I haven't really listened to her in years. I know some people in here don't like her, but how can you NOT feel the emotion in her voice when she sings? It's very powerful. It's hard to believe she was only 27 when she died, because she seemed wise beyond her years. I think this is one of her best songs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caiBo_wTxrY
OK, this post officially makes you a dumb hippie like everyone else. But anyway I love this songgggggg, despite how cliche it makes me, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FMhnl0__Vo
I adore her music!! I still get goosebumps sometimes when I listen to her, her voice is just incredible.. reaches more than just your ears!
I think she transcended all that hippy crap. Yeah, a lot of cliche hippies worship her still today, but to me it has no bearing whatsoever on her music, and especially her voice, which is timeless.
Yeah...... I can agree. Some stuff is timeless. I was just saying in general that through this thread you were going to receive more positive replies from those who are all 100% hippies and LOVE JANIS!!%^$ than you were going to get opinions from people who really respect music. You know what I mean. The same thing happened a while back when I made a thread about how much I sincerely enjoy pink floyd
That's my favorite song from her ...and I would have to agree with Press, not only does her lyrics pull on the heart strings but there is something magically-bluesy about her voice. I especially love hearing her while traveling (road tripping).
Janis started by singing gospel, where the emotions come to the fore. Not the crap on televangelism, with the hairdos and the polished voices, but raw emotional stuff. She transcended the "hippie" phenomenon, because the term "hippie" was really a term ascribed to a gradual breaking away of a large number of people from what was previously considered the "norm", or "the establishment", in clothing styles, prohibition on such recreational drug usage as pot and psychedelics, things that other cultures considered as part of their tradition, or even part of their religious practices. This break-away group began to be termed "hippies" by those looking in from the outside. Eventually, the label stuck, if only as a convenience, but still, to this day, defies a clear definition, as it encompasses altogether too many variations of life styles and practices. Personally, I believe "hippies" to be undefinable, in the strictest sense. So what was it that Janis exemplified? She was willing to go another way, to let her insides out, to hold her heart in her hands and offer it onstage to the audience. She was also an adventuresse. She didn't care what the tradition was. She just invoked a kind of fervent passion, in addressing subjects like heartbreak, sorrow, and pain, while simultaneously celebrating the human condition with a joy that seemed to be derived from those seeming negatives. She sang the blues, and she sang it well. But she also, to her early demise, lived it, embracing the life of drugs and hard liquor. Personally, I remember how the hippie phenomenon grew. It didn't simply start one day, but grew out of counterculture elements that came before, questionings of things we weren't supposed to question. Basic distrust of governments and institutions, and a desire to regain control over our lives. The clothes we wore began, gradually, more and more, to be our own invention, as did the policies toward things like war, and greed, and human suffering throughout the world. We lost the desire to join the ranks of successful businessmen, and instead began to enjoy the nomadic life of love and music and the commonalities of man. We simply grew, and in our growth, began to look and think and act differently than those entrenched elements of society that had previously been considered the norm, and in authority. The very idea of authority began to take on an evil connotation, as people learned to live together without the need of a hierarchical structure, where indeed the maxims of Lenin began to take hold, "To each, according to one's need; from each, according to one's ability". Perhaps the dream lives on in some, though not all. Powers that be, and human nature will always dictate that some become ambitious to rule over others, and others will also become ambitious to take advantage of and make a profit from what others have done or are doing in a merely altruistic sense. Life goes on, and the big machine keeps on pumping out the attempts to substitute recreatable plastic gimmicks in the place of what once was genuine creative passion. Janis lives, somewhere, in someone. Long live Janis.
