“I've come to appreciate how special a song is compared to other art forms, because you can carry it around in your head and your heart, and it remains part of you.
It just comes as natural as a bird to me, always did. It's the way singer-songwriters make sense of our lives.
To me, the best love songs work on two - maybe three - different levels, where you're talking about the person who you're right opposite, and all the people like that.”
Underlining his widespread popularity and appeal, Kristofferson was given a standing ovation by the State Theatre audience in Sydney after his set of 30 songs separated by a brief interval.
All the songs were applauded. As usual audience recognition of the opening verse of “Sunday Morning Coming Down” a national anthem for the lonely and lost, was cheered for its sharp insights and revelations about being alone.
"Sunday Morning Coming Down' is probably the most directly autobiographical thing I'd written," Kristofferson has said about the song’s origin.
‘In those days, I was living in a slum tenement that was torn down afterwards, but it was $25 a month in a condemned building, and 'Sunday Morning Coming Down' was more or less looking around me and writing about what I was doing."
Giving no indications of retirement, Kristofferson one of the last of country music’s legends now that Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Glenn Campbell and Merle Haggard have died.
Haggard’s former back group The Strangers - Scott Joss (fiddle and vocals), Doug Colosio (keyboards & vocals) and Jeff Ingraham (drums) support the experienced Kristofferson on stage.
“I've had a life of all kinds of experiences - most of them good,’ Kristofferson has said.
"And I've got eight kids and a wife that puts up with everything I do and keeps me out of trouble.”