Here's today's question. Why did Janis Joplin sing, "Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz? My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends", when her daily driver was a psychedelically painted 1964 Porsche 356SC cabriolet?
Well, friends and others, if you want to know you have to be prepared for a weird journey into the 1960s and 70s, a time of which our spiritual guide Raoul Duke said: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."
Janis was bored. There was a problem with the tape machine and work on the album she was recording had stopped. She walked up to the microphone in bare feet and sang the a cappella based on beat poet Michael McClure's Come on, God, and buy me a Mercedes-Benz. It was the last song she recorded.
Two years earlier she had bought a second-hand very white Porsche for $3500. She gave road manager Dave Roberts $500 to paint the porker. Dave spent 30 days painting butterflies, meandering meadows, the eye of god, Capricorn and other colourful things.
My guess is you'll pay close to $800,000 for a little bit of Janis's heart at RM Auctions.