He Was an Army Captain Sweeping Floors in Nashville. Then Johnny Cash Sang His Song, and It Changed Everything

Kris Kristofferson could have done just about anything.

He was a Rhodes Scholar who studied at Oxford. In 1961 he joined the U.S. Army, went through Ranger School, learned to fly helicopters, and rose to the rank of captain.

The Army even offered him a job teaching English at West Point.

He turned it down. Kris wanted to write songs.

In 1965 he moved to Nashville and took a job as a janitor at Columbia Records, sweeping floors in the studios where his heroes recorded. On weekends, he flew helicopters for the Tennessee National Guard.

As the famous story goes, he once landed a helicopter right in Johnny Cash’s yard to get a song to him. Kris later laughed that Johnny probably wasn’t even home.

But Johnny Cash did hear his songs. One of them was “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” a lonely tale of a man waking up hungover and homesick on a Sunday morning.

Johnny sang it on his TV show, recorded live at the Ryman Auditorium. In this performance, you can hear every word land.

The song went to No. 1 on the country charts in 1970 and won Song of the Year from the Country Music Association. Kris said it “allowed me to quit working for a living.”

Kris Kristofferson went on to become a star himself and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2004. He passed away in 2024 at age 88.

Johnny Cash or Kris Kristofferson: whose version do you like best? Tell us in the comments.