Me and Bobby McGee

When Janis Joplin's version of "Me and Bobby McGee" reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971, it became the second posthumously released number one single in American chart history, after Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay". Billboard ranked it the eleventh biggest song of that year, and in 2002 the Columbia Records recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Joplin had cut the song for her album Pearl only nine days before her death in October 1970, and it went on to be the only number one single of her career.

Kris Kristofferson wrote the song after a challenge from producer and Monument Records founder Fred Foster, who shared the writing credit. The title character took her name from a studio secretary, Barbara "Bobbie" McKee, though Kristofferson had misheard her surname. He said he wanted to capture the despair of the final scene of Federico Fellini's La Strada, in which Anthony Quinn's broken character stares at the night sky from a beach and collapses in tears.

Roger Miller recorded it first in May 1969, reaching number twelve on the American country chart, and Gordon Lightfoot's version topped the Canadian country chart in 1970. Kristofferson put his own recording on his 1970 debut album and later sang it briefly in Dennis Hopper's film The Last Movie. He learned of Joplin's version only after she died, hearing her recording for the first time the day after her death.