About The Song
“Jody and the Kid” is a song written by American singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson during the late 1960s, a period when he was beginning to establish himself as a songwriter in Nashville. The song was first released in 1968 through a recording by country singer Roy Drusky, making it one of the earliest Kristofferson compositions to reach the public. At that time, Kristofferson was still largely unknown as a recording artist, but his songs were increasingly being picked up by established performers.
Kris Kristofferson was born in 1936 in Brownsville, Texas, and came to Nashville after an unconventional path that included military service and academic achievement. His early years in the music industry were marked by financial instability and persistent efforts to sell songs to publishers and performers. Many of his early compositions were drawn from everyday observations and encounters, often set in working-class environments. “Jody and the Kid” reflects this songwriting approach, focusing on ordinary characters rather than dramatic or idealized figures.
The first recording of “Jody and the Kid” by Roy Drusky was released as a single in 1968 and achieved moderate commercial success. Drusky’s version reached the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, providing early validation of Kristofferson’s songwriting abilities. This chart performance helped bring Kristofferson greater recognition within the Nashville songwriting community, where his reputation continued to grow primarily through cover versions of his work.
Kristofferson later recorded “Jody and the Kid” himself, and his version appears on his self-titled debut album Kris Kristofferson, released in June 1970. The album introduced him as a recording artist and included several songs that had already been recorded by other musicians. His interpretation of “Jody and the Kid” is understated, emphasizing narrative clarity and conversational phrasing rather than vocal ornamentation or elaborate production.
Lyrically, the song presents a brief narrative centered on a waitress named Jody and a man referred to as “the Kid,” set within a casual, everyday setting. The lyrics offer limited background information and do not resolve the story in a conventional way. Instead, Kristofferson relies on implication and suggestion, allowing listeners to infer the emotional and social context. This economical storytelling became a defining characteristic of his songwriting during this period.
Musically, “Jody and the Kid” follows a straightforward country structure that supports the song’s narrative focus. The arrangement is simple, reflecting Kristofferson’s preference for letting the lyrics drive the song rather than the instrumentation. This approach distinguished his work from the more polished and formula-driven country recordings that dominated Nashville at the time, and it contributed to his reputation as a songwriter associated with realism and authenticity.
Although “Jody and the Kid” is not among Kris Kristofferson’s most widely known songs, it remains an important example of his early work as a songwriter. The song illustrates the phase of his career when his influence was built largely through other artists’ recordings rather than his own chart success. Today, it stands as a representative piece of his narrative-driven songwriting and his contribution to the evolving direction of country music in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
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Lyric
She would meet me in the morning
On my way down to the river
Waiting patient by the chinaberry tree
With her feet already dusty
From the pathway to the levy
And her little blue jeans rolled up to her knees
I’d pay her no attention
As she tagged along beside me
Trying hard to copy everything I did
But I couldn’t keep from smiling
When I’d hear somebody saying
Looky yonder, there goes Jody and the kid
Even after we grew older
We could still be seen together
As we walked along the levy holding hands
For as surely as the seasons she was changin’ to a woman
And I’d lived enough to call myself a man
And she often lay beside me
In the coolness of the evening
‘Til the morning sun was shining on my bed
And at times when she was sleeping
I would smile when I’d remember
How they use to call us Jody and the kid
Now the world’s a little older
And the years have changed the river
‘Cause there’s houses where they didn’t used to be
And on Sundays I go walking
Down the pathway to the levy
With another little girl who follows me
And it makes the old folks smile
To see her tag along beside me
Doing little things the way her mama did
But it gets a little lonesome
When I hear somebody sayin’
Looky yonder, there goes Jody and the kid