Stephen L.,
No, it should not. In fact, between the two versions recorded
by Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead, the line takes three
forms, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose"
and "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to do"
Ah... It is refreshing to notice that there are others (who have
scientific interests as well) who pay attention to the subtleties
of popular music - which like it or not - has supplanted much of
the traditional poet's (prior) literary function. In the
big-picture, this is perhaps another facet of "multi-tasking."
Who reads "just" poetry any more (besides other poets)?
I like poetry, and rue the fact that - to pry it out of popular
music, is not a high probability prospect. But the imperative of
multi-tasking in all aspects of life- seems to demand that several
art-forms must be combined these days, and the music video is the
possible answer to getting an extra one or two more of these
various art-mediums together for mass consumption.
At the last poetry reading I attended, there were maybe three
other souls, myself being the only one who was not family-related.
So afterwards, when the bar actually opened, they turned on MTV
and almost like magic - many others filed in. This was not
overlooked by the poet.
And to be honest, it is probably true that due to the indulgent
lifestyles of the artists involved in popular music, that they are
largely unaware of the deep issues which their words (sound bytes)
sometimes dredge up. The two artists you mention went into "early
forced retirement" - perhaps because of such indulgences.
And lest it go unnoticed, my inadvertent use of "loose" for "lose"
(as pointed out by my technical editor down-under in Oz) turned
out to be an unintended pun, adding another layer of
poetic-malapropism-not to "what freedom rings"... ;-)
Jones
