Kris Kristofferson - 'Speaking Freely'

I'm Kris Kristofferson and I'm speaking freely what this is all about is you're right between the receipt what made America great is an independent vigorous pressure jerk burns a flag America is not threatened political speech is the heart of a person image were expressing their religious beliefs upon the reality but all the prosecutor I just gotta wonder what my daddy would've done he'd seem way they turn this dream around I gotta go by what he told me try to tell the truth and stand your ground don't let the bastards get you now hastened gentlemen welcome to speaking freely a weekly conversation about free speech in America I'm Ken Paulson our guest today is a man who has used that freedom in remarkable ways the highly respected songwriter singer and actor Kris Kristofferson great to have you here thanks kid you know you do not pull your punches do you weren't gonna warm this audience up with like me and Bobby McGee you're gonna go right for it one of your toughest songs you might as well the people the people who are still watching are gonna be very much into the show I'm I'm sure the you know that has been the hallmark of your music and you talked about telling the truth you've made a practice throughout your career of writing songs that reflected what you really believed has there been an exception to that I think I figured when I came here that's what I came here to do I know and of course John cash was an inspiration and a good example for ready for that when he say came here I should tell her our viewers that we are in Nashville a city that that is not your home but but began your career Road saved my life as we're going to did it and and we also need to show the good news that there's a brand new CD out called broken freedom song and old boy records a live recording from San Francisco which I guess was initially done in conjunction with the Bread and Roses benefit yes there was a Alan Abraham was taping the shows so I could give a song off it to the Mimi Freni and Joan Baez's organization for the shut-ins prisoners hospital people let's talk about those beginnings in Nashville because what an interesting choice you made I mean it's often then talked about you a Rhodes Scholar you had an opportunity to teach at West Point your future was very bright in one direction and you took the ultimate risk coming to Nashville becoming a songwriter and emptying ashtrays in recording studio that had to be horrifying to your family you big the right word yeah no it was for a few years there before it did look pretty stupid but but I've always felt like it was the best thing I had best move I've ever made and just about in the nick of time what drove you I know how did you know that this is something you could do so well for the rest of your life well I didn't know I could do anything I didn't know I'd be a success at it but but I came here on leave when I was still in the army married John Wilkin was cousin of my platoon leader in Germany and he had sent her a tape of mine she said stop by you know if he's ever in the area she didn't say anything about the songs but it was enough of an encouragement coming to come here and and in the two weeks I spent here I just fell in love with it with the whole way life with a whole music family and we had actually uh cowboy Jack Clement was on the show well he was one of the first first guys I met here you you fell immediately into the canary yeah yeah amen Johnny Cash very early on yeah and well cowboy helped that up too and there are people who are in this town now who've never run into people who can help their career but they're whoo-hoo actually want to positionally hearing music and if they weren't willing to you're going to find other ways there is this great story and I don't know if it's true or not but you can set the record straight about you and a helicopter and Johnny Cash well I I had I have to go back before that I'd known John knew about it and a half before I ever did anything at outdishes but I was as janitor over Columbia record studios for about a year and a half and then I got in the National Guard for about a month and during that time I figured that would I pitched him every song I ever wrote and he hadn't caught any of them but he'd always encouraged me and carried my lyrics around in his pocket you know and and I figured I would impress him when we were other if I if I flew into there with a helicopter I did I was that lucky I didn't crash it in the house cuz when they were pretty old helicopters okay who was the first one out the door June or Johnny you know I can't remember I can't remember they both got versions of it that this kind of differ from mine but I also much too I believe whatever they say there I think there's a quote from you and said you pitched every song you could to Johnny Cash because you will condense II wasn't deliver along that he was they was on pills he's a really skinny Joe back in those days it didn't look like he he he was gonna be around much more Hank Williams only made it to 29 let me embarrass you with an early record called Vietnam blues maybe you're not a very special vegetable I'd it's just it's it's completely different from your later politics and and it was over time and those people who was still in the Army when I wrote that and and