Folk Singers

"It seems to me that maybe, It pretty much always means no So don't tell me you might just let it go And often times we're lazy It seems to stand in my way Cause no one no not no one Likes to be let down"

"Here comes another one, just like the other one Looking at himself but wishing he was someone else Because the posters on the wall they don't look like him And so he ties it up he tucks it in, he pulls it back and gives a grin Laughing at himself because he knows he ain't loved at all He knows he ain't loved at all"

"You're breaking your mind By killing the time that kills you But you can't blame the time When its only in your mind"

"Well I know some people's they got a little less than nothing But still find some to spare And other people got more than they could use But they don't share And some people got problems man They got awful complications Other people got perfect situations With no provocation"

"Well I was eating lunch at the D. L. G. When this little girl came and she sat next to me I never seen nobody move the way she did Well she did and she does and she'll do it again. When you move like a jellyfish Rhythm don't mean nothing You go with the flow You don't stop Move like a jellyfish Rhythm is nothing You go with the flow You don't stop"

"Well, dust off your thinking caps Solar powered plastic plants Pretty pictures of things we ate We are only what we hate But in the long run we have found Silent films are full of sound Inaudibly free Slow down everyone You're moving too fast Frames can't catch you when You're moving like that"

"Inaudible melodies Serve narrational strategies Unobtrusive tones Help to notice nothing but the zone Of visual relevancy Frame-lines tell me what to see Chopping like an axe Or maybe Eisenstein should just relax"

"She's the one that stumbles when she talks about The seven foreign films that she's checked out Such a fortunate fool She's just too good to be true She's such a fortunate fool"

"Well, Plato's cave is full of freaks Demanding refunds for the things they've seen I wish they could believe In all the things that never made the screen"

"A billion people died on the news tonight But not so many cried at the terrible sight Well mama said It's just make believe You can't believe everything you see So baby close your eyes to the lullabies On the news tonight"

"You know why we're stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don't let themselves feel things."

"Here's a wish for a runaway girl; Here's a prayer for honky-tonk Pearl — Hope she finds someplace outta this world Where she feels at home."

""Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" is as good an epitaph for the counterculture as any; we'll never know how-or if-Janis meant to go on from there. Janis Joplin's death, like that of a fighter in the ring, was not exactly an accident. Yet it's too easy to label it either suicide or murder, though it involved elements of both. Call it rather an inherent risk of the game she was playing, a game whose often frivolous rules both hid and revealed a deadly serious struggle. The form that struggle took was incomplete, shortsighted, egotistical, self-destructive. But survivors who give in to the temptation to feel superior to all that are in the end no better than those who romanticize it. Janis was not so much a victim as a casualty. The difference matters."

"A banker's daughter or a runaway girl, A little lady or a honky-tonk Pearl Has to find someplace in this world Where she feels at home. A banker's daughter is so hard to deceive A little lady is so hard to please Honky-tonk Pearl wears her heart on her sleeve, And her heart will not grow cold."

"I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel You were famous, your heart was a legend You told me again you preferred handsome men But for me you'd make an exception. And clenching your fist for the ones like us Who are oppressed by the figures of beauty You fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind, We are ugly but we have the music.""

"Wow, that's heavy."

"Ah but you got away, didn't you babe You just turned your back on the crowd You got away, I never once heard you say I need you, I don't need you I need you, I don't need you And all of that jiving around."

"I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel You were talking so brave and so sweet Giving me head on an unmade bed While the limousines wait in the street. And those were the reasons and that was New York. I was running for the money and the flesh. I was running for the money and the flesh That was called love, for the workers in song And it still is for those of us left."

"Ah, but you got away, didn't you baby You just threw it all to the ground You got away, they can’t pay you now For making your sweet little sound, can they? Making your sweet little sound on the jukebox Making your sweet little sound on the jukebox Making your sweet little sound on the radio Making your sweet little sound."

"Work me Lord, work me Lord. Please don't you leave me, I feel so useless down here With no one to love Though I've looked everywhere And I can't find me anybody to love, To feel my care."

"Singer Janis Joplin, who in 1968 was screeching out her voice with a California group called , said that she was not a hippie, because hippies believed in trying to make the world better. Instead she said she was a : "Beatniks believe things aren't going to get better and say, 'The hell with it,' stay stoned, and have a good time.""

"Well, I’m gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough. I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it, Take another little piece of my heart now, baby!"

"You know you got it if it makes you feel good."

"Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz? My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends"

"Janis knew more than I did about "how it was", but she lacked enough armor for the inevitable hassles. She was open and spontaneous enough to get her heart trampled with a regularity that took me thirty years to experience or understand. On the various occasions when we were together, she seemed to be holding in something she thought I might not want to hear, like older people do when they hear kids they love saying with absolute youthful confidence, "Oh, that'll never happen to me." Sometimes you know you can't tell them how it is, they have to find out for themselves. Janis felt like an old soul, a wisecracking grandmother whom everybody loved to visit. When I was with her, I often felt like a part of her distant family, a young upstart relative who was still too full of her own sophistry to hear wisdom. Did we compliment each other? Yes, but not often enough."

