How were the lyrics of “Down on Me” written? Cyberherbalist’s assertion that the song is traditional, but also points out that Joplin “created new lyrics” for it. From the Dock Reed version of the song:

Mary and Martha, Luke and John, All God’s prophets dead and gone. What is it like to have everyone down on me?

From the Janis Joplin version: Believe

in your brother, have faith in man, Help each other, honey, if you can Because everybody in this whole round world Is down on me.

I agree with the previous answerers who consider Joplin’s version of the song nonsexual. I note that Peggy Caserta alluded to the song in a highly sexual way in her rather lurid tell-all biography of Joplin, Going Down With Janis, which appeared in 1973. I have not read the book, but I remember a contemporaneous review that criticized its exploitativeness (it appeared within three years of Joplin’s death and was particularly keen on detailing Joplin’s sex life). Is there a connection in Caserta’s Going Down with Janis’s On M.I.?

Why is everybody in this whole round world down on me?

Does the “Down on Me” refrain ever really stand as it doesn’t come to you from the first sentence as you’ll be reading the fuller sentence? How often is this said on a song?

Your comment has nothing to do with oral sex, and I suspect that any explanations claiming such are either joking, or wishful thinking. In “At The Las Vegas, the Sea,” Leonard Cohen’s “Clarksea Hotel No.2”, the line with the line “Giving me head, in the unmade bed, while the limousines

wait in the street,” is about “Joplin”.

From my point of view down on me could mean that everybody is against her and they all wish she would die.

I always feel that everybody in the whole round world is down on me!

ODO on Down on: be
(or have a) down on British
informal feel hostile this her sister Angela
had a down on the whole world

just like the other lady Angela has. “It looks like the whole world feels hostile towards me. “What

does it Mean for you to know that you come from another country?”

From that experience of living in those days with people her age, her fans, and in that culture, the exact translation would be, “Everybody is down on me,” or “Everybody is upset with me.” As

an adult “Really? My response to them would have made her feel down (sick)?

Had she done something while drunk or drugged, that she was now ashamed of, and was being punished by others (through shunning, curt remarks, cancelled appointments, angry fan mail), she would feel ‘down’, and would say ‘they are down on me’, bringing her own feelings of ‘down’ into their feelings about her. It was an expression created by those expressing feelings while high.

Though it’s hard to ignore the fact that she chose that phrase to describe her feelings towards how others felt of her (or society, the world, etc.) it’s pretty evident to me that she wanted the listener to think of oral sex as well as her actual message. What made Janis Joplin to be known as such?

What are the great reasons everyone was down on Janis Joplin in this song, but you should be aware that she didn’t write the lyrics, although she did expand on them. “This song is of the 1920’s” that Joplin arranged for her new album. The albums on which the song appears are all attributed to “Trad. Arr. Joplin”.