Sunday Morning Coming Down

 

Songs can give us back a moment.  The melody, a snippet of lyrics can pull back the opaque curtain of time to reveal that memory with a vivid clarity.

As a person ages, they seem to want to listen to those 'oldies' - songs that are the benchmark of their decades.   They soothe us, remind us of better, or at least different times.  They remind us that we have lived.

The tune that I've chosen for today, for this post, was written and recorded a year before I was born but I remember listening to it often as a child.  The writer, Kris Kristofferson, became one of the best songwriters of all time.  The singer, Waylon Jennings, was one of the truest and toughest outlaws that country music ever grudgingly embraced.

But what the song means to me personally is this - My dad has always said that Sundays are the worst day of the week.  He didn't elaborate but I know him and what he meant was this:  There's something inherently lonely and melancholy about a Sunday. 

Those that have their faith, go to church or even just their family close by for picnics & togetherness would disagree with him.  And yet, I have my faith, I have loved ones but I still relate to his sentiment.

There is no other song, in my opinion, that speaks of that feeling better than Sunday Morning Coming Down.  I know that whenever I hear the sad melody and Waylon's God-like voice, I will think of my dad sitting at his kitchen table, music playing in the background, gaze far away as he looks out the window.