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The Time Capsule
Kris Kristofferson...
did not know Janis Joplin had recorded “Me and Bobby McGee” until after she was dead. The two had been close, and Joplin had cut the song during the final sessions for Pearl in September 1970. She died on October 4 at twenty-seven, before the album was finished and before Kristofferson had heard what she had done with one of his most important songs.
Producer Paul Rothchild called him into his office shortly afterward and played the recording for him. Kristofferson later said he had to leave the room. Joplin’s voice carried so much feeling that hearing it after her death became almost unbearable, and he walked through Los Angeles in tears without paying much attention to where he was going. For a long time afterward, he could barely hear the song without breaking down.
The irony was that the same recording tied to one of the deepest personal losses of his life became the biggest break of his career. Released posthumously in 1971, Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and introduced Kristofferson’s writing to an audience far beyond Nashville.
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He later said the hit changed everything, even helping open doors for his film career. Yet the commercial success never separated the song from the grief surrounding the first time he heard Janis sing it.
Years later, Kristofferson still associated the song with Janis more than with its success. In concert, he sometimes ended it quietly with two words that explained why the song never became just another hit in his catalog: “for Janis.”
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