ILXers Get Out Your Polls And I'll Put On Some Joni Mitchell Voting and Nominations #26 (Voting Deadline: September 28)

Big Yellow Taxi is great fuck the haters.

the fake laugh at the end is a bit grating but the song has one of the best pop hooks she ever wrote

Is there any love for 'Ladies Man'...

oh, there will be at LEAST two songs from 'for the roses' in my ballot

top ten should basically be Court & Spark tracks 1-10, with Twisted thrown in a bin somewhere

― Jamie_ATP

Very late on this but could not agree more. Just listening through some of her albums making a shortlist and most of Court & Spark has made it, easily my favourite album of hers. I can't think of a worse closing song in my collection, maybe that Polyphonic Spree song on their first album that's 32 minutes of humming or whatever it was.

Although I love it Court & Spark is probably my least favourite of her golden run. I think maybe "assured" isn't necessarily what I look for first in Joni's music.

Joni Mitchell feels like a period piece, in that unlike the other albums it's from a time which has passed; although I like it well enough for what it is, but I can't really relate to it as anything other than artefact.

She's got a sweet voice which is extremely pure here, but the songwriting is unimaginative I feel - certainly compared to how she takes wing shortly afterwards - and the instrumentation provides little in the way of hooks. Except for a very incongruous bout of feedback midway through one of the songs - I wonder what was the deal with that?

Oh, it's actually called Song To A Seagull, my (spotify's) fault. Just got Summer Lawns to go then I'll be about ready to do a ballot, assuming there's a long quarter-century barely worth touching thereafter.

NO you must listen to Hejira!

^^^^^

It was listening to Hejira that prompted the thought, actually (I'm not going chronologically) - it's a good record on first listen, but she's devolved so much in her songwriting that I can barely tell the tracks one from another now. There's no way I'll have time to do a dozen records on those lines any kind of justice.

she's devolved so much in her songwriting

nah m8

i am too tired to try and explain why i feel this really but mitchell's material is more about a personal & idiosyncratic nexus of performance/arrangement/songwriting than it is 'songwriting' per se -- i prefer material on 'hejira' to that on 'blue' because the songs on blue feel like they're written in the mold of songs that someone else might then go and perform, which as we have seen always ends up badly

xp: and you should listen to <i>mingus</i> and <i>wild things run fast</i> (my fave album title by her, it's her last good album if you ask me). <i>don juan's reckless daughter</i> also has its moments, especially <i>paprika plains</i>, which takes the whole of side 2. an orchestral piece with improvised piano which flows nicely. it definitely goes into my ballot.

all the tracks on 'hejira' seem pretty distinct to me but i have also listened to that album a whole bunch so

"I can barely tell the tracks one from another now"

This isn't about a devolution in songwriting, it's about a very specific sustained mood. It's not even true of the albums afterwards, either, although one of the things I love about Night Ride Home is how close it comes at times to recapturing that vibe.

Hejira's songs are easier to memorize than FTR's

the key motor of the unique territory she's getting into (thro to 'mingus' and 'd.j's r.d.' at least) is how much spacier the melodies on her verses get. 'coyote' (opening track on hejira) is remarkable, there's repeated fragments of melody though the different verses but they're more like improvisations on a theme.

(which is why 'the songs run into one another' feels a little misplaced as a criticism -- by at least one definition what 'coyote' or 'refuge of the roads' is doing isn't exactly 'songwriting'.)

(this coexists with stuff in a more traditional mood, 'amelia' or 'blue motel room' don't operate via these rules (tho the latter has an obv. get-out card re: pastiche))

If 'In A Silent Way' is the 'Future Days' of fusion, 'Hejira' is the 'Future Days' of jazzy folk pop.

the love for her post-Hissing Lawns material here is befuddling. I've read that "HEJIRA" thread but still... how can you guys stand all that Jaco Pastoriusing

Xpost I would have thought 'Amelia' does, do you mean 'Black Crow'?

xp: in a way hejira reminds of kerouac's on the road. like that book which was written on one paper roll it just flows from a to z and back. and it is not by chance that those two works are on travelling.

the love for her post-Hissing Lawns material here is befuddling. I've read that "HEJIRA" thread but still... how can you guys stand all that Jaco Pastoriusing

because jaco deployed as instrument is more bearable than jaco as creative entity in his own right, mainly

Xpost I would have thought 'Amelia' does, do you mean 'Black Crow'?

haha let's go with that! you're right, i remember amelia as scanning more regularly than it does for some reason

Pastorious' lines on Hejira are appropriate to the material. That's like saying Peter Hook overplays on New Order recordings.

he's certainly not The Incredible Pino Palladino and His Fretless Bass of Doom

I like Jaco fine, Jaco haters are tiresome, his contributions to JM records really serve the songs well

hejira's about the only time i've really dug ol' Jaco's whale hump bass

the dude from the band Japan whape humps pretty good too with the fretless, but yeah that's not a sound i dig

scoop the mids, bro...

though i always thought "coyote" sounded great with rick danko on the last waltz

yeah it really is something about the sonic qualities of his fretless bass style itself that I don't like. there are albums + players I dig that rock the fretless bass (Graceland, Fernando Saunders to some extent) but it's a hard sell for me, it's just a sound that tends to grate. the sonic palette of those late 70s albums makes my teeth hurt.

feel like my ballot is going to be all-hippie-canon just to irritate the rest of you

ditto, but out of love not spite

I really do love pretty much everything up through Hissing!

well, not Circle Game. and Woodstock. Everything else though!

