The Ballad of Janis Joplin
This is a ballad written for Read Write Poem Prompt #37: Hotel California. Simply, we were to write a ballad. Since I don’t normally write ballads, this was a real struggle for me, both in finding subject matter and in writing the actual ballad itself.
When I checked out Wikipedia’s entry for the subject, I discovered a list of modern ballads, which includes “Hotel California” and…Me and Bobby McGee, written by Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster and made famous by…Janis Joplin.
The song started to float through my head and then it hit me – why not a ballad about Janis Joplin? So, here goes. I even followed the rules of traditional ballads, writing this poem in ballad meter! I hope you enjoy.
-Nicole
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Who will sing about this singer
and the liquid, blue songs
pouring forth from her heart and veins
now that she is long gone?
I will tell her indigo tale –
it is this poet’s gift
to a fellow comrade inside
the Melancholic Trip.
Cast into the outer darkness
of mockery and fun,
teenaged Janis Joplin endured
a youth of being shunned
by classmates ensconced deep within
Port Arthur’s small town walls.
Yet she, nurtured by outcast friends
within her high school halls,
found her Zen, for they turned her on
to quivering, electric blues
music, which shouted from its home
inside of vinyl grooves,
then wrapped itself around her mind
and heart and yanked, pulling
her to the San Francisco scene
where she began to sing.
Her first songs were sung with guitar
and a typewriter’s rhythm -
and “Typewriter Tape” was the name
of this bootleg album;
but the music was short-lived – speed
stripped the flesh from her bones.
Her alarmed friends raised some money
and then sent her back home.
She turned into a demure girl
and enrolled in Lamar;
but from her first love, music
she never could stray far.
Austin pulled her to its stages –
she sang and played guitar;
yet unbeknownst to Janis now
in the thoughts from afar
of Big Brother and the Holding
Company she had been -
so right back to San Francisco
to join them she now went.
Mainstream Records took their voices
and then refused to pay
the band’s way home from Chicago.
By this, she went astray,
for the band, flat broke, had to move
in with the Grateful Dead;
within walls of brick and time, she
re-found drugs, it is said.
Meanwhile, they graced many stages
and the camera’s eye
burned them onto film forever –
under Monterey’s sky
they weaved a sonic tapestry
punctuated by cries
penned first by Big Mama Thornton
but now before the eyes
of a spellbound crowd, were sung by
Janis. More stages would
follow – sadly, more drugs also
would follow, and they would
lead to her end; but before she
disappeared into death
she made more music with other
bands, and then by herself.
All this time, she rode a wicked,
sick, winding train of smack
down addition’s railroad, from which
she would never come back;
the train would derail, dumping her
body in a hotel
room, cold and lifeless, petrified
from a drug and drink hell.
Left behind on sonic tape and
digital dreams, her soul
still speaks to us – one only has
to listen for the cold
rain deep inside her keening voice,
the sorrow drowned by drink –
Southern Comfort was said to be
her choice poison. I think
that this Southern Comfort could not
comfort her pain-struck heart.
Now, I look into her eyes and
wonder how far apart
I am from the kind of heartache
that made her sing the blues;
though some are stamped with greater pain,
our end is what we chose.
She once said, “I’m a victim of
my own insides.” Let all
of us who claim art as our true
vocation never fall
victim to the temptation of
dulling the inside ache
we may feel – it may be the clay
out of which we create
these stories, songs, poems, and pictures
which warm and speak to the
hearts of the human race. It is
best to feel all of the
pain. Let’s not leave this Earth too soon
and those behind, perplexed,
wondering what unsung strains of
truth and beauty were next.
Now I’ve told her indigo tale
as my best poet’s gift
to a fellow comrade inside
the Melancholic Trip,
she will live on forever through
captured liquid blue songs
which poured forth from her heart and veins -
she will never be gone.
Written 7/28/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
Wow! You even worked in her own words! You’ve outdone yourself this time Nicole. The meter is outstanding and your thread never lags or strays. You set the bar high and you met it.
Phew, I think you interrpreted this well, You stuck to the form throughout and presented a difficult story in a way that we could relate to. Well done!
I am much awed! This is so good. You have created something utterly beautiful!
deeply in love with dracula’s daughter
i love janis.. she is the epitome of everything i ever wanted to be,, and tried very hard to become… only i never wanted to sing or be in a band… if that makes sense… i guess i always just wanted to have the balls she had,, just grab it, you know?? i have a couple of poems i wrote in her honor and i will link to one of them here if you wanna have a look see…
janis
this was so perfectly time lined,, so accurate in word and feel.. i have read four different biographies,, and own three myself right this moment,,, she is my idol i guess.. thanks so much for sharing this,, and taking the time to sing her song…..
discovered her early on–I remember my mother always telling me to turn that darn noise down
Nicole..Personally, I feel this is the best work of yours that I have read. You truly captured the essence of this great artist, her life, and tragedies. You told the story with passion and research well done to conclusion. Not only a good ballad but I see verse, chorus, bridge, and outro: a song? I enjoyed ‘The Ballad of Janis Joplin.’ Thank you.
DCH
Thank you all! This is probably the hardest poem I ever had to write, not just technically but emotionally. I see a little of Janis in myself, especially the sadness, the need for love, and the need to stand out.
I will have to try ballads again…
-Nicole