One of my all time favorites, that really is a "Folk Song," is "Me and Bobby McGee," sung by Janis Joplin.
"She was a bawdy, hard-drinking Texas mama who swore like the boys and savaged her white vocal chords to sing the blues. When friends suggested her health could not withstand her rowdy lifestyle, she replied, "Maybe I won't last as long as other singers, but I think you can destroy your now worrying about tomorrow." Janis Joplin will never have to worry about tomorrow. She was found dead in her room at the Landmark Motel in Hollywood on the evening of October 4, 1970, a victim of a heroin overdose.
She hadn't completed recording her Pearl album when she died. Released in January, 1971, it yielded the second posthumous number one single of the rock era (Otis Redding's "[Sittin' On] The Dock of the Bay" being the first). "Me and Bobby McGee" was written by actor, singer, Rhodes scholar and songwriter Kris Kristofferson, who tagged along with his friend Bobby Neuwirth to what Myra Friedman, in her Joplin biography Buried Alive, calls "the great Tequila bash" in the spring of 1970. Kristofferson stayed to become Janis' beau for a short time and left behind his song for his feather-boaed girlfriend."
You can listen to an imitator do an excellent "Janis Joplin" version of it at roadtripband.com (Realplayer, takes a few minutes to load.)
Here are the Lyrics:
Busted flat in Baton Rouge headin' for the trains feelin' nearly faded as my jeans
Bobby thumbed a diesel down just before it rained took us all the way to New Orleans
I took my harpoon out of my dirty red bandana
And was blowin' sad while Bobby sang the blues
With them windshield wipers slappin' time
And Bobby clappin' hands we finally sang up every song that driver knew
Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose
Nothin' ain't worth nothin' but it's free
Feeling good was easy Lord when Bobby sang the blues
Feeling good was good enough for me good enough for me and Bobby McGee
From the coal mines of Kentucky to the California sun
Bobby shared the secrets of my soul
Standin' right beside me Lord through everything I done
And every night she kept me from the cold
Then somewhere near Salinas Lord I let her slip away
Lookin' for the home I hope she'll find
I'd trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday holdin' Bobby's body next to mine
Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose
Nothin' ain't worth nothin' but it's free
Feeling good was easy Lord when Bobby sang the blues
Feeling good was good enough for me good enough for me and Bobby McGee |
