"Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" | ||||
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![]() German release picture sleeve | ||||
Single by Ray Stevens | ||||
from the album Have a Little Talk with Myself | ||||
B-side | "The Minority" | |||
Released | 1969 | |||
Studio | Monument Recording, Nashville, Tennessee | |||
Genre | Pop, country | |||
Length | 4:25 | |||
Label | Monument | |||
Songwriter(s) | Kris Kristofferson | |||
Producer(s) | Jim Malloy, Ray Stevens | |||
Ray Stevens singles chronology | ||||
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"Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" is a song written by Kris Kristofferson that was recorded in 1969 by Ray Stevens before becoming a No.1 hit on the Billboard US Country chart for Johnny Cash.
Stevens' version of the song reached No.55 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart and No.81 on the Hot 100 pop chart in 1969. In 2021, it was listed at #476 on Rolling Stone's "Top 500 Best Songs of All Time". [1] It also appeared on the author's own album Kristofferson .
In a 2013 interview, Kristofferson said the song "opened up a whole lot of doors for me. So many people that I admired, admired it. Actually, it was the song that allowed me to quit working for a living." [2]
In 2024, Rolling Stone ranked the song at #96 on its 200 Greatest Country Songs of All Time ranking. [3]
"Sunday Morning Coming Down" | ||||
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Single by Johnny Cash | ||||
from the album The Johnny Cash Show | ||||
B-side | "I'm Gonna Try to Be That Way" | |||
Released | 1970 | |||
Genre | Country, folk | |||
Length | 4:04 | |||
Label | Columbia | |||
Songwriter(s) | Kris Kristofferson | |||
Producer(s) | Bob Johnston | |||
Johnny Cash singles chronology | ||||
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The biggest success on disc for the song came from a Johnny Cash performance that had been recorded live at the Ryman Auditorium during a taping of The Johnny Cash Show as part of a "Ride This Train" segment, with filmed background visuals showing a down-and-out wanderer roaming around the Public Square area of Shelbyville, Tennessee. Cash introduced the song with the following monologue:
"You know, not everyone who has been on 'the bum' wanted it that way. The Great Depression of the 30s set the feet of thousands of people—farmers, city workers—it set 'em to ridin' the rails. My Daddy was one of those who hopped a freight train a couple of times to go and look for work. He wasn't a bum. He was a hobo but he wasn't a bum. I suppose we've all....all of us 'been at one time or another 'drifter at heart', and today like yesterday there's many that are on that road headin' out. Not searchin' maybe for work, as much as for self-fulfillment, or understanding of their life...trying to find a *meaning* for their life. And they're not hoppin' freights much anymore. Instead they're thumbin' cars and diesel trucks along the highways from Maine to Mexico. And many who have drifted...including myself...have found themselves no closer to peace of mind than a dingy backroom, on some lonely Sunday morning, with it comin' down all around you."
With the monologue edited off, the recording would appear on the soundtrack LP The Johnny Cash Show the following year, as well as being issued as a single (Columbia Records 4-45211). Cash's version won the Country Music Association Award for Song of the Year in 1970 and hit #1 on the country chart. [4]
This version was used in the Columbo episode Swan Song in 1974, in which Cash performed it during a garden party.
According to Kristofferson, network executives ordered Cash to change the line "I'm wishing Lord that I was stoned" when he performed the song on his TV show, but he refused to comply. [5]
Help Me Make It Through the Night is the debut studio album released by American country artist Sammi Smith. The album was originally released in September 1970 on Mega Records it includes a beautiful rendition of Sunday Morning Coming Down.
Mohamed El-Erian, then co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management, used the phrase "cleanest dirty shirt" in a 2010 television interview [7] to refer to the United States among major economies in the after the 2008 financial crisis. He credited the saying to his colleague Paul McCulley, who was then PIMCO's chief economist; El-Erian and his co-CIO Bill Gross often repeated it in interviews during that era. [8] The description was widely used to refer to American Exceptionalism in finance and economics at least through the end of 2024. [9]
McCulley told Forbes in 2024 that he was consciously referencing [7] Kristofferson's song, which includes the lyric
Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes
And found my cleanest dirty shirt. [10]
"I was fully aware that I was ‘borrowing’ the phrase from Kris Kristofferson, who penned that Johnny Cash hit,” said McCulley. “I'm a huge fan of Kristofferson, as well as Jackson Browne, two of the finest poets of our generation. “
Chart (1969) | Peak position |
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US Hot Country Songs ( Billboard ) [11] | 55 |
US Billboard Hot 100 [12] | 81 |
Canadian RPM Country Tracks [13] | 46 |
Canadian RPM Top Singles [14] | 59 |
Chart (1970) | Peak position |
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US Hot Country Songs ( Billboard ) [15] | 1 |
US Billboard Hot 100 [16] | 46 |
US Billboard Adult Contemporary [17] | 13 |
Canadian RPM Country Tracks | 1 |
Canadian RPM Top Singles | 30 |