My nomination will be the magisterial 1969 opus “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” via Kris Kristofferson.  

Kristofferson’s tale is as [uncharacteristic] because it will get for a rustic superstar: Born to an army circle of relatives, he was once a school graduate as a pupil he wrote a number of essays for The Atlantic), Rhodes Pupil, and armed forces officer about to be an teacher at West Level when the country-music computer virus bit him. “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” is in some ways reflective of his out-of-the-box upbringing (in nation phrases). The music revolves round a Sunday morning spent nursing a hangover—therefore the “comin’ down.” The outlet strains give a way of the way he sees the placement:

     Neatly, I awoke Sunday morning

     With out a method to cling my head that didn’t harm

     And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t dangerous

     So I had another for dessert

It reads virtually like a poem out of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and even one via a Nineteenth-century Romantic poet, like William Wordsworth—and it’s near to the hair of the canine to take the threshold off. The lyrics take the listener via now not handiest the ache of the hangover, however the regrets of returning to the arena within the state he’s in:

     Then I crossed the empty side road

     And stuck the Sunday scent of any person fryin’ rooster

     And it took me again to somethin’

     That I’d misplaced by hook or by crook, someplace alongside the best way

The imagery simply is going on and on. You’re feeling you’re strolling with him (or stumbling, as he does) out to the sunshine of Sunday morning questioning what the hell took place the night time ahead of. My favourite verse is close to the top, when, after he main points the on a regular basis happenings of the sober other people round him, he hears church bells within the distance:

     Then I headed again for house

     And someplace a long way away a lonesome bell was once ringin’

     And it echoed during the canyons

     Just like the disappearing goals of the day prior to this

The ones “disappearing goals of the day prior to this” simply tear my center out. It’s a verse that may be Merriam-Webster’s definition of remorseful about. And who may disregard that refrain, which summarizes the despair and confusion of the morning after so vividly:

     At the Sunday morning sidewalks

     Wishing, Lord, that I used to be stoned

     ’Purpose there’s one thing in a Sunday

     Makes a frame really feel by myself

     There ain’t nothin’ wanting dyin’

     Part as lonesome because the sound

     At the sleepin’ town sidewalks

     Sunday mornin’ comin’ down

This music was once recorded via such a lot of artists; famously, Kristofferson was once reluctant to file it himself. The poetry of the lyrics steadily make you disregard that it’s even a music first of all. For me, “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” is without doubt one of the largest lyric achievements in now not handiest nation tune, however American tune.