Giving a Piece of My Heart Is Not Just Cheap Thrills
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Giving a Piece of My Heart is not just Cheap Thrills
When Janis Joplin sings “Piece of My Heart,” I think about friends, ex-boyfriends, would-be boyfriends, my family and extended family, all of them walking around with a piece of my heart.
When Janis pours out her soul on the chorus, “I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it, Take it! Take another little piece of my heart now, babbbyy,” I am back in high school, riding around with the 4-Runner windows down. My friends and I, screaming along concluding with Janis, “You knooowww you got it….. if it makes you feel good. Oh, yes indeed.” Oh, yes, indeed, “Piece of My Heart” and Janis Joplin both hold special places in my heart.
I first really listened to Janis Joplin and “Piece of My Heart” several years ago with my friend, Danielle Welch, and her mother, Kellie Bradsfield. Miss Kellie in many ways reminds me of Janis Joplin, who is her favorite singer. Miss Kellie is a tough single mom who has the same free spirit and don’t-give-a-dang attitude of Janis. The three of us always listened to Janis and the Big Brother Holding Company, and particularly “Piece of My Heart,” as Miss Kellie drove us through southwest Alabama to Wilcox Academy basketball games. We would sing along loudly as if we were performing with the band, rather than just speeding down the rural roads in Miss Kellie’s white Mustang. We would rock out and get pumped up for the game waiting at the end of the road “So Come ON, Come ON, and take IT!”
Written by Jerry Ragovoy and Bert Berns, Piece of my Heart was made famous on the live album Cheap Thrills by Big Brother and the Holding Company. The title is a shortened version of the group’s unofficial motto, “Dope, Sex, and Cheap Thrills.” Cheap Thrills debuted on the Billboard charts on August 31, 1968 and “Piece of My Heart” was its highest ranked song and stayed on the charts for 12 weeks.
After Miss Kellie officially introduced me to Janis Joplin and this song, Janis and “Piece of My Heart” became a soundtrack for my teenage years and reminds me of how we leave a piece of ourselves with the people we love and care about — even after we’ve moved on. I think Janis felt that, too. Janis Joplin has been my favorite performer since I first really experienced her music while on those basketball trips with Miss Kellie and Danielle. I love Janis and her free spirit and passion for love in her life and her work. In her vocal performances, we can tell just from the music how much she loved to sing and loved those around her. A critic of the time said about Janis Joplin and one of her performances he viewed “I could see every strand of Janis’ hair fly as she stamped her feet and put her whole body into the songs, wringing every ounce of emotion from each note,” which is a perfect quote for her in the fact that give her all, all the time.
My devotion to one of the coolest singing stars ever and her funky and flamboyant style lead to me dress as Janis Joplin for my senior Halloween party; my boyfriend went as Jim Morrison. We were quite the unique pair. We both had a love for the 60’s and 70’s music masters. I was decked out in white bell bottoms with wooden platform shoes. I had my hair curly with plastic flowers and a feather boa entangled in my retro hair. At the time boyfriend Brent, all he had to do to be Jim Morrison was wear an open white shirt, some tight, red, snake-skin printed “pleather” pants and a sullen expression. That was no problem for him. I tried to talk my mother into the idea of my carrying around a Southern Comfort whiskey bottle, as a prop, to get the full effect. She didn’t go for it, but Janis would have. I, also, went as far as to name my calico goldfish after Janis and Jimi Hendrix, another rock and roll legend from this time period.
It’s true that Janis Joplin’s voice makes the song “Piece of My Heart” so special. She digs deep to make you feel the emotion of the song. Still, with lines like “I’m gonna show you baby, that a woman can be tough,” the song comforted me through many nights with liberating scream therapy. Hearing her just let it out in her passionate screams and vocal come backs. “You know you got it if it makes you feel good, Oh, yes indeed.”
“Piece of my Heart” can be seen as a heartbroken girl who has just lost her boyfriend. He’s done her wrong, it appears, as she sings, “Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, oh, have another little piece of my heart now, baby.” Which I can strongly relate to because there have been a number of guys to do me wrong and stump on my heart. Even guys that I have not dated the have played with my emotions and broken my heart just to add another victim to their list. “And baby deep down in your heart I guess you know that it ain’t right.”
Another aspect of the song means, to me is leaving a piece of my heart with whoever I meet and grow to care about. I grow bonds with people very easily if the chance arises. Even when I was very young, I would hang out with someone one time and often had an automatic friendship with them. I made friends easily and learned to care about people, sometimes I think a little too much. This allowed my newly found companions to take a piece of my heart, or maybe I gave it to