Artist: Janis Joplin
Author: Bob Neuwirth/Janis Joplin/Michael McClure
Label: CBS
Year: 1970

Bob Neuwirth's story in his own words of how Mercedes Benz was conceived, January 19, 1970: "Janis was having her (last) birthday and she had a concert to do in Port Jefferson, New York. She liked actors Geraldine Page and her husband Rip Torn a lot. Rip happened to be a friend of mine. I was given the job of teaching Rip Torn to look as if he played guitar for a movie called Payday. And so for her birthday I invited Rip and Geraldine to come with us to the concert. We started from the Chelsea Hotel, had a couple of cocktails, got into the car and drove to Port Jefferson, which is where all the Connecticut college kids come to drink because the age requirement is lower in New York State. Janis was unhappy that particular night. Not only was it her birthday but there was another band on the bill that she didn't care. She was annoyed that they were opening the concert for her. She didn't think they were part of her crowd. Now Janis had heard Michael McClure, a poet from San Francisco, who had a poem which started with the line: "Oh Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz". He'd been performing this poem along with one of the Hells Angels to accompany him on a squeeze box, a harmonium or something. Janis had heard this poetry reading and the line stuck in her head. Any time she was annoyed she'd sing: "Oh Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz". And this particular night, she was having her birthday and she was whining that she didn't have a boyfriend, she was joking of course but that was part of her act. So she complained that nothing was going right and Oh Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz. We were having some drinks at the bar, started banging our beer steins on the table and we finished the song, made it up, right there on the spot. We had everybody in the bar sing it by the time we left and Janis walked across the street, up the block and straight onto that stage. She wouldn't go to the theatre 'til the first act was finished and the minute they were off, she walked directly on stage and sang it to that audience. And then some months later, when she was recording the album that came to be known as Pearl, there was a technical breakdown during the recording of one of the songs. Meanwhile a small two-track machine was still running because tape is cheap and it's better to have a record of the musical idea than to try to remember what it was. In any case, to take the pressure out of the situation and to amuse her producer, Janis kinda said: Hey, have you heard my new song? And she sings it spontaneously in the studio and it just happened to be captured on tape. During the course of making that album, Janis passed away and they didn't have enough material to complete the album. In fact, the vocals that you hear on the Pearl album are the work vocals, they're not the finished vocals. She never got the chance to record the vocal track to the songs. Paul Rothchild did an incredible job in saving those songs. She was singing those songs just to show the band how the songs went. That might be why they're so good. Anyway, they needed material and also that little piece of tape was a nice, intimate glance at another side of Janis. Because she laughs at the end of it. It's very representative of her dayly spirit she was at. Balances off the depresso maniac dope thing that everybody tries to make her up to be. She was a very funny and energetic, capable woman and it just got on the album by a fluke. Then no-one knew who wrote the song. They knew that Michael McClure had the first line. When they printed the label they didn't know. They just sort of tossed it around. So Janis' estate got the song and they were nice enough to pay me for the song, so I'm very happy with the situation. As for the waltz tempo in my own version: as I recall it was a waltz originally, with the beer steins and all. I believe that records should be records of what took place at the moment. Audio vérité or something. That's the way it came out that day."