On Music
Lonesome Together
By Drew Bratcher
On YouTube exists a rare video of Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson performing the song “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” The segment, which was taped in Los Angeles as part of a 1978 prime-time special, made for a very public reunion—it had been nine years since Cash first performed Kristofferson’s song on The Johnny Cash Show, his short-lived TV variety program featuring rock, blues, and folk singers alongside the Grand Ole Opry crowd.
The original performance had been controversial. Cash’s producers, anticipating blowback from the song’s references to drug use, had asked him to switch the chorus from “On a Sunday morning sidewalk / I’m wishing, Lord, that I was stoned” to “On a Sunday morning sidewalk / I’m wishing, Lord, that I was home.” Cash said he’d give it some thought, but when the time came, he delivered the lines as is, putting the weight of his quavering bass-baritone behind a lyric that was at once a provocation (drugs were a Nashville taboo) and a personal confession (Cash really was hooked on pills). A live recording of the performance was released to country radio and quickly ran up the charts, eventually winning the 1970 CMA Award for Song of the Year.