I have grown to just kinda love the sound of a fretless bass. smoooooooth

Fernando Saunders is a good analogy, Shakes!

For The Roses I can't get into at all. Anybody want to give me a hook to look out for?
The first three songs. "Woman of Heart & Mind." And of course "You Turn Me On (I'm a Radio)."
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, September 17, 2012 6:57 AM (2 days ago)

oh man, "Blonde in the Bleachers" (sigh)

If this has a deadline for voting could it please be put in the thread title or somewhere?

Agreed! Deadline for voting is Sept 28th.

Paprika Plains from Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. There is a minute or so missing at the end...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edugVVDAO0k

In the context of Joni's catalogue Jaco can be a pretty serious interloper, but when you consider those albums within the larger scope of 70s jazz fusion it's pretty incredible what they were attempting (and successfully)

Man, I do not understand the Pastorius hate.

Don Juan and Mingus - these are marvellous records, but I'm not sure what I can make of them in a tracks poll. It's like making two lakes eligible alongside a bunch of parks in a 'favourite places to hang out' poll.

They did get me reflecting on how far she travelled in ten years though - these are genuinely nothing whatsoever like her first records. People like Paul Simon or Neil Young, you can always hear where they've come from - with Joni I can't hear that at all.

Listening to Shine again, it occurs that one thing she's always been great at is *metre* (I think that's the right word anyway, what I mean is her fitting her words to the music & melody). Again Paul Simon comes to mind, but when he kicks loose you're always aware that he's half-talking, whereas with Joni it sounds more/less natural (take your pick). I think it explains some of the strange places she ends up in harmonically too, in that sometimes the right thing to do is extend the line way beyond where simple repetition would take it, with unexpected results.

Man, I do not understand the Pastorius hate.

And today, of all days (25th anniversary of his death).

Re-listening to Hejira last night, it also seems unfair to pin the "blame" for any dislike of the way it sounds on JP anyway. A more logical culprit, if one must be found, is Joni's (often double-tracked), flanged-to-death rhythm guitar - which is all over nearly every song. I kinda dig it myself but can see why others might find it a blessed relief when "Blue Hotel Room" arrives and finally changes the tone of the record.

Will vote for "Coyote" no doubt. Maybe nothing else though.

That might be my #1 reason for loving Hejira!

Let me make one final pitch on behalf of "Come In From The Cold". I said this two years ago on another thread and stand by it:

"I thought "Come In From The Cold" was too reliant on its chorus at first, but it's one of those tunes that seems (oddly) less tuneful the more you listen to it, and more exploratory and just... Is there a single word to describe that sense you get from some songs where subtle reiterations and shifts build on themselves to create a sense of... not intensity, but rather of sweep, like watching a person's face change through timelapse photography (actually this is almost the subject matter of the song so maybe that's not so odd). It's got that same sense of a sweep through a person's life and emotional landscape that makes "Amelia" and "Hejira" and "Song For Sharon" and "Refuge of the Roads" - this kind of thing feels perhaps uniquely Joni to me."

And further, I just think the subject matter of the song, and the way Joni deals with it, though it starts off seeming simplistic, becomes increasingly moving through increased exposure. The framing of the desire for companionship, for artistic achievement, for public recognition, for physical satiation, for moral superiority, for the arresting the onset of old age... all as a manifestation of the same desire to be accepted and nurtured; Joni not resiling from these desires but realising that by not seeing them from what they are she ultimately denied herself happiness.

I can't think of a song more penetrating in its sympathetic piercing of the artist's own illusions.

I always forget how serious and stern and at times spooky the middle section of Ladies of the Canyon is ("Willy" through "The Priest").

A friend of mine rates this as one of her favourite albums ever (and certainly her favourite Joni album), which I've never gotten, but I can sorta see the mindset which elevates this in all its wispy earnestness.

Yes I mentioned that run upthread, it really is superb.

"Come In From the Cold" is fantastic - great post, Tim. Night Ride Home stands tall for me, partly because I came to it so late - I was really, really wary of exploring past the 70s with Joni. Still haven't tried Turbulent Indigo even though I know I'd probably like it.

I would be forever grateful if somebody happened upon the TV studio performance of Joni playing "Passion Play", I saw it once (where?) and it was sooo beautiful.
aero, I wouldn't recommend Turbulent Indigo to anybody, it's actually kinda bad! But I would recommend Travelogue and Both Sides Now to everyone, if you haven't heard them yet