The film that inspired Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Me and Bobby McGee’
One of the best things about any form of creativity is that it all feeds from the same pot. Visual art, movies, songs, poems, novels, everything; each can influence the other, each can borrow from the other—inspiration is one never-ending cycle with no borders or limits. Sometimes, the things an artist fishes out of the big melting pot feel odd, but the openness of influence allows it to work, like, say, the combination of the rugged rocker, Kris Kristofferson, and one of the most revered and acclaimed names in cinema.
Surely no one ends up moving into acting without first being a film fan, and Kris Kristofferson liked movies. But there’s something about his attitude, and I say this in a purely stereotypical and admittedly judgmental way, that doesn’t really scream cinephile. As a leading figure trying to make country music rougher and rawer, combining classic country sounds with more rock for something more rebellious, it’s somehow tough to imagine him settling down in a cinema to quietly watch a long arthouse film with some popcorn and a snack.
But clearly, he was. As a perfect example of the way things from seemingly different worlds can come together in a beautiful merge of influences, Kristofferson once shared how film gave him one of his biggest hits. Not just any film, but the work of a true cinematic hero, Federico Fellini.
Widely and rightfully considered to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Fellini is a supermuse, really. It would be impossible to adequately trace his influence as the impact of the Italian director’s work and his distinctive style, which was both lush and fantastical, has trickled down beyond measure. His fingerprints are everywhere, across cinematic history but also in literature, visual art and music, with Kristofferson being one of many disciples.
In particular, Fellini directly led to the creation of ‘Me and Bobby McGee’, a track that was both a hit for Kristofferson and Janis Joplin, as well as a bunch of other names who had a go at the song, like Kenny Rogers and Roger Miller. It was designed that way, though, designed to be a hit, as it was written on assignment when the artist was asked specifically by Monument Records to write a song with that title as a gift to one of the receptionists there, whose name was Barbara ‘Bobbie’ McKee.
But the name is really besides the point, given the path the song went down. When raking his head for ideas, he went to that vast ocean of inspiration that every piece of artwork ever made swims in, and he recalled a Fellini film he’d seen: La Strada.
“For some reason, I thought of La Strada, this Fellini film, and a scene where Anthony Quinn is going around on this motorcycle and Giulietta Masina is the feeble-minded girl with him, playing the trombone,” Kristofferson explained, “He got to the point where he couldn’t put up with her anymore and left her by the side of the road while she was sleeping.”
It’s a sad story, really. What started out as passionate spontaneity ends in tragedy. “Later in the film, he sees this woman hanging out the wash and singing the melody that the girl used to play on the trombone,” he continued. “He asks, ‘Where did you hear that song?’ And she tells him it was this little girl who had shown up in town, and nobody knew where she was from, and later she died.”
In the final moments of Fellini’s film, his protagonist gets drunk, goes to the beach and howls at the stars in pain. He left her in order to feel free, but now felt immense guilt and sadness.
“To me, that was the feeling at the end of ‘Bobby McGee’,” he said, with the song being an attempt to capture that moment of the doubled-edged nature of freedom, for, even when the protagonist was free after having left the girl behind, he never truly emotionally recovered from that burden of guilt. This gave Kris one of his all-time best lines as he mentioned, “That’s where the line ‘Freedom’s just another name for nothing left to lose’ came from”.
