I was watching the great new show “Spectacle” on Sundance Channel yesterday morning. This is Elvis Costello’s show that’s incredibly well done. This episode featured what we in Nashville call a “guitar pull” – basically where you and all your friends get around and play tunes into the wee hours.

Anyway, on this episode was John Mellencamp, Rosanne Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Norah Jones. Along with Costello, they talked about their songs and then played them in a very sparse, organic setting. Each of the performers played great songs – some new, some old.

However, Kristofferson demonstrated why he’s absolutely one of the best. I have always loved “Sunday Morning Coming Down” – it’s an absolute piece of art. And, there are a few lines in the song that are just amazing.

Here are a couple of the verses:

Well I woke up Sunday morning,
With no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad,
So I had one more for dessert.
Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes,
And found my cleanest dirty shirt.
An’ I shaved my face and combed my hair,
An’ stumbled down the stairs to meet the day.

Amazing – you can really sense the loneliness of the person in the song. But, the best line in the song is yet to come.

I’d smoked my brain the night before,
On cigarettes and songs I’d been pickin’.
But I lit my first and watched a small kid,
Cussin’ at a can that he was kicking.
Then I crossed the empty street,
‘n caught the Sunday smell of someone fryin’ chicken.
And it took me back to somethin’,
That I’d lost somehow, somewhere along the way.

When you hear “caught the Sunday smell of someone fryin’ chicken” – can’t you just smell it. To me, it’s one of the all-time greatest lines in songwriting.