“THE POET WHO TAUGHT COUNTRY MUSIC HOW TO LOVE.” On September 28, 2024, country music lost the man many called its deepest songwriter of love and loneliness. Kris Kristofferson was 88 when his long, quiet battle with illness came to an end. He wasn’t just a singer. He was a poet in cowboy boots — a Rhodes Scholar who chose barrooms over classrooms, and a man who wrote about broken hearts as if he had lived inside every one of them. When the news spread, radios and playlists answered the only way they could: “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” “For the Good Times,” “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down.” Those songs didn’t sound like old records anymore. They sounded like confessions. Like letters written to people who never wrote back. Some say Kris didn’t write love songs. He wrote what came after love — the silence, the regret, the memory that refuses to fade. And now, when his voice comes on late at night, it feels different. Softer. Heavier. As if every word knew where it was going long before we did. Was he already saying goodbye to us… long before we knew how to listen?
THE POET WHO TAUGHT COUNTRY MUSIC HOW TO LOVE A Farewell Written in Songs On September 28, 2024, country music lost more than a singer. It lost a voice that…