BARELY AUDIBLE:
Why I want to hear Janis Joplin in a strip club
Travis Nicholson
Issue date: 10/16/07 Section: Marginalia
Within the span of two weeks I had the same conversation three times.
But before I'll get into the meat and potatoes of this, I'd just like to clarify that I don't often talk about what music would be good to strip to with friends. It just so happens the topic comes up.
Okay, maybe it happens more than you talk about it with your friends, but perhaps we have an inclination. So what? It's not like I wouldn't be quite surprised if any of my friends actually became strippers. How many people reading this column can say that?
Anyway, the conversation I seemed to keep on having was that Janis Joplin would be the choice of a number of my female friends to accompany them taking off their clothes. In all three versions of the conversation I remember saying that I would go to, if not frequent, strip clubs if the girls danced to Janis instead of whatever it is they dance to (and if they were the kinds of girls who would choose Janis to strip to).
What didn't seem too clear, though, was which song would be best. Here are some options:
"Mercedes Benz" was the first song to pop into my head because it has a good working class ethic, but the song is slow and brings up weird images of the Lord. While it is a "song of great social and political import" it's just not doing it for me. There's something sad about a girl, in this day and age, that doesn't have a colour television.
I guess I have to think of another. "Move Over" would only work with a team of strippers, done in some Busby Berkeley-esque dance number accompanied by Eric Clapton, or Slash, or the ghost of Jimi Hendrix.
Again, I am totally off base with reality.
Now, "Ball and Chain" would be an impressive feat. The song is, like, nine or 10 minutes long. Ya know those stock videos of hippies dancing in a field in 1967 to whatever music is around? In that video the random hippie girl could be dancing to the sound of white noise and she'd still be livin' it for six hours - but even she wouldn't be able to sustain a dance to this. Great song, bad for dancing, bad for strippers.
"Me and Bobby McGee" would ruin a lot of things for a lot of people if it struck a new popularity in strip clubs. If this happens, I will feel responsible and I might harm myself.
"Down on Me" and "Piece of My Heart" are both good options, with the former having some sexual innuendo in its favour. The latter would be pretty sweet around two minutes in, when Janis really gets a head of steam. There is still something off about all of it.
The last thing you want to happen is to hear a song and come to think that maybe she only had the one CD, or that her boyfriend burned the wrong song on the compilation CD, or whatever.
The only Janis song that works is "Cry Baby," and ya know, it fucking works. It has a huge beginning, it levels off, it's tender and sweet for a good while, and then it builds up again.
Plus, I imagine a lot of strippers cry a lot. Pure semantics.
But before I'll get into the meat and potatoes of this, I'd just like to clarify that I don't often talk about what music would be good to strip to with friends. It just so happens the topic comes up.
Okay, maybe it happens more than you talk about it with your friends, but perhaps we have an inclination. So what? It's not like I wouldn't be quite surprised if any of my friends actually became strippers. How many people reading this column can say that?
Anyway, the conversation I seemed to keep on having was that Janis Joplin would be the choice of a number of my female friends to accompany them taking off their clothes. In all three versions of the conversation I remember saying that I would go to, if not frequent, strip clubs if the girls danced to Janis instead of whatever it is they dance to (and if they were the kinds of girls who would choose Janis to strip to).
What didn't seem too clear, though, was which song would be best. Here are some options:
"Mercedes Benz" was the first song to pop into my head because it has a good working class ethic, but the song is slow and brings up weird images of the Lord. While it is a "song of great social and political import" it's just not doing it for me. There's something sad about a girl, in this day and age, that doesn't have a colour television.
I guess I have to think of another. "Move Over" would only work with a team of strippers, done in some Busby Berkeley-esque dance number accompanied by Eric Clapton, or Slash, or the ghost of Jimi Hendrix.
Again, I am totally off base with reality.
Now, "Ball and Chain" would be an impressive feat. The song is, like, nine or 10 minutes long. Ya know those stock videos of hippies dancing in a field in 1967 to whatever music is around? In that video the random hippie girl could be dancing to the sound of white noise and she'd still be livin' it for six hours - but even she wouldn't be able to sustain a dance to this. Great song, bad for dancing, bad for strippers.
"Me and Bobby McGee" would ruin a lot of things for a lot of people if it struck a new popularity in strip clubs. If this happens, I will feel responsible and I might harm myself.
"Down on Me" and "Piece of My Heart" are both good options, with the former having some sexual innuendo in its favour. The latter would be pretty sweet around two minutes in, when Janis really gets a head of steam. There is still something off about all of it.
The last thing you want to happen is to hear a song and come to think that maybe she only had the one CD, or that her boyfriend burned the wrong song on the compilation CD, or whatever.
The only Janis song that works is "Cry Baby," and ya know, it fucking works. It has a huge beginning, it levels off, it's tender and sweet for a good while, and then it builds up again.
Plus, I imagine a lot of strippers cry a lot. Pure semantics.
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