The original post: /r/music by /u/celric on 2024-10-01 19:18:49.
In the 70s, Kris said in interviews that he wanted the opening of Leonard Cohen's "Bird on a Wire" on his tombstone.
I met him in 2005 when he was being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, so I asked him about it.
I said, "I know at one point you said you wanted a Leonard Cohen line on your tombstone: Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir..." Then both of us speaking together "...I have tried, in my way, to be free." Then I asked, "Do you still feel that way?" "Hell yeah, I do!" he replied.
He went on to tell me about sharing a bill with Cohen at the Isle of Wight festival in 1970. The crowd was growing hostile and the organizers feared a repeat of the tragic violence at Altamont. But then Cohen took the stage and in Kris's words "soothed the savage beast."
I very much hope to visit his grave and see those words. RIP to a real one.