This is the third and final song in a trilogy that always come to my mind together: The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face, Killing Me Softly With His Song and Help Me Make It Through The Night.

They all have long titles, they’re all slow sentimental soul ballads and they were all hits within nine months in 1972-73. They all have interesting back stories too: the first a repurposed folk song, the second inspired by a pop concert experience, and this one written by a country singer – inspired by a comment from Frank Sinatra.

When asked in a magazine interview what he believed in, Ol’ Blue Eyes once responded: “Booze, broads or a Bible… whatever helps me make it through the night.”

That resonated with a former Rhodes Scholar turned Army officer and aspiring songwriter and novelist, working as a helicopter pilot on an oil rig in the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. On his weeks off he took a second job sweeping floors in a Nashville recording studio, hoping to pitch his songs to whomever he might meet there.

One of those was June Carter, who passed his songs on to her husband, Johnny Cash. He didn’t record this one but he ended up recording another, Sunday Morning Comin’ Down, which went on to win its previously unknown composer the Songwriter of the Year award 1969.

And in that roundabout way, Kris Krisofferson became a successful songwriter, and recording artist.

I first encountered him as an actor, playing the sheriff in Heaven’s Gate and Lone Star (a great seldom-remembered film that’s well worth looking up). It was only later – much later – that I learned of his music career and found he had written standards like Me & Bobby McGee, For The Good Times… and this.

Help Me Make It Through The Night was included on his 1970 debut album Kristofferson and covered later the same year by a singer called Sammi Smith, topping the country charts and reaching the US Top Ten.

I first heard it by Gladys Knight & The Pips in 1972.

It has since been covered by artists including Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Elvis Presley, Glen Campbell, Jerry Lee Lewis and countless others, while Kristofferson went on to expand his musical career into acting.