― sonofstan (sonofstan), Sunday, 2 July 2006 11:09 (seventeen years ago) link
I always used to think the song was slightly patronising, it's only been in the last year or so that I've felt like I really got the lyrics. And this has been one of my absolute favourite albums for ten years. Odd how sometimes things just slide over you like that.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 2 July 2006 12:58 (seventeen years ago) link
― Vornado (Vornado), Monday, 3 July 2006 14:53 (seventeen years ago) link
― is anyone anticipating the new Baaderonixx? (baaderonixx), Friday, 19 January 2007 10:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 19 January 2007 13:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― is anyone anticipating the new Baaderonixx? (baaderonixx), Friday, 19 January 2007 14:15 (seventeen years ago) link
Likewise Joni could very well have been a diva bitch one minute and then felt deeply uncomfortable with success the next.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 19 January 2007 15:05 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 19 January 2007 15:12 (seventeen years ago) link
Night Ride Home carried me through autumn, that thing is underrated - even her gigantic-ego resetting of a Yeats poem works for me
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Friday, 19 January 2007 15:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― fandango (fandango), Friday, 19 January 2007 15:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― is anyone anticipating the new Baaderonixx? (baaderonixx), Friday, 19 January 2007 15:32 (seventeen years ago) link
― M@tt He1g3s0n: oh u mad cuz im stylin on u (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 19 January 2007 15:32 (seventeen years ago) link
Not so good, nowhere near as good... and occasionally fucking terrible.
― fandango (fandango), Friday, 19 January 2007 15:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 19 January 2007 15:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Friday, 19 January 2007 15:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:00 (seventeen years ago) link
Joni is nearly always bad at those straight rock'n'roll-ish tracks.
I really should get round to hearing/owning Taming The Tiger, Shadows And Light (Live)... and maybe Both Sides Now and Travelogue just to complete things.
― fandango (fandango), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― fandango (fandango), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:04 (seventeen years ago) link
Does anyone else fucking HATE Jaco's playing and tone on Hejira...drives me nuts, mr. bloop bleeeeeble ddee whale humping sound maker beret dude.
― M@tt He1g3s0n: oh u mad cuz im stylin on u (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:05 (seventeen years ago) link
I never understand the hate toward "Furry Sings the Blues," tbh.
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:08 (seventeen years ago) link
But I love the work with Joni.
― fandango (fandango), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― is anyone anticipating the new Baaderonixx? (baaderonixx), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:12 (seventeen years ago) link
I guess the Jaco thing is mostly cuz I prefer the more forward moving vers. of Coyote on The Last Waltz so much better...it feels like low flying crop spraying plane zooming over empty fields (on the Last Waltz)
― M@tt He1g3s0n: oh u mad cuz im stylin on u (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:13 (seventeen years ago) link
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― fandango (fandango), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:17 (seventeen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:46 (seventeen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:49 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:53 (seventeen years ago) link
― Period period period (Period period period), Friday, 19 January 2007 21:55 (seventeen years ago) link
This counts as another reason to love this record
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYF6T6bfCw4
― Milton Parker, Saturday, 18 February 2012 05:09 (twelve years ago) link
iirc, Hejira is Prince's all-time favorite record, by anyone.
I love Hejira almost as much as Court and Spark, but this is as far as I've gotten, chronologically, in Joni's discography. I took a stab at Mingus but, to echo some of the comments upthread, I just can't get with that fretless bass guitar sound. Intellectually, I can recognize and appreciate the importance of what Jaco did, but I can't stand to listen to it.
― Let A Man Come In And Do The Cop Porn (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Saturday, 18 February 2012 05:19 (twelve years ago) link
Get Night Ride Home!
― Tim F, Saturday, 18 February 2012 06:37 (twelve years ago) link
That might be 'Hissing' I think.
― sleigh tracks (1933-1969) (MaresNest), Saturday, 18 February 2012 11:28 (twelve years ago) link
I bought Night Ride Home thanks to this thread. I've never been able to call it anything other than a good minor record with a couple of tremendous tunes (e.g. "Come in From the Cold").
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 18 February 2012 13:30 (twelve years ago) link
Naw I think there's so much amazing stuff on here (beyond "Come In From The Cold" which I agree is stunning). The chilling "old as the hills" vibe of "When All The Slaves Free" (her reedily murmured "ecstasy"... "tragedy"...), the heart-cutting double-tracked vocals on "Cherokee Louise", the perfect Tango in the Night pop of "Nothing Can Be Done", the absolute desolation of "Two Grey Rooms"...
I love the sound of her voice here too, damaged by smoking but still just supple enough to hit the targets it aims for, making the damage into just a metaphor for emotional damage, the sense of having seen too much that runs through the album. After this it got to the point where she just sounded limited a lot of the time (though she did use her vocals to great effect on particular songs here and there).
