Day 27 – Ball and Chain
The continuing adventures of “Eric’s Trip Around the Sun”. One final trip with the iPod.
On October 4, 1970, 45 years ago today, Janis Joplin died from a heroin overdose. She would be 72 years old if she was still with us.
I am not the consummate Janis fan. Unlike Congress who is unable to compromise, long-term relationships with your significant other require a certain amount of willingness to listen to their music. Unless you are going to live separate lives, this would be impossible.
For the most part I would say that my wife and I have similar but disparate tastes. I have R.E.M., she has Grateful Dead. We both love Radiohead and Tame Impala. I like old school Wilco, and she loves new school (at least the last album, ‘Star Wars’).
But there are artists like Janis Joplin, for whom I just never had the time to purchase or study her music and yet I have respected for the electricity that she demonstrated on her performances. The reality with artists is whether they can balance the art and the realities of life.
‘Ball and Chain,’ embraces this full-on love for someone that is not returning the love back and Joplin expresses her feeling that this love is dragging her down, like a ball and chain. Her performance of the song is mesmerizing, taking the stage and owning it.
The version on the “Best Of” album is presented with a 2 minute quasi-sermon from Janis explaining to the audience that you have to live for today: “It’s all the same fucking day man!”
If there is one thing different about my wife and myself it’s that she has always been more about living for today and in the moment than I could ever be. I am the planner, making sure that we have everything necessary whereas Lisa can live off the cuff and make something out of nothing. To be honest, there is no other way that I would have it. We balance each other out, I keep her in check when she wants to turn our house into a mansion, and she gets me out on the dance floor showing off my unique white man dancing skills, flailing arms and all.
Slowly but surely, the desert island classics of my wife become part of my own. They remind me of her spirit, her beauty and her passion. For ‘Ball and Chain,’ that with all my pragmatism that I cannot hold her down or prevent her from flying because it prevents me from taking that same trip with her.
• Janis Joplin – Ball and Chain
• R.E.M. – Bang and Blame