“They Ain’t Gonna Care”: Kris Kristofferson Recalls First Time He Met Johnny Cash

Some artists are so magnetic and mystifying that as soon as you meet them in person, you know that you’re talking to someone special. Other artists might be enigmatic, but their toxic or destructive behaviors are so prevalent that, once again, you just know they’re never going to be able to rise above their vices to reach their full potential. When Kris Kristofferson met Johnny Cash for the first time, Kristofferson had a gut feeling that Cash fell more into the latter category.

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Kristofferson, who was working as a janitor at Columbia Records at the time, might have been right. But fortunately for Cash, he was able to get straight before he drank or drugged that potential away.

Kris Kristofferson Meeting Johnny Cash for the First Time

These days, it’s hard to imagine a world in which Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash weren’t always rubbing elbows. But in the 1960s, that was a reality that a young Kristofferson could only dream of. The future movie star and songwriter of hits like “Me and Bobby McGee” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” was working as a janitor at Columbia Records to make ends meet and stay in close proximity to the music scene while he was cutting his teeth as an artist.

Kristofferson wasn’t rubbing elbows with Cash, per sé, but he would occasionally bump into him in the hallways. One such instance is how the future Highwaymen bandmates would meet for the first time. “I met him bouncing off the hallways one time in Columbia back when I was working like a janitor there, and he was lucid, in spite of the fact that he was completely wasted,” Kristofferson recalled in a 1971 interview.

“He started reciting me some poetry, religious poetry, that was really beautiful. I got to thinking, ‘Look at this cat, man. He comes from pulling cotton back in Dyas, Arkansas, uneducated, and he’s writing some really moving religious poetry that I just wish that somebody knew that he did it, you know.”

“But,” Kristofferson continued, “I just figured he was going to be dead signing for all these people before anybody heard it, and I thought, ‘Who’s going to give a damn? You’re killing yourself for these people, and they ain’t gonna care.’”

Iron Sharpens Iron, So To Speak

Neither Johnny Cash nor Kris Kristofferson (nor any number of artists at the time) were at their best, emotionally or mentally speaking, in the mid-1960s. Drug use, long hours, a competitive industry: there were plenty of hurdles songwriters had to leap over for even a fighting chance of remaining relevant in the Nashville music scene.

Kristofferson’s star began to rise just as Cash’s began to drop, as is often the case when new generations start dominating the charts. But by the 1980s, Cash and Kristofferson were working together as members of the Highwaymen with Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings.

Kristofferson wrote “To Beat the Devil” based on his experience watching Cash recite moving poetry in the throes of addiction and a tempestuous career. Despite these hardships, Cash would devote time to his craft and, perhaps even more importantly, to causes he was passionate about. “Seeing how he pulled himself up and seeing him continue to try and communicate with these people and go and stand up in front of the Arkansas State Legislature and telling them they got rotten prisons and stuff like that,” Kristofferson said.

“I saw why he was doing it, and that he had to keep fighting against this feeling that nobody is going to ever hear you, you know? And even if they don’t ever hear you, you gotta still try it.”

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