Lil' Gal from Port Arthur

Lil' Gal from Port Arthur                        November 22, 2005

Lil' Janis was raised in Port Arthur,

A Texas gal only by birth.

She was really a child, wild child of the world,

Or so I was told by the old 'uns around me.

You see, I'm a youngster

Influenced by her body of work.

She's a artisan of the mind.

So, as you can plainly see,

I know all about her and Bobby McGee.

Now Texas is a big state,

A fact no one can deny,

But the lil' gal from Port Arthur

Needed to spread her wings and fly.

It was off to San Francisco to get into the Beat,

But she never bet she'd get into rock 'n roll.

It was here she buttered her bread,

Enlightened her soul.

She wrote songs so true,

True to her by heart. Yeah, definitely true.

She left it out, left it all out,

This free spirit, this Janis from Texas,

She bled Amercana through and through

For people like you and me,

And yet, she was one with the world, you see.

Along with the successes were her vices.

She couldn't quite be so gregarious.

Thus, she had to find a way

To hide all the lonliness and sorrow.

She turned to heroin and booze for that.

The lil' gal from Port Arthur

Was invincible to all but herself.

The lil' gal from Port Arthur

Was headed for a fall.

One day, they found the lil' Janis dead,

Dead from her own demons,

Dead before she could fulfill her own destiny.

But destiny aside, her legacy lives on

Into my generation and beyond.

I know she is reflected in my music and my prose.

If lil' Janis were around today,

I'd sure want a lil' piece of her heart,

But alas, I guess I'll just let her have mine.