― Tim F, Saturday, 18 February 2012 21:11 (twelve years ago) link
It was only recently that I realized furry sings the blues was about a real singer, furry lewis
― dave coolier (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, 18 February 2012 21:21 (twelve years ago) link
yeah he's good. wasn't happy about the song tho"The way I feel" says Furry "is that your name is proper only to you, and when you use it you should get results from it. She shouldn't have used my name in no way, shape, form or faction without consultin' me 'bout it first. The woman came over here and I treated her right, just like I does everybody that comes over. She wanted to hear 'bout the old days, said it was for her own personal self, and I told it to her like it was, gave her straight oil from the can." He stares at the surrealistic photo on the Hejira cover. "But then she goes and puts it all down on a record, using my name and not giving me nothing! I can't stop nobody from talkie' 'bout Beale Street, 'cause the street belongs to everybody. But when she says 'Furry,' well that belongs to me!" (Though Joni Mitchell had no response to Furry's comments, her manager, Elliot Roberts, responded: "All she said about him was, 'Furry sings the blues' the rest is about the neighborhood. She doesn't even mention his last name. She really enjoyed meeting him, and wrote about her impressions of the meeting, He did tell her that he didn't like her, but we can't pay him royalties for that. I don't pay royalties to everybody who says they don't like me. I'd go broke.")
― tylerw, Saturday, 18 February 2012 21:26 (twelve years ago) link
look, i realize this is coming a bit late, but since it seems to have been revived about a year ago... i feel the need to point something out. when joni mention's she is 'not familiar with what you play' she is referring to WC Handy, who's 'cast in bronze, and he's standin in a little park, with his trumpet in his hand, like he's listenin back... -so throughout the song she is comparing her limited knowledge of one legend, with her experience of meeting a dying one, in a city which reflects them, and which they embody -she is clearly an outsider, but an admirer. i am so surprised that so many people who seem to otherwise know her well, or at least this album, did not catch this?!
as for reasons to love hejira (the album)...the beginning and energy throughout black crowand'palm trees in the porchlight like slick black cellophane'
― ramblin rose, Wednesday, 16 January 2013 19:11 (eleven years ago) link
welcome to ILX, ramblin rose! if you want, here is an introduction thread:
Introduce Yourselves!
― sleeve, Wednesday, 16 January 2013 20:45 (eleven years ago) link
wow - never read that story about Furry liking her even less after Hejira!
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Thursday, 17 January 2013 10:13 (eleven years ago) link
Here's the RS article:
Furry Lewis is Furious at Joniby Mark Seal - February 24, 1977
MEMPHIS - There's an electrical wire hanging down in front of bluesman Furry Lewis' small, olive green duplex. It drapes across his front porch, and Furry is so worried about it he can hardly get drunk and have fun with the people who have come to visit, "Somebody call up the 'lectric department to fix that thing!" he yells, sitting in the bed that has become his stage and pouring a dose of Ten High bourbon into a well-worn shot glass. "l know I've always been a rascal, but I ain't never done nothin' bad enough to be in the 'lectric chair."
Age and cataracts have dulled Furry's eyesight - though not his feisty spirit - and his public appearances have been whittled down to a cherished few, but Furry's still got the world at his bedside. Guests, from young neighborhood kids seeking guitar lessons to celebrities, stream into his three-room flat.
Lewis played his slide-driven, talking guitar blues with the father of the blues, W.C Handy, on Beale Street in the early 1900s. Today, the street is crumbling, and a small statue of Handy toting a horn overlooks the ruins. To Furry Lewis, Beale Street was "where somebody was killed every Saturday night and born every Sunday."
At arm's reach from his bed, Furry's got all his daily necessities: battered Martin electric guitar and small amp, two half gallons of Ten High, a .38 revolver stashed inside a drawer, his walking stick, a teddy bear and a cigar box labeled "Business". "I'm 83 years old half blind and gots a wooden leg," he says. "But I sure gots a lot of friends. "
But Furry's got his problems, too. Just a few weeks ago, he explains, he played at a local club and still hasn't been paid. And then there's "that woman" who recorded a song about him.
The song, "Furry Sings the Blues," is on Joni Mitchell's latest album, Hejira. In it, Mitchell paints Furry "down and out in Memphis, Tennessee," and his music "mostly muttering now and sideshow spiel." She had visited the aging bluesman and the pitiful situation on Beale Street had led her to write:
Furry sings the bluesFallin' to hard luckAnd time and other thievesWhile our limo is shining on his shanty street.Old Furry sings the blues.
"The way I feel " says Furry "is that your name is proper only to you, and when you use it you should get results from it. She shouldn't have used my name in no way, shape, form or faction without consultin' me 'bout it first. The woman came over here and I treated her right, just like I does everybody that comes over. She wanted to hear 'bout the old days, said it was for her own personal self, and I told it to her like it was, gave her straight oil from the can." He stares at the surrealistic photo on the Hejira cover. "But then she goes and puts it all down on a record, using my name and not giving me nothing! I can't stop nobody from talkie' 'bout Beale Street, 'cause the street belongs to everybody. But when she says 'Furry,' well that belongs to me!" (Though Joni Mitchell had no response to Furry's comments, her manager, Elliot Roberts, responded: "All she said about him was, 'Furry sings the blues' the rest is about the neighborhood. She doesn't even mention his last name. She really enjoyed meeting him, and wrote about her impressions of the meeting, He did tell her that he didn't like her, but we can't pay him royalties for that. I don't pay royalties to everybody who says they don't like me. I'd go broke.")
