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Joni Mitchell

Started by The Mollusk, June 17, 2021, 05:56:51 PM

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Z-Model Ford

Quote from: pigamus on June 18, 2021, 01:23:50 PM
I think Graham Nash said, "She's about as humble as Mussolini!" Didn't fit their image of demure and modest like girlies are supposed to be.

A blonde California girlie, all admiring and obliging... Yeah, she wouldn't have fitted the bill really.

Went back to Hejira again last night, for the first time in a while. This from Amelia...

QuoteMaybe I've never really loved
I guess that is the truth
I've spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitudes
And looking down on everything
I crashed into his arms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

How good is that? And it's not even the best song on the album.

shagatha crustie

I dreamed of 747s
Over geometric farms

Crabwalk

I think I posted the live performance of Amelia from 'Shadows & Light' on the 'Astonishing live YouTube performances' thread.

Hejira is definitely enhanced even higher the more you learn about Joni's life and experiences at that point. The album is even more raw and confessional than Blue when you know the background to the songs.

Pauline Walnuts



Image Presented With No Comment

bakabaka

Quote from: Crabwalk on June 18, 2021, 11:12:00 AM
By the way Nags, I fucking hate Big Yellow Taxi.
I don't. I've loved it since I first heard it when it first came out. But 50 years ago those of us worried about climate change were few and far between, so hearing a mainstream song about it was empowering.

I suspect that everyone who listened to Delete Delete Delete's (and my) Desert Island Dicks show probably hates it just for that night. Every song he chose was a version of it and afterwards I played the rest of the 24 versions I have (only 13 of which are by Joni).

As for the rest of her work, I've cycled through most of them as my favourite, depending on what's happening in my life at the time, up to Wild Things Run Fast. Sort of lost track of her output after that, while listening to the earlier albums on heavy repeat.
I find my need for Joni is much stronger in the summer than the winter for some reason - her music seems to conjure up images of deserts and baking landscapes, despite so many of the early period actually being about Woodstock/New York State or similar.

Pink Gregory

Hejira is fucking mental how good it is.  How it doesn't make more top 100s I have no idea.  People don't know it outside of Joni Fans.

Furry Sings the Blues is a high point, but I really like Song For Sharon and haven't got much of an idea why.

Favourite line is from Blue Motel Room

"You and me we're like America and Russia/We're always keeping score."

Pauline Walnuts

There's a Joni Mitchell special on BBC Radio 6Music on right now.

Pauline Black sounds like a school mam in real life. like a slightly less irritating Yvette Cooper

The Mollusk

Ah nuts, just switched it on having saw your post and it's just finished!

Crabwalk

I've just rewound to the start on the bbc sounds app. Thanks for the heads up!

The Mollusk

Aye we're off out for the day shortly but I'll try and catch up in the week.

That Derya Yildirim tune that opened Ravenscroft's show immediately after was gorgeous though!

Crabwalk

Oh fuck, they're playing 'Our House'. Good show up to that point though.

pigamus

Quote from: OnlyRegisteredSoICanRead on June 19, 2021, 10:34:23 AM


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Yeah, there's no defending that. The fuck was she thinking?

Crabwalk

That's her black alter-ego 'Art Nouveau', whom she'd frequently dress up as for parties and projects. I can kind of understand her impulse (to break free from the confines and of how she and her work were perceived) but it's, er, not something that looks good in any way in retrospect.

A bit more background (and more photos) here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37781800

Petey Pate

Quote from: bakabaka on June 19, 2021, 11:00:00 AMBut 50 years ago those of us worried about climate change were few and far between, so hearing a mainstream song about it was empowering.

Wow, there's one for the nonexistent oscillations specific 'obvious things you didn't realise' thread.

From 'Song For Sharon':

QuoteA woman I knew just drowned herself
The well was deep and muddy
She was just shaking off futility
Or punishing somebody
My friends were calling up all day yesterday
All emotions and abstractions
It seems we all live so close to that line
And so far from satisfaction

Dora says "Have children"
Mama and Betsy say "Find yourself a charity
Help the needy and the crippled or put some time into Ecology"
Well there's a wide wide world of noble causes
And lovely landscapes to discover
But all I really want to do right now
Is find another lover

I love how she never wastes a word. Every line is a killer.

crankshaft

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on June 21, 2021, 04:12:14 PM
From 'Song For Sharon':

I love how she never wastes a word. Every line is a killer.

