he shouldn't have. He was a two-star general when he hadn't even finished college, you know, and he agreed with me. And my mother came to [agree] as well. I can remember her hugging Johnny Cash, who she had really disparaged in the beginning. She'd written a letter sort of disowning me when I was first here and it said some pretty harsh things about Johnny Cash. It said that nobody knew anything about him except that he was a dope addict. They were giving me an honorary degree out at Pomona College, where I did my undergraduate stuff, and she was up there on the stage hugging Johnny. And I thought, "Wow, we've come a long way!" The album ends with a hidden track, "I Hate Your Ugly Face," which you wrote when you were 11. What about that song? [New West Records president Cameron Strang] had second thoughts after I'd put it on the tape. He thought maybe we shouldn't put that on there. And it's true, I wrote that or made it up -- I didn't write it down back when I was raking the horse manure down in Brownsville, Texas. And I was 11 years old. And I'm sure I didn't know what a beer was, but "cryin' in your beer" was an expression. I like [the song] to this day, but it was a long time after that before I made it as a songwriter. It's a precocious song. You compare your ex-girlfriend to a heifer. My favorite line was, "A lot of singers wish their sweethearts happiness/I just hope you're miserable, you sorry looking mess." (laughs) That may be one of the best that I've ever written. Did you remember that song after all those years? Yeah. I can't remember what I had for breakfast, but I can remember most of my songs. And the family will get me to sing it all the time anyway because they were the people I used to sing it to -- my cousins and nieces and nephews.