Janis Joplin’s final recording, “Mercedes Benz,” began as an impromptu drinking-session jam involving a songwriter, two Hollywood actors, a future rock star, and a poet.
Huddled at Vahsen’s in Port Chester, New York, Joplin helped create the song at a bar table, then performed it about an hour later. The deeper story only gets more wonderfully and tragically cinematic from there.
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Janis Joplin Created ‘Mercedes Benz’ at a Port Chester Bar
On Aug. 8, 1970, Janis Joplin was in Port Chester, New York, before her show at the Capitol Theatre. She was with songwriter Bob Neuwirth and actors Rip Torn and Geraldine Page, whom Neuwirth had invited along. According to Music Radar, Patti Smith was also on site.
View this post on InstagramAfter the band’s sound check, the group had a couple of hours to kill before the opening acts finished their sets, so they walked to Vahsen’s, a bar just a few minutes from the theater.
According to Neuwirth, Joplin began singing the opening line of a song by San Francisco Beat poet Michael McClure that she had heard years earlier. Torn and Page then began banging their beer glasses on the table to keep time. Then, Joplin and Neuwirth started improvising.
Joplin came up with the words for the first and second verses, while Neuwirth wrote them down on bar napkins with a ballpoint pen. He also suggested some words and wrote the third verse. The result was “Mercedes Benz,” a sardonic song about wanting a luxury car, a color TV, and a night on the town.
The song is officially credited to Joplin, Neuwirth, and McClure.
She Performed the Brand-New Song About an Hour Later
The group didn’t spend days polishing the song. In fact, Joplin barely had time to finish it before taking the stage.
Neuwirth recalled that Joplin’s road manager, John Byrne Cooke, arrived at Vahsen’s shortly before 9 p.m. to tell her she was due onstage in 15 minutes. The group hurried back to the Capitol Theatre, and Joplin surprised the audience by announcing that she had a new song.
“I just wrote this at the bar on the corner,” Joplin told the crowd. She then performed “Mercedes Benz” a cappella.
The Capitol Theatre itself confirmed that Joplin debuted the song during her Aug. 8 performance, describing it as a tune she wrote at Vahsen’s, just down the street from the theater.
Joplin Recorded It in One Take on Oct. 1
Nearly two months later, Joplin was in Los Angeles working on what would become her final album, Pearl. On Oct. 1, 1970, she returned to Sunset Sound and recorded “Mercedes Benz” without the Full Tilt Boogie Band.
The recording was captured in a single take, making the bare-bones performance one of the most striking moments on Pearl. The official Joplin site lists “Mercedes Benz” as the album’s eighth track.
Joplin had no idea that the session would be her last.
Three days later, on Oct. 4, 1970, she died at age 27 from an accidental heroin overdose. They found her at the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood after she failed to show up for a scheduled recording session.
One Song on ‘Pearl’ Was Left Without Joplin’s Voice
The tragedy became even more apparent when Pearl was completed after Joplin’s death.
Joplin was scheduled to record the vocals for “Buried Alive in the Blues.” She had visited Sunset Sound on Oct. 3 to listen to the instrumental track, but she died before she could record her part the following day. The completed backing track was ultimately left on Pearl as an instrumental.
“Mercedes Benz,” meanwhile, became the final completed recording Joplin made.
Pearl was released posthumously on Jan. 11, 1971, and became the biggest-selling album of Joplin’s career. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and remained there for nine weeks.
The album also contained “Cry Baby,” “Move Over,” and Joplin’s posthumous No. 1 hit “Me and Bobby McGee.”
“Mercedes Benz” ultimately became one of Joplin’s most recognizable recordings: a song that began with friends banging beer glasses around a Port Chester bar table and ended up as the haunting final recording of one of rock’s most unforgettable voices.
Related: 1966 Crossover Classic, Written by Michael Nesmith, Became a Cross-Generational Hit
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