I think Kris Kristofferson wrote the song.
Janis Joplin - Ball & Chain - Monterey Pop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1zFnyEe3nE
/Joplin fan
Nearly wrecked my car once when I heard “piece of my heart” being sung and realized it was not Janis. (Faith Hill)
Oof. A really messed up hippie girl.
You could definitely hear her influence on Robert Plant’s singing on the early Zeppelin albums.
Yes Janis was talented, but she was street meat. She lived the way she wanted. Had she survived that lifestyle she would have just been another of those we shout down so much today whenever they open their leftist pie holes, and say something really........left. Talent be damned that whisky, and those drugs will git ya every time.
Some people who are really good at singing the Blues have happy lives. She wasn’t one of them.
“....but Janis Joplin was very talented. She left us to soon....$
She was...very talented. Got messed up real bad with drugs and booze. A meteor across the sky.
Kristofferson wrote it and got booed off stage at the Isle of Wight Festival. It is in the film.
There’s a good movie with Kristofferson and others called Cisco Pike. The ending is weak but the overall journey is good.
I have seen Jerry Lee Lewis play a fast version of it live in person
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NRzxu_Hak8
One of the greatest blues-rock songs ever.
Janice Joplin’s voice always made my skin crawl. She tortured good songs to death.
Despite her demons and they were many...she was very talented. When she sang you can tell she did from the depths of her heart unlike today’s singers who just read some lines
Supposedly Janice Joplin’s 1st recording from 1962. sounds like old time acoustic blues and points to her main life problem.
“What Good Can Drinking Do?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fyQ1k94boE
I was on a school bus when I heard that she had died. It was my senior year in High School.
Back then, the kids had divided themselves into ‘greasers’, ‘Preppies’, and ‘Hippies’, for years.
I never fit into any group; but I remember one kid looking at me when I heard the news and saying, “OH! You’re SAD?’
She was a brilliant blues singer.
Is it a coincidence that someone just posted a First Things article entitled “Freedom Isn’t Just Another Word”? Or that’s why you were thinking of this song. ANyway it’s superb
Bill Bennett went once on a date with her. Not surprisingly, it didn’t work out.
Saw her with Big Brother and the Holding Company at the old Houston Music Theater in the summer of ‘68. She didn’t have her bottle of Southern Comfort on stage. Her parents from nearby Port Arthur were in attendance.
Yes, Kristofferson wrote it. Sung from a male perspective and Bobby McGee as a girl does change the feel of the song. Re: Janis, I became a fan much later in life, years after she died. But do remember the day the report of her death came and how the Junior High School halls were abuzz. Saw a couple interviews she had. Seemed like an innocent way out of her depth and bluffing her way through. Musically speaking, somehow that little homely white girl from Arkansas sang the Blues better than almost anyone ever has. RIP.