Dick Cavett TV Interview

Janis it's a shame you couldn't do an up tune for us
but I liked that one.

Later in the show.

Yeah, maybe later we'll be talking too. You're really
shot after, after a number, let alone a whole evening
I would think.

Yeah, yeah.

You tell me you kind of collapse after a show ?

Well, I'm used to it because I'm so turned on by doing
one that it's hard to do, it's hard to stop after one
to tell you the truth, because it just makes you wanna
do more.

Your engine is revved up ?

Yeah, sort of!

I know all the hip expressions, you see. Your engine
is revved up.

You're a real swinger, I can tell by your shoes, man!

Wait a minute, Janis, Janis. These were good enough
for my grand-father, they're good enough for me.

I had a lot of trouble, last week I, er, it wasn't
that tune, we opened with another tune and I tore a
muscle.

I heard about this. You tore a mussel somewhere near
Maryland. Er ...

It was closer to home than that!

Well, er ...

But I played forty minutes, man! I did forty minutes!

Yeah, but how do you, how do you tear a muscle
singing, was it from the exhaustion or ...

No, I went ... like that.

You actually, literally tore a muscle ... I mean like
that ...

Every time, it hurt.

Could you feel it go ?

Yeah.

Phew!

Yeah.

What do they do, do they set a muscle or do they tape
you up or something ?

They told me to keep still.

Janis you wrote that tune that you were just singing
like we just agreed to ask about. You er, you wrote
the first tune, right ?

I wrote the first tune. It's, er, yes I did, it's
about men.

It's about men. It's a little hard to tell what it was
about 'cause I was standing over there where the sound
is a little distorted.

Well in my story that's what it is anyway.

Yeah.

D'you ever see those mule carts ?

Yeah.

They, er, there's a dumb mule on there right and a
long stick with a string and a carrot, and it hangs
over the mule's nose, and it runs after it all day
long. Some ...

Who is the man in this, in this parable, the mule, or
the person holding the carrot ?

No, the woman is the, is the mule. Chasing something
that somebody's holds her way.

Constantly chasing her man ...

Yeah.

... who always eludes her.

Well, they always hold something more than they're
prepared to give.

I have to defend my entire sex, ladies and gentlemen!
The burden of the defense.

Go right ahead!

Well, one-arm wrestling I can take you two out of
three.

I hope so.

Do you, er, do you actually sit down when you get up
in the morning and, and write out a song, or do you .
. . When you say you write it, you compose it you
write it on a paper.

You just make it up, I don't write songs, I make them
up.

They don't exist on paper your songs, don't they ?

Sometimes I just write down the words so I don't
forget 'em, but I mean I don't write songs, that's a
whole different concept. I just make 'em up.

Yeah. Did you ever get back to Port Arthur, Texas ?

No, but I'm going back next in August, man. And guess
what I'm doin' ?

I don't know.

I'm going to my 10th annual High School Reunion.

Oh! Oh! Take movies and bring 'em back to show us,
will you ?

Hey would you like to go ?

Well, I don't remember, I don't have any friends in
your high school class.

I don't either. I don't either, believe me.

You don't either ?

It's hard going, man!

Weren't you a kind of a, weren't you kind of a
business administration major or something in high
school. No, it's something in your past. You were ...

No, I worked.

Yeah.

But a high school major in Art does have plenty of
time.

Yeah. And do you think you'll have a lot to say to
your old high-school classmates ?

I don't have a lot, man.

You were not surrounded by friends in high school ?

They laughed me out of class, out of town, and out of
state, man.

Hmm ...

Somethin' goin' on.

Thank you.