Fre/Free

Abstract

I was never entirely sure which line Janis Joplin was singing, and maybe she sang both. The first phrasing stresses the importance of freedom from constraint and suggests that the singer has come to terms with Bobby’s leaving her, that his love was only valuable as long as it was a free association between them. The second is a cynical reduction of “freedom” to something too worthless to pay anything for. Free has carried equivocation with it for centuries, although the particular equivocation in “Bobby Magee” is differently inflected in the period under discussion here.

“Freedom’s just another word for nothin” left to lose. Nothin don’t mean nothin’ hon, unless it’s free, or “Nothin” don’t mean nothin’ honey, but its free.

Kris Kristofferson, “Bobby Magee”, as sung by

Janis Joplin