(Credits: Far Out / Cash Box / Columbia)
Thu 22 January 2026 23:00, UK
As far as tragic figures go, Janis Joplin was one of immense torment and loneliness.
During her brief life and career, Joplin was the definition of an outsider, existing as her own suffering and pain both on and off stage. People were often startled by the way she presented outside of the spotlight, but were even more surprised when her sharp, disgruntled exterior became a mainstay of her live performances, too.
The most startling part of all, however, was that none of it – absolutely none – was fake. Joplin did, as they say, exactly what it says on the tin: a living embodiment of a tortured poet and a real tragic figure who never really knew true happiness or belonging. She said it herself once, while explaining why most of her songs venture towards sad topics.
“I can’t write a song unless I’m really traumatic, emotional, and I’ve gone through a few changes, I’m very down,” she once told Rolling Stone. “No one’s ever gonna love you any better, and no one’s gonna love you right.”
She had been discussing ‘Kozmic Blues’, the song that she once said, “Just means that no matter what you do, man, you get shot down anyway.”
When Joplin passed away on October 4th, 1970, at the young age of 27, the entire counterculture scene was beside itself. But what’s perhaps most tragic is that many of them, deep down, weren’t especially surprised. The singer had known drug addiction issues with previous near-overdose experiences before her death, and her image, as we know, wasn’t exactly one of someone who had their life together.
Most tragic of all was that Joplin seemed to be ten steps ahead of everybody. In her will, she left $2,500 for her friends to organise a celebration as “a final gesture of appreciation and farewell”. Her wake on October 26th was attended by many in the scene, a party that Joplin had envisioned years earlier, partially from how common it was to have partners and peers pass away in the rock ‘n’ roll scene, but also from a similar celebration that followed the death of Hells Angels’ Chocolate George.
Joplin had performed with Big Brother and the Holding Company to celebrate his life and career, a night she remembered for the sense of community it brought, as well as the peace and unity that occurred in celebrating someone’s life and simply having fun, rather than moping around and feeling sad about it. In fact, she later said as much, recalling how “you couldn’t imagine a better funeral”.
As you’d expect, therefore, Joplin’s wake was one for the books. As is expected of a party commemorating one of the most significant party-goers that ever lived, Joplin’s was, to borrow a recollection from Big Brother’s James Gurley, an opportunity to get “as drunk and as fucked up” as Joplin would have wanted people to get.
In a way, it seemed more like a send-off for a bigger cause than just the singer. After all, as much as people were there for her, and as much as she was most definitely on the lips of every single person in attendance, it also came at a time when the scene was very much on the brink of dispersing. So much uncertainty was afoot, but in that moment, Joplin brought people together to remember that community was always where things made the most sense.
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