"Please don'tcha do it to me babe, no! Please don'tcha do it to me baby, Either take this love I offer Or honey let me be."

"Oh yeah, make up your mind, honey, You're playing with me, hey hey hey, Make up your mind, darling, You're playing with me, come on now! Now either be my loving man, I said-a let me honey, let me be, yeah!"

"You know that I need a man, honey Lord, You know that I need a man, But when I ask you to you just tell me That maybe you can."

"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose, Nothing don’t mean nothing honey if it ain’t free... And feeling good was easy, lord, when he sang the blues. You know feeling good was good enough for me, Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee."

"Dawn has come at last, Twenty-five years, honey just in one night, oh yeah. Well, Im twenty-five years older now So I know we can't be right And Im no better, baby, And I cant help you no more Than I did when just a girl."

"Aww, but it don't make no difference, baby, no, no, And I know that I could always try. It don't make no difference, baby, yeah, I better hold it now, I better need it, yeah, Im gonna use it till the day I die, whoa."

"Time keeps movin' on, Friends they turn away. I keep movin' on But I never found out why I keep pushing so hard the dream, I keep tryin to make it right Through another lonely day, whoaa."

"Fourteen heart attacks and he had to die in my week. In MY week."

"Tomorrow never happens. It's all the same fucking day, man."

"To sing blues, you've got to be able to, ... be willing to, feel things."

"Don't expect any answers, dear, For I know that they don't come with age, no, no. Well, ain't never gonna love you any better, babe. And I'm never gonna love you right, So you'd better take it now, and right now."

"Oh! But it don't make no difference, babe, hey, And I know that I could always try. Theres a fire inside everyone of us, You'd better need it now, I got to hold it, yeah, I better use it till the day I die."

"Music’s for grooving man, and music’s not for puttin’ yourself through bad changes, y’know? I mean, you don’t have to go take anybody’s shit, man, just to like music, y’know what I mean? You don’t. So... so if you’re getting’ more shit than you deserve, you know what to do about it man. Y’know, it’s just music. Music’s... music's s’posed to be different than that."

"Honey, I love to go to parties, And I like to have a good time, But if it gets too pale after a while Honey and I start looking to find One good man."

"One good man, Oh ain’t much, honey ain’t much, It’s only everything..."

"An’ I don’t want much outa life, I never wanted a mansion in the south. I just-a want to find someone sincere Who’d treat me like he talks, One good man."

"You say that it's over baby, Lord, You say that it's over now, But still you hang around me, come on, Won't you move over."

"And it's the same when there's a war on: it's the men who go to fight Women and children are civilians, when they're killed it's not right Men kill men in uniform, its the way war goes When they run they're cowards, when they stay they are heroes."

"There was a new popular music of protest. Pete Seeger had been singing protest songs since the forties, but now he came into his own, his audiences much larger. Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, singing not only protest songs, but songs reflecting the new abandon, the new culture, became popular idols..."

"She was something else, almost too much to take. Her voice was like that of a siren from off some Greek island. Just the sound of it could put you into a spell. She was an enchantress. You'd have to get yourself strapped to the mast like Odysseus and plug up your ears so you wouldn't hear her. She'd make you forget who you were."

"Women’s liberation was not on our radar, although I do remember noting to myself that women were basically running the office of the Boston draft resistance group behind the scenes. I was deeply involved because I had a draft resister boyfriend. That’s how most of us were involved (“Girls say yes to boys who say no,” as Joan Baez said"

"Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Joan Baez. She was the queen of folk music then and now. She took a liking to my songs and brought me with her to play concerts, where she had crowds of thousands of people enthralled with her beauty and voice. People would say, "What are you doing with that ragtag scrubby little waif?" And she'd tell everybody in no uncertain terms, "Now you better be quiet and listen to the songs." We even played a few of them together. Joan Baez is as tough-minded as they come. Love. And she's a free, independent spirit. Nobody can tell her what to do if she doesn't want to do it. I learned a lot of things from her. A woman with devastating honesty. And for her kind of love and devotion, I could never pay that back."

"All of us alive are survivors, but how many of us transcend survival? (p. 322)"

"Although I later fell in love with France, and now consider it my second home, the first country to win my young heart and seduce me with its language and beauty and fashion and flowers and intellect and men was Italy."

""Never close the door, you may need this person someday," is one of her favorite expressions. In 1983, at Newsweek's fiftieth anniversary celebration, I was seated across from Mary McCarthy at the head table. The big feature of the evening was a videotaped speech by Henry Kissinger. When he appeared on the big screen I stuffed my stockinged feet into their high heels and left the table, and stood in the lobby until it was finished. My moderation and diplomacy end where Henry's nose begins."