Welcome to our collection of quotes (with shareable picture quotes) by Janis Joplin. We hope you enjoy pondering them and that you will share them widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter who sang rock, soul and blues music. One of the most successful and widely known rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage presence.
In 1967, Joplin rose to fame following an appearance at Monterey Pop Festival, where she was the lead singer of the then little-known San Francisco psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. After releasing two albums with the band, she left Big Brother to continue as a solo artist with her own backing groups, first the Kozmic Blues Band and then the Full Tilt Boogie Band. She appeared at the Woodstock festival and on the Festival Express train tour. Five singles by Joplin reached the Billboard Hot 100, including a cover of the Kris Kristofferson song "Me and Bobby McGee", which reached number one in March 1971. Her most popular songs include her cover versions of "Piece of My Heart", "Cry Baby", "Down on Me", "Ball and Chain", and "Summertime"; and her original song "Mercedes Benz", her final recording.
Joplin died of an accidental heroin overdose in 1970 aged 27, after releasing three albums (two with Big Brother and the Holding Company, and one solo album). A second solo album, Pearl, was released in January 1971, just over three months after her death. It reached number one on the Billboard charts. She was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Rolling Stone ranked Joplin number 46 on its 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She remains one of the top-selling musicians in the United States, with Recording Industry Association of America certifications of 18.5 million albums sold.
My business is to enjoy and have fun. And why not, if in the end everything will end, right?
Why should I hold back now and sound mediocre, just so I can sound mediocre twenty years from now?
People, whether they know it or not, like their blues singers miserable. They like their blues singers to die afterwards.
I want a bigger band with higher highs, a bigger ladder. And I want more bottom -- I want an incredible amount of bottom. I want more noise. When I do a rock tune I want it to be so HUGE.
If you've got a today, don't wear it tomorrow. Tomorrow never happens. It's all the same day.
You're only as much as you settle for. If they settle for being somebody's dishwasher that's their own f***ing problem. If you don't settle for that and you keep fighting it, you know, you'll end up anything you want to be.
At my concerts most of the chicks are looking for liberation, they think I'm gonna show 'em how to do it.
If someone comes along, gonna give you some love and affection, I say get it while you can.
Oh, Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz -- My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
I'm just doing what I wanted to and what feels right and not settling for bullshit and it worked. How can they be mad at that?
At least we know we tend to be afraid. If you object to my plural noun, I'll retract it.
To be true to myself, to be the person that was on the inside of me, and not play games. That's what I'm trying to do mostly in the whole world, is not bullshit myself and not bullshit anybody else.
You can't stay in your home town and play because the two people will get tired of seeing you.
When you hold somebody, you gotta hold them like it's the last minute of your life.
After they see me, when their mothers are feeding them all that cashmere sweater and girdle -- -- - expletive deleted by the New York Times, maybe they'll have a second thought -- that they can be themselves and win.
I'd rather have ten years of superhypermost than live to be seventy sitting in some goddamn chair watching TV.
Honey, if you've had your eye on a piece of talent and that chick down the road has been getting all the action, then you know what you gotta do... Try A Little Bit Harder.
Hippies believe the world could be a better place. Beatniks believe things aren't going to get better and say the hell with it, stay stoned and have a good time.
In my insides, it really hurts if someone doesn't like me. It's silly.
Singing, it's like it's like loving somebody, it's a supreme emotional and physical experience.
Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin. Now, they are so subtle, they can milk you with two notes. They can make you feel like they told you the whole universe. But I don't know that yet. All I got now is strength. Maybe if I keep singing, maybe I'll get it.
As it gets closer and more probable, being a star is really losing its meaning.
I can't talk about my singing. I'm inside it. How can you describe something you're inside of?
I have to have the 'umph.' I've got to feel it, because if it's not getting through to me, the audience sure as hell aren't going to feel it either.
Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers.
Longer Version:
Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers. You can fill your life up with ideas and still go home lonely. All you really have that really matters are feelings. That’s what music is to me.
I'm a victim of my own insides. There was a time when I wanted to know everything. It used to make me very unhappy, all that feeling. I just didn't know what to do with it. But now I've learned to make that feeling work for me.
You know why we're stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don't let themselves feel things.
If I hold back, I'm no good. I'm no good. I'd rather be good sometimes, than holding back all the time.