Kris Kristofferson Took a National Guard Helicopter to Pitch 1 of His Songs to Johnny Cash
Kris Kristofferson did his best to get Johnny Cash to listen to his songs when he was still a struggling artist. At the time, though, Cash was a major star and had grown accustomed to receiving tapes from young musicians. When Kristofferson realized Cash likely hadn’t listened to his tape, he stole a helicopter to make sure his music got to the country star.
Kris Kristofferson took a helicopter in order to get his song to Johnny Cash
Kristofferson began sweeping floors at Columbia Records. While working there, he gave one of his tapes to June Carter Cash and requested that she pass it on to her husband.
“Kris came right into the control room at Columbia sweeping up and slipped his tape to June, who gave it to me,” Cash said, per Rolling Stone. “I put it with a big pile of others that had been given to me. I think I was guilty of throwing some of Kris’ songs into Old Hickory Lake.”
Kristofferson realized Cash had likely passed on listening to the tape. He decided to give it to Cash in a way he couldn’t ignore.
“I didn’t really listen to them until one afternoon, he was flying a National Guard helicopter and he landed in my yard,” Cash said. “I was taking a nap and June said, ‘Some fool has landed a helicopter in our yard. They used to come from the road. Now they’re coming from the sky!’ And I look up, and here comes Kris out of a helicopter with a beer in one hand and a tape in the other.”
While Kristofferson said the beer was a creative invention of Cash’s, he confirmed that the rest of the story was true. The recording he gave Cash was “Sunday Morning Coming Down.”
Johnny Cash helped lift Kris Kristofferson to success
Cash was an instant fan.
“I liked his songs so much that I would take them off and not let anybody else hear them,” he said.
In 1970, he performed “Sunday Morning Coming Down” live on The Johnny Cash Show and invited Kristofferson to watch. The network’s censors told Cash to change the line “Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned,” to “Wishing, Lord, that I was home.”
Kristofferson told Cash that the song wouldn’t mean the same thing with the lyrical change, but he would respect whatever decision Cash made. During the performance, Cash looked at Kristofferson and sang the song as he wrote it.
Cash’s rendition of the song helped lift Kristofferson to success. That year, he won Songwriter of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards.
He flew helicopters before he moved to Nashville
Kristofferson later said he wouldn’t recommend landing a helicopter in someone’s yard as a way to promote music. Still, it was safer for him to do this than most other musicians. He flew a helicopter while in Germany with the U.S. Army.
When he left the military, he flew helicopters to offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. He lost this job for drinking alcohol within 24 hours of a flight, which he called a low point in his life.