Song For Sharon is perhaps her peak. So gorgeous, and perfectly placed on Hejira as a mirror of Coyote; there, difference separates them but here their difference is their strength.

shagatha crustie



Crabwalk

^ More in that vein in the LA Times.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-06-21/joni-mitchell-james-taylor-haim-elton-john-track-by-track-blue

Today's anniversary really seems to be getting big coverage doesn't it? Great to see Joni's stock so high and ever-rising, at long last.

The Mollusk

It's because I started this thread. You're welcome Joni.

Head Gardener



the beautiful close up detail of original UK vinyl - the inner sleeve is blue too

Johnboy

Yes another shout for Hejira  it's just bottomless whereas I feel I've worn out Blue.

The missus likes travelogue and clouds. It's all great though.

Love the way she rocks up in the rolling thunder movie and pisses all over EVERYBODY


Twit 2

QuoteI'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shocked love away
There's comfort in melancholy
When there's no need to explain
It's just as natural as the weather
In this moody sky today
In our possessive coupling
So much could not be expressed
So now I am returning to myself
These things that you and I suppressed
I see something of myself in everyone
Just at this moment of the world
As snow gathers like bolts of lace
Waltzing on a ballroom girl
You know it never has been easy
Whether you do or you do not resign
Whether you travel the breadth of extremities
Or stick to some straighter line
Now here's a man and a woman sitting on a rock
They're either going to thaw out or freeze
Listen, strains of Benny Goodman
Coming through' the snow and the pinewood trees
I'm porous with travel fever
But you know I'm so glad to be on my own
Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger
Can set up trembling in my bones
I know, no one's going to show me everything
We all come and go unknown
Each so deep and superficial
Between the forceps and the stone
Well, I looked at the granite markers
Those tributes to finality, to eternity
And then I looked at myself here
Chicken scratching for my immortality
In the church, they light the candles
And the wax rolls down like tears
There is the hope and the hopelessness
I've witnessed thirty years
We're only particles of change I know, I know
Orbiting around the sun
But how can I have that point of view
When I'm always bound and tied to someone
White flags of winter chimneys
Wave truce against the moon
In the mirrors of a modern bank
From the window of a hotel room
I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
Until love sucks me back that way

Ferris

Figuring out A Case of You is one of my best guitar[nb]yeah I know it's on dulcimer don't you even know I have played Appalachian dulcimer as a paid session jobber twice (~14years ago) so I think I know what I'm talking about here[/nb] achievements ever (the secret is a capo and open D tuning...)

Love Joni, she the best. California comes into my brain at the absolute weirdest time.

shagatha crustie

Quote from: Johnboy on June 22, 2021, 08:56:20 PM
Love the way she rocks up in the rolling thunder movie and pisses all over EVERYBODY

And in The Last Waltz

Quote from: Johnboy on June 22, 2021, 08:56:20 PM


Love the way she rocks up in the rolling thunder movie and pisses all over EVERYBODY

Good lord!

Crabwalk

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on June 22, 2021, 10:46:14 PM
Figuring out A Case of You is one of my best guitar[nb]yeah I know it's on dulcimer don't you even know I have played Appalachian dulcimer as a paid session jobber twice (~14years ago) so I think I know what I'm talking about here[/nb] achievements ever (the secret is a capo and open D tuning...)

Love Joni, she the best. California comes into my brain at the absolute weirdest time.

'Little Green' is lovely to play too. It's open G with the capo on the 4th fret. I butcher it of course.

Crabwalk


Ferris

Quote from: Crabwalk on June 23, 2021, 10:41:24 AM
'Little Green' is lovely to play too. It's open G with the capo on the 4th fret. I butcher it of course.

I just went into the spare room to play guitar and I was bloody awful, might be hanging up the plectrums before too long.

Crabwalk