12/29/2021
Janis Joplin at the Hotel Chelsea in New York, 1970.
If there’s one building that evokes the tragedy and poetry of the golden age of recorded music, it is undoubtedly the Chelsea Hotel in New York. In the days it accepted long-term residents, the hotel hosted countless musicians, actors, and artists at the peak of their careers
Leonard Cohen came to the hotel at a time when it was something of a HQ for the biggest names in the music industry: “I had heard about the Chelsea Hotel as being a place where I might meet people of my own kind. And I did. It was a grand, mad place,” One of the people he met was Janis Joplin, and their meeting, inside one of the hotel’s art deco elevators, would inspire Cohen to write one of his most famous songs:
"A thousand years ago I lived at this Hotel in NYC. I was a frequent rider of the elevator on this Hotel. I will continuously leave my room and come back. I was an expert on the buttons of that elevator. One of the few technologies I really ever mastered. The door opened. I walked in. Put my finger right on the button. No hesitation. Great sense of mastery in those days. Late in the morning, early in the evening. I noticed a young woman in that elevator. She was riding it with as much delight as I was. Even though she commanded huge audiences, riding that elevator was the only thing she really knew how to do. My lung gathered my courage. I said to her “Are you looking for someone?” She said “Yes, I’m looking for Kris Kristofferson “I said “Little Lady, you’re in luck, I am Kris Kristofferson.” Those were generous times. Even though she knew that I was someone shorter than Kris Kristofferson, she never led on. Great generosity prevailed in those doom decades. Anyhow I wrote this song for Janis Joplin at the Chelsea Hotel."
Photo by David Gahr
