Photo Credit:
Writers: Janis Joplin, Michael McClure, and Bobby Neuwirth
Producer: Paul Rothchild
Recorded: October 1st, 1970, at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles
Released: January 1971
Players: | Janis Joplin — vocals |
Album: | Pearl (Columbia, 1971) |
Janis Joplin recorded "Mercedes Benz" a capella, three days before her death from a heroin overdose in Hollywood. She was considering adding instruments to the track at the time.
Joplin came up with the idea for the song in August of 1970 and performed part of it at her final two concerts, August 8th in Port Chester, Texas, and August 12th at Harvard Stadium in Massachusetts.
Joplin co-wrote "Mercedes Benz," a social commentary against materialism, with poet Michael McClure and singer-songwriter Bobby Neuwirth, fleshing it out after producer Paul Rothchild encouraged her to turn it into a full song.
Rothchild has always contended the song would have remained a capella: "She told me she had to stomp her foot when she sang it, and we recorded it just like that," he said.
Pearl, released three months after Joplin's death, was her first and only Number One album.
The album also sold more than three million copies.
Joplin was the first act on Columbia Records to record at an independent studio — Sunset Sound — rather than the company's own facilities in Los Angeles.