Still, Furry can't deny the truths of "Furry Sings the Blues," with its references to Beale Street's doom, that "history falls/ To parking lots and shopping malls."
"They only make a statue of you when you dead and gone," Furry says. "I've known a whole lots of musicianers in my life and lots of 'em are dead now. But I guess that Handy's the only one that's ant a statue of him. But then I ain't gone yet.
"Now I know I ain't a star," he says, reaching for his glass and winking with a wise old grin "But I sure might be a moon."
― friday goodness thank it's (flamboyant goon tie included), Thursday, 17 January 2013 13:23 (eleven years ago) link
Don't judge Joni on "Free Man In Paris", it's one of her most awkward songs lyrically.However am I the only one who thinks the cold war metaphor in "Blue Motel Room" is brilliant?― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, April 13, 2006
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, April 13, 2006
I think there were country songs almost ten years prior that also had puns on Cold War with relationship subjects
― Iago Galdston, Thursday, 29 May 2014 18:51 (nine years ago) link
http://www.atomicplatters.com/platters.php?id=C0_9_1
― Iago Galdston, Thursday, 29 May 2014 23:05 (nine years ago) link
shit....Floyd Tillman's 1949 country classic "This Cold War With You". Don't know if there are others
It's not so much the fact of the Cold War pun as the way she runs with the metaphor:
"We're gonna have to hold ourselves a peace talkIn some neutral cafeYou lay down your... sneeeeeaking round the town, honeyand I'll lay down the highways"
― Tim F, Thursday, 29 May 2014 23:23 (nine years ago) link
oh yeah, no doubt, those are great lyrics. not that anyone here would care, but i was interested to learn that the male love interest on this record is the playwright Sam Shepard ("Coyote")
― Iago Galdston, Thursday, 29 May 2014 23:26 (nine years ago) link
xpost to me this has always been one (possible) hallmark of a good "literary" lyricist, not just simply drawing analogies between things but getting across the detailed structure of the analogy with a few carefully curated side-shots of the same idea.
Another joni example that always comes to mind is in "The Boho Dance": "like a priest with a pornographic watch, looking in longing on the sly", which evokes a much broader metaphor of musical-authenticity/class-authenticity as hypocritical religious conviction and self-denial.
― Tim F, Thursday, 29 May 2014 23:29 (nine years ago) link
"Between the forceps and the stone"
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 8 August 2018 06:37 (five years ago) link
i love this album, and I love everything between Court and Spark through to Don Juan. but i tried to listen to Blue yesterday and I'm still having real difficulty with it. I guess I'm just not into folk Joni
― Scritti Vanilli - The Word Girl You Know It's True (dog latin), Wednesday, 8 August 2018 07:24 (five years ago) link
that’s funny because I haven’t listened to Spotify since then
― assert (matttkkkk), Sunday, 4 December 2022 12:22 (one year ago) link
touché
― corrs unplugged, Sunday, 4 December 2022 12:59 (one year ago) link
bit of a dickish comment from me tbh
― assert (matttkkkk), Sunday, 4 December 2022 13:14 (one year ago) link
goat album. outstanding review. accurate score.
― ミ💙🅟 🅛 🅤 🅡 🅜 🅑💙彡 (Austin), Sunday, 4 December 2022 14:40 (one year ago) link
As someone who benefits greatly from context and narrative, this may be personal, but to me, a great review falls somewhere between reading and listening. Even as you're reading it there are subtle recalibrations of sense memory taking place, different positions from which to view experience opening up; I return to the music altered, the music changed too. Hard to explain. Anyway, that was a great review.
― Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski), Sunday, 4 December 2022 14:51 (one year ago) link
blue motel room perfectly understated, suits hejira like buckets of rain does blood on the tracks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Raw8Hmlj4c
honey tell 'em you've got... ggggeeeerrrms
― corrs unplugged, Tuesday, 17 October 2023 11:43 (six months ago) link
Thank you; we've got our first cold morning in Savannah and this will be the perfect thing to listen to while driving the kids to school.
― Cow_Art, Tuesday, 17 October 2023 11:48 (six months ago) link
Coyote's in the coffee shopHe's staring a hole in his scrambled eggsHe picks up my scent on his fingersWhile he's watching the waitresses' legs
awful good
― corrs unplugged, Sunday, 18 February 2024 12:45 (two months ago) link
The lyrics are just next level, the sheer craft of them.
Something I was struck by recently is how perfectly each opening line sets up the song’s story (not in the sense of encapsulating it; more like dropping a pin on a map and then exploring outwards from there) and draws you in:
- “No regrets, Coyote / we just come from such different sets of circumstance”- “I was driving across the burning desert when I spotted six jet planes / Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain”
etc.
You immediately want to know what is coming.
― Tim F, Sunday, 18 February 2024 21:27 (two months ago) link
This is my favourite JM album. Going to listen again right now.
― Duke, Sunday, 18 February 2024 23:18 (two months ago) link