‘The sun descends into the sea’: Judge Johann van der Westhuizen (left) invited Kris Kristofferson to the constitutional court, where this picture was taken, and then hosted the unassuming country star at his home for dinner with his family.
Courts are not known as places of pleasure and peace. Out of the stressful strife and costly conflict of people, lawyers make a living. People “lose” or “win” cases. Justice can be evasive.
Yet, courts have been sites of struggle and victory for democracy and equality. They deal with human lives. The constitutional court is famous for its art collection, containing works from street artists to William Kentridge, Marlene Dumas and Marc Chagall. International visitors admire the architecture of the court building.
The soprano Pretty Yende sang in the foyer shortly before global fame came her way. So did the Afrikaans singer Valiant Swart. During the South African tour of Bruce Springsteen, his world-famous guitarist Tom Morello and Tom’s Kenyan father — known activists in years gone by — toured the court.
Of all the famous celebrities who set foot in the court, Kris Kristofferson was the most modest. When he performed in South Africa in 2014, at the age of 78, he visited the art and architecture — on my invitation — with his wife, Lisa (who gave up a legal career for family life) and daughter, Kelly.
Born in 1936 in Texas, KK was influenced by Willie Nelson and especially Johnny Cash. In the past week it was stated that his literary yet plain-spoken compositions infused country music with rarely heard candour and depth. He received many awards and acted in famous films such as A Star is Born, with Barbra Streisand. He has been described as a poet, song-writer, revolutionary, peacenik and sex symbol, “steeped in a new-Romantic sensibility that owed as much to John Keats as to the Beat Generation and Bob Dylan”. Hundreds of artists performed his songs.
The man was no ordinary country singer. As a Rhodes scholar he did a master’s degree at Oxford; he allegedly once said that the stiff-upper-lip English looked at him as if he had shit on his shoes. He was appointed to the American military to teach literature. He was also a helicopter pilot and Golden Gloves boxer.
Renaissance Man.
It has been said that his work explored “themes of freedom and commitment, alienation and desire, darkness and light”. Who can forget Me and Bobby McGee: “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose; nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free”?
The same song made his ongoing engagement with past and future famous: “I’ll trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday.”
Much later he sang: “Gone are the reasons for changing my mind; gone with the future that I left behind.”
In my court office he was introduced to the registrar. “A good man,” he immediately judged. Based on his lyrics “My thirsty wanted whiskey; my hungry needed beans” in To Beat the Devil, I somewhat mischievously offered him a whiskey. “I’ll have a shot of your whiskey,” he responded.
When I later reached out for the whiskey I had poured for myself, I noticed that my glass had almost been emptied. His glass was fully empty. The glasses looked very similar though, one must add in fairness.
My daughter and son, who were present, got excited and invited them for dinner at our house. To my surprise, they accepted. Aren’t they very busy, as superstars should be? Their agent later told me that if we had not invited them, they would have had room service on their own in the hotel.
With enthusiasm my wife and children prepared an urgent dinner. Kris was delighted by the ostrich fillet. When I offered whiskey, he mentioned that it was going to be a long evening … and stuck to wine.
Particularly meaningful for governance and lawyers is his The Law is for Protection of the People. These words are sarcastically repeated in the chorus, in protest against brutal power abuse by the police. “Don’t wonder whom them law men was protectin’ when they nailed the Saviour to the cross.”
To my question what motivated him to sing about human rights, the simple answer was: “I just love country music.” There are different ways to approach a topic.
I mentioned that I enjoyed his simple performance with the guitar more than the extravagant dance shows of Madonna, Beyoncé and others. “That’s all I can do,” came the honest reply.
He was painfully shy, Lisa said. They mentioned how they had recently spoken to Bob Dylan, over grocery trolleys outside a supermarket. They were surprised that Dylan had time to speak for so long to them. “After all, he is Bob Dylan!”
My son remarked that he thought KK was better than Dylan. His reply was straight and repeated: “No one is better than Dylan — he changed music for the better.”
He once mentioned that Leonard Cohen’s words must be on his grave: “Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in an old midnight choir, I have tried, in my way, to be free.” No arrogant bravado, like Frank Sinatra’s “I did it my way.”
He dutifully signed CD and old LP covers and photographs, with a special pen Lisa had ready, all with the same single message: “Peace.” He is not good with words in messages, the poet explained.
When photographs of our wives and daughters were taken, the charm of his The Silver Tongued Devil and I of about 40 years earlier came through. “It’s nice to see the girls,” he whispered to my son.
A highlight in my life was when the small bright blue eyes looked up at me from the table at the end of the evening. With almost childlike expectation, he asked: “Are we friends now?” An old friend and I were in awe about how our day ended. It felt somewhat like a spiritual revival, inspired by a Jesus on whiskey.
In The Winner he graphically reminded us that winning is not always worth it. I wish obsessive litigants, especially parents who spitefully spend all their money in battles over children, could realise this.
All of us will be fetched by the Grim Reaper. Some are already, perhaps unknowingly, on the old spoiler’s shortlist. In one of his last songs Kris sang, in an old man’s voice: “Waking up and feeling mortal, at this moment in the dream; that old man in the mirror and my shaky self-esteem; here today and gone tomorrow, that’s the way it’s got to be, like the sun descends into the sea.”
Kris respected human dignity, no matter whether his Pilgrim, poet, picker, prophet, pusher, preacher “and a problem when he’s stoned” knew if “the going up was worth the coming down”. He did not peddle idle hope, like the profitable platitudes in motivational speeches such as “If you can dream it, you can do it.” Instead, he sang about “down-and-outers”, who had “never seen a single dream come true”.
Yet he kept love, hope and the fight for justice alive. In Beat the Devil, an old man in a tavern takes his guitar and sings to the cold singer “with a stomach full of empty and a pocket full of dreams” that his songs are a waste of time. Other lonely singers were “crucified for what they tried to show”; their words were “scattered by the swirling winds of time … the truth remains that no one want to know.” Then he drinks the Devil’s beer for free and steals his song, ending with “I don’t believe that no one wants to know.”
Johann van der Westhuizen is a former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.