Kris Kristofferson once flew helicopters over Louisiana's marshes and wrote hit romance songs while sitting atop oil platforms.
The long-winded life story of Kristofferson, who national outlets reported died at 88 years old on Saturday, would have you convinced that he lived for centuries. He was a Rhodes scholar, an accidental A-list actor in Hollywood and an outlaw poet in country and folk music.
But before becoming a legendary troubadour, Kristofferson came to Louisiana to be closer to Nashville. The singer-songwriter spoke to The Times-Picayune in 2006 after performing at Paragon Casino in the small town of Marksville. Back then, he reminisced his days working at Petroleum Helicopters International in Lafayette, where he flew between marshes and offshore petroleum facilities.
Kristofferson would work shifts at PHI for a week while fitting in time to write songs. Then, he would travel to Nashville, where he would spend another week pitching songs to recording studios.
During his time in Louisiana, Kristofferson drafted songs that would go on to be hits on the radio. While sitting on top of an oil platform, he wrote "Help Me Make It Through The Night," a 1969 ballad about struggling through a lonesome evening without a lover.
Kristofferson contemplated the meaning of freedom in "Me and Bobby McGee" — written in Louisiana and famously covered by his alleged ex-girlfriend Janis Joplin — that details a lost man traveling from Baton Rouge to New Orleans and across the southern United States.
And, as The Times-Picayune pointed out, it was not by accident that Kristofferson saturated the song with images of Louisiana. He said that the state was unlike any other.
"I've always loved the feeling of Louisiana," he said. "It just had a soul down here that was different from any place in the United States. There was something about it that just appealed to me the same way that a lot of Europe does."