Was she self-destructive in both her pursuit of sex and her turned-inward lifestyle? "She defined men sexually, as she defined herself, and then went at her one-night stands and sometimes orgies under the cover of a liberated style of life. Sometimes, though, she could be surprisingly beautiful. She had a cackle like no one else in rock. (Remember how she just dissolves into it at the end of "Mercedes Benz" on her last album, as though everything, not just the ditty, but life itself, were so damn absurd?) Janis Joplin had an incredible cackle. Of the fifths of Southern Comfort carried onstage. You think of that sweaty and sometimes porcine face. Someone in whom there seemed so much need, which somehow she transformed to our need. Someone who could sing up every song any truck driver ever knew. You think of Janis Joplin, whose music is so redolent of the '60s, and what comes to mind? A woman who could bellow and cry and stamp and then turn around and go achingly tender. No, far better to have them in our minds now as smashed idols, as icons of their separate fiery moments. Christopher Reeve decided life had to go onĬan you picture James Dean, can you imagine Janis Joplin, grown old and wheezy and boring, trying to deliver clever patter on late-night talk shows? Horrid image.
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