Janis Joplin – To Love Somebody (LIVE on Dick Cavett!)

You don’t know what it’s like to love somebody!

It always shocks us how much life Janis Joplin lived in 27 years. With songs like “To Love Somebody” performed here on The Dick Cavett Show, it feels like she packed three lifetimes into one short lifetime, as if she knew she wasn’t long for this world. It’s not surprising – the best ones always seem to leave us too soon! I can’t even imagine what Janis would have accomplished had she lived!

Fun fact: the incarnation of “To Love Somebody” that we’ve come to know and love from Janis actually began as a Bee Gees original, believe it or not! Despite being known for disco over a decade after the song was written, the Bee Gees were fond of recording slow ballads like “To Love Somebody”. Leave it to our beloved Janis to take a cover song and make it a soulful, bluesy tale of a woman trying to articulate the depths of her love, without success.

It’s okay Janis, we loved you just as much!

+++++ LYRICS BELOW +++++

There’s a light
A certain kind of light
That never shone on me
I want my life to lived with you
Lived with you
There’s a way everybody say
To do each and every little thing
But what does it bring
If I ain’t got you, ain’t got?

You don’t know what it’s like, baby
You don’t know what it’s like

To love somebody
To love somebody
The way I love you

In my brain
I see your face again
I know my frame of mind
You ain’t got to be so blind
And I’m blind, so very blind
I’m a man, can’t you see
What I am
I live and I breathe for you
But what good does it do
If I ain’t got you, ain’t got?

You don’t know what it’s like, baby
You don’t know what it’s like

To love somebody
To love somebody
The way I love you

You don’t know what it’s like, baby
You don’t know what it’s like

To love somebody
To love somebody
The way I love you

You don’t know what it’s like, baby
You don’t know what it’s like (you don’t know what it’s like)

To love somebody