Lightfoot wrote the lyrics while he was reflecting on his own divorce. Well I’d trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday,įrom More Songwriters On Songwriting (Da Capo Press) by Paul Zollo." If You Could Read My Mind" is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot. She was lookin’ for the love I hope she’ll find, Then somewhere near Salinas, Lord, I let her slip away, Standin’ right beside me through everythin’ I done,Īnd every night she kept me from the cold. With them windshield wipers slappin’ time andīobby clappin’ hands we finally sang up every songįreedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose,Īnd nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free,įeelin’ good was easy, Lord, when Bobby sang the blues,įrom the coalmines of Kentucky to the California sun, Took my harpoon out of my dirty red bandanaĪnd was blowin’ sad while Bobby sang the blues, God almighty, how can you do that? īusted flat in Baton Rouge, headin’ for the trains,īobby thumbed a diesel down just before it rained, Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to do. Just blew me away.įunny, when the Grateful Dead recorded it, they changed the line to “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to do.” Nothing left to do! That’s the most hippie thing I’ve ever seen. Paul Rothschild, the producer of the album, told me to come by, the studio they were working at to play me her recording of “Bobby McGee.” And it just blew me away. So I flew down there (to Los Angeles) and we were hanging out in the motel where she died. The day after it was over we got word that Janis had died. I went off to perform in the Isle of Wight, and came back to do the Monterey Pop Festival. She was going off on this rock and roll train. Janis and I hung out for a couple of months before I started performing at the Troubadour. It’s one of those songs that a lot of people can own.
But I love the way Jerry Lee sang it too. Now you can’t think of that song without thinking of Janis. They said, “You’ve got so much good concrete imagery all through the song, and then you get all philosophical in the chorus.” Nothing left to lose.īut then when I wrote that, one of my songwriter friends – at least one of them – tried to get me to take that line out. He wheeled his motorcycle off so he wouldn’t wake her up.Īnd that was the feeling I wanted to get out of “Bobby McGee”: Freedom’s just another word for nothing.
It was like a double-edge sword of freedom. He goes out on the beach and ends up howling at the stars. Was this little girl who came into the village, and nobody knew where she cameįrom, and she died.” And later you see Anthony Quinn out there in this tavern, And this woman, who’s hanging up laundry, is singing it or whistling it.Īnd he goes up and asks her where she learned that song. Photo by Paul Zollo/American Songwriter.Īnd at the end of the film he hears this song she used to She’s kind of half-witted, and he’s getting tired of taking care of her. He’s traveling around with Giuletta Masina in this little funky circus thing they had.
#Gordon lightfoot me and bobby mcgee movie
I though of the movie La Strada with Anthony Quinn. I was thinking of it as two people traveling around. He told me Bobby McGee is a she! And I thought, “Oh God, I’ve got to start over.” But we talked it over, what could happen. It just blew Fred away.īut there was one problem.
So we stayed up all night making the demo of it. Found Billy Swan back at Columbine Music, he was the only guy who was still there when I got back to Nashville. I was driving to the airport in New Orleans, and the windshield wipers were going into the line about “the windshield wipers slapping time and Bobbie clapping hands…” And it finished the song for me.Īnd I went back. And I can remember when the last line came to me. So I had to hide for a couple months.īut then the idea just started growing in my head. It gives me the worst case of writer’s block that I’d ever seen. I thought he said “McGee.” And he told me to go write the song. And Boudleaux’s secretary was named Bobbie McKee.
Fred was the guy who owned Monument Records and Columbine, which I was writing for at the time. He called up one time when I was about to go back down to the gulf for another week of flying and he said, “I got a song tile for you: “Me and Bobby McGee.”īoudleaux Bryant, the songwriter, had an office in Fred’s building. But it was an idea that Fred Foster had given to me.
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