![]() ![]() It’s impossible to separate her version of the song from her death. And yet, by design or by accident, her version of the song captured the romanticism of the life she lived, as well as the squalor that came with that life. And her “Me And Bobby McGee” isn’t really a pop song. Mostly, she was famous for being a motherfucker of a live performer, and for the way her records failed to capture the intensity of those shows. She’d had one real hit - Big Brother & The Holding Company’s take on Erman Franklin’s “Piece Of My Heart,” which peaked at #12 in 1968. Joplin was never much of a singles artist. But I think a lot of people probably saw it coming, or at least worried that it might happen. Otis Redding’s death had to come as a terrible shock. (The others were killed by murders or plane crashes.) The first posthumous #1 was Otis Redding’s “ (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay,” another virtuosic and bittersweet life-on-the-road song that ends in California. She was the only woman, and she was the only one who died of something that could be described as a long-festering disease. To date, there have been six musicians who went to #1 after dying. Joplin departed in October of 1970, 16 days after Jimi Hendrix. And then she died alone in a Hollywood hotel room after shooting up. She travelled the planet, slept with men and women, and tried every drug she could find - though she also went through periods where she tried to get clean. Her voice - ragged, ferocious, force-of-nature powerful - imprinted itself on a whole generation of kids. She became a rock star, first singing for Big Brother & The Holding Company and then going solo and leading a series of her own bands. She came home, got clean, then returned to San Francisco and got hooked again. ![]() Joplin found her way to San Francisco and got herself hooked on heroin. Joplin started singing - first at local coffeehouses, and then at coffeehouses in Austin, where she was briefly a college student. But she’d discovered old blues records, Bessie Smith records in particular, and through them, she’d found her superpower. This quiet girl had grown up in Port Arthur, Texas, bullied and stultified by the yokels around her. We can't wait to see what new artists will breathe new life into "Me and Bobby McGee".Janis Joplin was a terribly romantic figure, and her life story reads like a myth. From Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash to The Grateful Dead and Olivia Newton-John, the story of Bobby McGee has continued to live on in music history. The song has become a beloved classic, covered by over 50 artists over the years. "Me and Bobby McGee" became Joplin's only number one hit and is widely considered one of the greatest songs of all time. Numerous artists including Gordon Lightfoot, Charley Pride and Kenny Rogers, covered the song before Janis Joplin's version, which was posthumously released on her 1971 album Pearl. Miller's recording led to a huge influx of interest from other singers of all different genres. In 1969, Roger Miller first recorded the song, which peaked at number 12 on the country charts. It could tell a completely different story depending on who is singing it. Kristofferson changed the details, mentioning California and Kentucky to focus on the American experience, but that same raw emotion is evident in the lyrics.ĭue to the gender-neutral name of "Bobby" male and female artists gravitated to cover the song. The emotional feeling at the end of the film dictated the lyrics and overall mood of the song. He's drunk and ends up howling at the stars on the beach." That night, Quinn goes to a bar and gets in a fight. He asks, 'Where did you hear that song?' And she tells him it was this little girl who had showed up in town, and nobody knew where she was from, and later she died. "Later in the film, he sees this woman hanging out the wash and singing the melody that the girl used to play on the trombone. He got to the point where he couldn't put up with her anymore and left her by the side of the road while she was sleeping," Kristofferson told Performing Songwriter. For some reason, I thought of 'La Strada,' this Fellini film, and a scene where Anthony Quinn is going around on this motorcycle and Giulietta Masina is the feeble-minded girl with him, playing the trombone. "There was a Mickey Newbury song that was going through my mind-'Why You Been Gone So Long?' It had a rhythm that I really liked. Kristofferson found inspiration for his lyrics from a film, as he explained to Performing Songwriter: When he pitched the title to Kristofferson, he misheard the name as "Me and Bobby McGee," and the name stuck. ![]() Co-written by Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster, this iconic song was first conceptualized with just a title - inspired by a real person.įoster had a bit of a crush on Barbara "Bobbie" McKee who was a secretary on Nashville's music row. "Me and Bobby McGee" has become a rock classic over the years. ![]()
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