(Carolyn Marcello): Reason #782 that Livejournal is the best thing ever (AKA it’s how I found this song)

Yeah, Bobby shared the secrets of my soul

Through all kinds of weather

Through everything that we done

Hey, Bobby baby kept me from the cold

One day up near Salinas, Lord

I let him slip away

He's lookin' for that home, and I hope he finds it

Well, I'd trade all o' my tomorrows

For one single yesterday

To be holdin' Bobby's body next to mine

Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose

Nothin', an' that's all that Bobby left me, la da

Oh, feelin' good was easy, Lord, when he sang the blues

Yeah, feelin' good was good enough for me, oo oo

Good enough for me and my Bobby Mcgee

….Lord, I called him my lover

I called him my man

I said I called him my lover did the best I can, c'mon

Me and Bobby McGee

I think this fits as “Joe” is partially about longing to say the right things to make people stay and partly about wanting people to find the right things to make you say. In this song, Janis Joplin is singing about leaving Bobby McGee behind after they seem to either know too much or not enough about each other. This, like “Joe” is about learning to leave behind things that simply won’t work, but still longing to go back to the time when things were right between them and everything was simple. In the same way, Joe wishes to express to his wife how he’s lonely, and sick, and tired of being sick and lonely, and wants to go back to that day on the beach and, I dunno, tell her he loves her, tell his daughter he loves her, show them the photograph of the ocean that separates and holds together the colors of the sea and sky and sand. Just because “others carry nothing” doesn’t mean they want to.

Getting back to the song, it starts off slow and sad, turns into something out of Johnny Cash almost, a defiance of loss and losing and apathy and acceptance, of rejoicing in the times they had and grieving over the times they won’t have, of going out when others are afraid of what might be seen in their heart, of trying to connect and failing but moving on, but not without anger (3:04—4:30) and raging against it and saying “haha, Life/Death! Look at me, I’m still alive for now!” and accepting that “That’s not who I am” and moving on past what can’t be and letting the dog go. Too bad we handed in yearbook pics already, else I’d put in a buncha quotes from this song and “Joe.”