Janis Was Only One Loss

On an escalator at O’Hare airport,

The PA system played a Janis song…

Then suddenly a news report,

Said Janis was dead and gone.

I boarded the plane with no answers,

So much noise inside my head…

I was clueless so many idols,

Would be reported later as dead.

We were breaking through social barriers,

Then derailed by drugs and death…

Our army slowly disbanded;

The revolution faded and left.

Berkeley girls married business men,

Driving their Volvos to the gym…

All the energy of social change

Transferred to looking svelte and thin.

We turned on to healthy living,

Trading white sugars for honey…

Sometime later we traded our values

From morality to big money.