it's a song it's it's at around a song as well and it was a song I guess the Dave Dudley recorded Dave Dudley cut it before that Jack Sanders did it and and and it made a friend of how Harlan Howard and Ralph Emery which both of them were good friends for those who haven't heard it's a it's a song about a a gentleman who's walking on Street he sees protesters and and they're actually handing around a petition asking to send condolences I guess to Ho Chi Minh I guess yeah it was it was a talking blues yeah in the end you discover that the person who's singing is actually a soldier yes headed off to Vietnam it's a very powerful record I just read that you had mixed feelings about the song later well only because because my own feelings about Vietnam turned 180 degrees but I still felt at the time you know that all my friends were over there and it wasn't their fault that they were over there but I come to believe that it was a tremendous mistake for our government to be over there and the things that we were doing were inhuman can I put you on the spot and ask you to do Vietnam Louis you were to try I was on leave at the time just snuck in the fog nosing around like a hungry dog and that crazy place called Washington DC I saw a crowd of people on the White House lawn all carrying signs about Vietnam so I went on over see what I could see there was a strange-looking much but I never did understand civilian fella came to me with a list in his hands ever gathered knees to send a telegram of sympathy then he handed me a pen said I reckon this is going to the children and wives and my friends over there giving their lives he says ah buddy this is going to Ho Chi Minh I said Ho Chi who he said Ho Chi Minh people's leader North Vietnam well I wasn't real sure I was hearing him right but I thought we met her home before we got in a fight because my eyes were smart they my pulse started hitting Ally I thought about another telegram I dread telling my buddy's wife that her husband was dead wasn't too long too luxe feeling downright sick another hell decides that we won't fight I thought to myself you got that right you rather let her soldier night instead I said you ever stop to think every man who died there and that far-off plan was dying so that he won't wake up dead of course he looked at me like I was crazy just another warlock well I left that place and whit's town and hit the first ball that I found a cool MassHealth and passed by my brain see I was all over that Vietnam little north of Saigon and I had about an hour to catch my plane and so all of me to say is I don't like that either but I care about the way I live but it was a good song it was well written and amberleigh's commercial successes well I don't think it was a commercial you make any money at all from that side of $7 instead of his life it got Harland to be nice to me it was it was worth it and and then you fell in with Roger Miller at one point who had to be a also remarkable guy yeah I didn't meet Roger well I met him as a janitor during a brief session one time it didn't get to know him until till some years later back when John was doing the television show and making new Barry told Roger about Bobby McGee and he cut the first version of Bobby McGee there's a story about you actually playing that for Miller on an airplane had to go ahead to had to teach it to him on the way back to Nashville and that was probably your biggest hit at the time wasn't it when I didn't want to cover that well yeah it was it was the first but there were about four that there were all kind of tied in with that show the of John showed that were cut within a period of about a month of Ray Price cut for the good times first and then Roger did that and Sammy Smith did help make through the night and then John cut Sunday morning coming down on on the show and they use the live version of it let's talk about the back is that that this show is about free speech and pardon and making choices and there were people on that show who did not want Johnny Cash to sing your lyrics well the the television part of it I think brought the censorship in because they were all worried about the line and wishing Lord that I was stoned and I remember Bob - Burt suggested maybe you could say wishing I was home you know and we were all set around there as acid you know what it's not the same and and John didn't let on he never said a word you know I had no idea what what he was going to end up doing until he sang it that night and we got to that line he looked up at me in the balcony it's just a wishing Lord that I was stoned and I'm convinced that he had he changed that line how to go on with it and and it never would have been the powerful song that it was you recorded actually you wrote a number of powerful songs and he cited a couple of them what's remarkable listening to songs like for the good times and helped me make through the night which are both classics now on the radio all the time is how controversial they seemed to be when they first came out yeah and and beginning with for the good times why why was that groundbreaking why was that regarded too adult because the lienholder warm and tender body close to mine if you can believe that was converse okay it kept the the first guy bill Nash I think is name was that that recorded what a Jerry