365 Days of Song Recommendations: July 20

Sunday Morning Coming Down — Kris Kristofferson

On a Sunday morning sidewalk I’m wishing Lord that I was stoned
Cause there’s something in a Sunday makes a body feel alone
And there’s nothing sure to dying half as lonesome as the sound
On a sleepy city sidewalk Sunday morning coming down

These are perfect lyrics. When I hear Sunday Morning Coming Down, I feel these lyrics. Hell, I run to this damn song because I’m most attuned to my literary side when running, and I’m always ready to sprint home to start writing after each listen.

Well I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad so I had one more for desert
Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes and found my cleanest dirty shirt
And I shaved my face and combed my hair
And stumbled down the stair to meet the day

This is bigger than a hangover song. There’s a staggering loneliness here — it’s most powerful in Willie’s version. A life of mistakes, regrets, loss. I’ve spent a lifetime curating the saddest songs ever written, and I’d be damned if this one wasn’t a prime candidate for the top ten. There are sadder lyrics, of course — listen to Strange Fruit, for fuck sake — and sadder melodies, too, but this one just triggers something big in me because none of us are all that far from being this Ray Carver-esque character. One bad decision, one midlife crisis. Doesn’t take much.

I’d smoke my brain the night before with cigarettes and songs I’d been a picking
But I lit my first and watched the small kid cussin’ at a can that he was kicking
Then I crossed the empty street and caught
The Sunday smell of someone fryin’ chicken
And it took me back to something that I’d lost somewhere somehow along the way

I also find myself contemplating time, and aging, and those later years when the kid has his own life and how I’ll feel when a smell, or laugh, or moment makes me yearn for a memory I can never get back — a moment that perhaps I don’t appreciate enough right now while I still have it in front of me.

On a Sunday morning sidewalk
In the park I saw a daddy with the laughing little girl that he was swinging
And I stopped beside a Sunday school and listened to the songs they were singing
Then I headed back for home and somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringing
And it echoed through the canyons like the disappearing dreams of yesterday
On a Sunday morning sidewalk
Coming down coming down coming down coming down

The Johnny Cash version is fine. It loses something. Maybe because it’s a bit more expected, or it lacks the emotion in the others. The new Phosphorescent version packs more punch, if you ask me, but nothing tops the master’s singing his own perfect lyrics.

This legendary song is the 201st song on the #365Songs playlist!