I don't understand how come you're gone, man. I don't understand why half the world is still crying, man, when the other half of the world is still crying too, man, and it can't get it together. I mean, if you got a cat for one day, man — I mean, if you, say, say, maybe you want a cat for 365 days, right — You ain't got him for 365 days, you got him for one day, man. Well I tell you that one day, man, better be your life. Because, you know, you can say, oh man, you can cry about the other 364, man, but you're gonna lose that one day, man, and that's all you've got. You gotta call that love, man. That's what it is, man. If you got it today you don't want it tomorrow, man, 'cause you don't need it, 'cause as a matter of fact, as we discovered on the train, tomorrow never happens, man. It's all the same fucking day, man.
You're supposed to be doin' an article on me, man. Fuck reality!
Onstage, I make love to 25,000 people - then I go home alone
I gotta go on doin' it the way I see it...I got no choice but to take it like I see it. I'm here to have a party while I'm on this earth...I'm gettin' it now, today. I don't even know where I'm gonna be twenty years from now, so I'm just gonna keep on rockin', cause if I start saving up bits and pieces of me...man, there ain't gonna be nothing left for Janis.
All my life I just wanted to be a beatnik. Meet all the heavies, get stoned, get laid, have a good time. That's all I ever wanted. Except I knew I had a good voice and I could always get a couple of beers off of it. All of a sudden someone threw me in this rock 'n' roll band. They threw these musicians at me, man, and the sound was coming from behind. The bass was charging me. And I decided then and there that that was it. I never wanted to do anything else. It was better than it had been with any man, you know. Maybe that's the trouble
Don't mind me, man, I'm just fuckin' with ya…
This whole thing that's happened to me, you see, this whole success thing, er, it hasn't yet really compromised the position that I took a long time ago in Texas, that was to be true to myself, to be the person that I f ... that was on inside of me and not play games. You see, actually what I'm trying to do mostly, if I, in the whole world, is to not bullshit myself, and not bullshit anybody else. To be righteous to myself, I mean to be real, you know what I mean? And so far, you know I'm, I'm just tryin' to ... I'm doin' that, I am, you know. I'm not wearin' cardboard eyelashes, and, and, you know, and girdles, and playin' in Las Vegas. By still bein' Janis, I just happens to be on a slightly different level or somethin' now. And ... you know I suppose it's because I've never been premeditated enough in show-business that I was worried about putting on a, a face, you know what I mean? So I can sit here and tell you the truth. You know? Although that's slightly inhibiting, (nodding towards camera) really, it doesn't, it doesn't force a game on me, because I refuse to let it force a game on me. So I can sit here and be just as honest as I would be in a bar, although I'd be a lot happier in a bar!
***
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music."
***
Born on the right date - 9th October!