Kennedy who recorded him on and had a good record just like Ray's son and more countdown was it was a good record and and they wouldn't play it on the air I know that there was a big radio station in New York that was pretty important for country music at the time of the and they said lyrics were too racy or something as a writer especially a young writer who's hungry isn't there a temptation to just change the line no I'm sorry I had had so many is so few Sargent Gordon anyway there was no point in changing the lines I figure might as well stick to my guns while I was there or you also stuck to your guns on time help me make it through the night would you I get a little bit more that's a little bit more explicit in terms of yeah well you he won the Country Music Association award for song of the year for Sunday morning coming down and all these hits and you know you clearly were the hottest summer in America what took you from that writing career to being in front of the microphone being a performer Johnny Cash put me on on his show at the Newport Folk Festival in 69 same year that he had the TV show and had me do two songs Bob McGee and Sunday mortar coming down and they didn't want him to put me on they said we just don't have time John and Carl Perkins who was opening for him said he'll you can just introduce me as the late and great and it made all the difference it was like it went over so well II they held me over for some workshops the next couple of days singing with guys like James Taylor and Joni Mitchell and ramblin Jack Elliott the Everly Brothers it was heaven had you played in front of an audience before no well I had played one night in Nashville at a place called Nero's cactus Canyon iced I sat in for a friend of mine who wanted to do a session one night and and I got fired after about an hour that was supposed to be planned my 12-string Wally dinner and I don't think anybody could eat Mero came out to me and said how long you been playing that thing and I said well about an hour he said no I mean in your life well that's a pretty big leap then to the Newport Folk Festival in it yeah John said on the way on the way out to the stage he said you know you don't seem very loud in my house said you better be a better sing sing out so they can hear you out past the first row yeah it sounds like you liked it though it was it was it was like heaven for somebody who was protective of your lyrics concerned about your lyrics on the Johnny Cash show Jana still adapting dinner did you get to know her after yeah we hit it off and and hung out together for out there at her where she lived as Larkspur out in California for month or so and then she was going off on a tour in one direction and they had a train tour with the guys in the band and all that and they were trying to get Bobby North and I had to go off with him and I had a gig at the true dorm a very first gig that a girl from the Johnny Cash production show had got me and so I went off in that direction and I never saw her again you're in town in Nashville as part of a celebration of free speech you're receiving an award called Astor of Americana Award presented by the American Music Association in the First Amendment Center and of course as you know that the first recipient I was trying to cash and it was a remarkable evening shortly before his death that he accepted the award and and one of the reasons was reading people's interpretations of wire you receive an award and the point was made that there are people out there who are the left end of the spectrum some people on the right in the spectrum but it's actually rare for somebody to publicly have an opinion now to actually say what they believe in and write songs with conviction and actually have their their lives their lives their life values their convictions and there are all merged together and of course you've done a lot of that throughout your career there was a point that I think when you became more politicized new music that that were your early music was candid sexually had adult themes you turned the corner at one point and you began writing songs that were a little bit more in the face of people a little bit more like Woody Guthrie in a lot of respects what happened well a lot of things happened and 1979 Sandinistas had revolution and over through the most brutal dictatorship in the hemisphere that we had supported and there was the revolution in Iran as well and and and I was doing a kind of a controversial TV movie called America and alakay with a k' and I was I was becoming aware a lot of things that were being done in in our name that we're not the principles that I was raised to believe America stood for particularly down in Nicaragua where we had a real bad history of messin with with their attempt right right at the time the Sun and Easter revolution was was dedicated to really helping the people for the first time in in the century you know of giving them free health free education and land reform and it was the last part of it that got him in our crosshairs that the land was was being more equally distributed to the citizens of the country down there but I went to Nicaragua I sang at a human rights concert down in Mexico and there was a Nicaraguan man down there and the leader of it turned out to be one Carlos Mejia good boys one of