“Me and Bobby McGee”

Janis Joplin’s cover of Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” is iconic. She died just a couple of days after she recorded it. There’s so much heart and guts in what she offers up in the studio, and it has long been a favorite of mine. I really love P!nk’s live cover, too.

Recently I’ve done a deep dive, or as I like to call it going down the rabbit hole, of all different covers from the original by Roger Miller to Kristofferson himself. I’ve listened to interpretations by Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and Kenny Rogers. I wasn’t terribly fond of Jerry Lee Lewis’s version, but I’m not sure if it’s because I didn’t like the music or because he gives me creepy, old man vibes. I stopped halfway through the Statler Brothers because if they’re not singing “Hello Mary Lou,” I don’t want to hear it. I stopped on Gordon Lightfoot, because purrrrr, and went down a completely different rabbit hole, but that’s a story for a different day… Willie Nelson definitely gets an honorable mention from me.

I love this song because it’s a fully human celebratory lamentation and I grok it more and more with age and experience. “Feeling nearly faded as my jeans.” Yes. Exactly like that. And the line “But, I’d trade all of my tomorrows, for one single yesterday” resonates. Things are more complicated, but it rips to the heart of missing someone that much. “Well, I wanna call him my lover, call him my man I said, I call him my lover, did the best I can, come on…” All of this.