the top songwriters down there came up to me after the show and instead he want to thank me for his country and in regard to their for for sticking up for them and seeing what I was saying in my some of the songs that I had sung and I got an invitation to go down there and I ended up going down two or three times down to four times maybe visit the hospitals for kids who's had their legs and arms blown off by the mind we were putting in and finding out that that the Contras that we were training the terrorists that we were sending down there were not attacking the Santa Anita army but we're attacking the so-called soft targets or the schools the health facilities and the agricultural co-ops and it it will radicalize you you know and it it was definitely not a commercial move as you said it probably got me off of one record label and might have got me off the air forever oh yeah yeah album called third world warrior which actually don't let the bastards get you down is from isn't it yes and I two questions one did you feel like those songs would make a difference and to what was reaction the record company was there an attempt to have you tone that message down uh they didn't say anything they just didn't market it nice and and then when we try to album out wanted to reissue it now and I believe he's going to but we couldn't find it anywhere they said it's disappeared it's gone other deals it sounds like the Kennedy assassination or something so wasn't is it gonna make a difference did you think people would do their songs well you know I I don't know if it would make a difference at all I knew is there was the only things I could do to make a difference you know and it was coming from the heart and I was singing them on the road and I was getting mixed reaction there to uh woman came up to me after I sang that don't let the bastard and said I'll never listen to another song you write because killing babies in the name of freedom you know and I think I asked her whether it was the song that upset her or the fact that we were doing it you know and but I have no regrets about about to putting it out I still think it's I can understand why they never played it on the air there's been some history in Nicaragua since then just for the record what's your take on the Sandinistas now I think we eventually beat that revolution not with the Contras in Oliver North Malabo with money and we bought an election and bought another one you know and the people voted with their stocks you know they thought it was going to help them unfortunately today they're the second poorest country in the hemisphere and and I'm not hearing debate and you clearly know what Nicaragua better I do what we did see though for trade with some civil rights abuses and some free speech and freedom of religion issues and I would think that that would be a it's really tough to embrace a new regime because you embrace them their entirety I don't I wasn't aware of any civil right thing I knew that they that they had prison reform that they did away with her death penalty and and things that were that really mattered to the people down there do you think your political stance hurts your career you listen who knows what hurts a career you know I I remember when I put out the third world warrior I read one review I think it was in the USA Today said surely he knows pigs will fly before they play this on the air but I can't think that that that anything hurt my career I can't think of anything that that I would have done differently because because I'm pretty happy with my life the way it is right now you know with I got a I got a beautiful family and and I'm still able to do what I love for a living yeah well the folks kind of music but we cannot ignore the fact you've had remarkable filming and television career as well you mentioned America which was a controversial show about if the Nazis had actually won or to do well you know I I was I was trying to justify how that could have happened that scenario where where that I think it was the Russians end up taking over or a un or somebody taken over over the US and I and I thought at the time you know it could only happen if the rest of the world finally got together and said enough now what's been going on lately could cause that the rest of the world just finally just say listen you got no right to be the only superpower of the world going around we're fighting anybody you want to and whatever name you want to call it you know I mean they look at what we did in Iraq is terrorism and it was state-sponsored terrorism not you know I'm at an awkward position because I grew up in the second world war you know and before during and after in and believing in God and honor and country you know and duty and and I still respect the troops I just don't I don't agree with the policy our guest this week Kris Kristofferson please join us again next week for speaking freely join us next week as we continue our discussion on free expression and the arts more information about speaking freely visit our website at www.archives.gov/calendar

Channel: 1stAmendmentCenter

Views: 184,821

Keywords: Kris Kristofferson, Ken Paulson, Speaking Freely, First Amendment Center, First Amendment

Id: 8HtuEMFIV4c

Length: 26min 45sec (1605 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 06 2012