Oh I Wish I Had a POLL, I Could Skate Away On: The Joni Mitchell Tracks/Albums Results Thread (ILM ARTIST POLL #26)

19. The Jungle Line (The Hissing of Summer Lawns): 230 points, 10 votes

In a low-cut blouse she brings the beer
Rousseau paints a jungle flower behind her ear
Those cannibals of shuck and jive
They'll eat a working girl like her alive

18. The Hissing of Summer Lawns (The Hissing of Summer Lawns): 231 points, 9 votes, 1 1st place vote

He put up a barbed wire fence
To keep out the unknown
And on every metal thorn
Just a little blood of his own

17. River (Blue): 238 points, 12 votes

I'm so hard to handle
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had
I wish I had a river I could skate away on

"Jungle Line" and "River" are both stunning.

16. Come in from the Cold (Night Ride Home): 244 points, 11 votes, 1 1st place vote

I am not some stone commission
Like a statue in a park
I am flesh and blood and vision
I am howling in the dark
Long blue shadows of the jackals
Are falling on a pay phone by the road
Oh, all they ever wanted
Was to come in from the cold

Hm, I should listen to more of her later stuff. I didn't vote for anything post-Mingus because I don't know it well.

I'm the #1 vote for "The Hissing...". Structurally, I think it's Joni's most interesting song. Too damn short (barely 3 minutes!) but that's also part of the appeal. Talk about "you don't know what you've got til it's gone" - this song is the epitome of that phrase.

shocked at "River"s low placement!

hoping you got my ballot Mordy! never got a reply from you

I did get it and it was included in the results :)

14--TIE. Chelsea Morning (Clouds): 250 points, 11 votes

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning
And the first thing that I knew
There was milk and toast and honey
And a bowl of oranges, too
And the sun poured in like butterscotch
And stuck to all my senses...

Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
And we'll talk in present tenses

<3 the high placement of "Come in from the cold", that song and album rules

14--TIE. Song for Sharon (Hejira): 250 points, 11 votes

Sharon you've got a husband
And a family and a farm
I've got the apple of temptation
And a diamond snake around my arm

Love the way "Chelsea Morning" bursts out so confidently on the LP after the dark "Tin Angel" (which I also voted for but assume won't make it now).

I like Tin Angel, but in a Bleecker Street café is such a lame line to get the big overwrought treatment

I promise this will be the last time I post a Fairport Convention youtube in this thread, but this is too great to not rep for

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ga0GQ_PTog

I'm glad to see Song For Sharon there - it was my #3, and was worried that it wouldn't make it. Hoping 'That Song About the Midway' makes it in too.

I voted for both "Morning" tracks. Chelsea Morning makes me want to move to NYC even though I know it's nothing like she's singing about.

damn, just noticed the results thread was going. stupid illness wiped out any chance i had to submit a last-minute ballot

posting lyrical excerpts along with each ballot entry = A+ idea for this thread, btw

13. All I Want (Blue): 253 points, 12 votes, 1 1st place vote

I want to knit you a sweater
Want to write you a love letter
I want to make you feel better
I want to make you feel free

<3

posting lyrical excerpts along with each ballot entry = A+ idea for this thread, btw

Ha, I would post tuning guides and chord charts. [ / ducks]

I will acknowledge that on Blue, I do notice and appreciate some of the lyrics.

just listening to the guitars on Hejira the last couple of days, with attention focused by this poll, has enraptured me; & I'm not even catching very many lyrics

jonimitchell.com does have some tablature and instructional videos that I can recommend, such as:

http://jonimitchell.com/music/transcription.cfm?id=477

it looks like there's a bunch of them, including tips on how to play like joni, such as:

Third, if you use a capo, buy a "G7th" brand capo. Don't use the Kyser or Dunlop. The G7th is the only capo that lets you capo up without stretching your strings sharp.

Fourth, practice playing the songs with a light left hand touch. When the strings are tuned low you are basically stretching the notes sharp as soon as you fret them. Learn to press the string only to the fret and not beyond towards the fretboard wood.

(there is piano transcription too.)

12. Edith & the Kingpin (The Hissing of Summer Lawns): 258 points, 9 votes, 1 1st place vote

Edith in his bed
A plane in the rain is humming
The wires in the walls are humming
Some song some mysterious song

very unexpectedly All I Want ended up being my #1. It has a bit of everything - uptempo and laid back, happy and sad, low key thoughtful vocals that look forward to what her voice would become and as well as some acrobatics, intricate and interesting backing instrumental that could stand on its own, strange mix of the profound and the mundane in the lyrics, and that great outro. It's hard for me to get my head around the fact that one person could come up with both the song and the production and perform it with no help in a single take. (I'm not sure about the recording process but I assume she was playing and singing at the same time.)

best use of the word "shampoo" in a song imo

All I want is so great, but Edith kept sneaking higher and higher - ended up my no.2. Sadly not on spotify, so I've had to put Elvis Costello's version on my playlist instead.

Ok, last one for today. Top 10 tomorrow!

11. Amelia (Hejira): 298 points, 11 votes

A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea like me she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms
Amelia it was just a false alarm

"Edith and the Kingpin" is my touchstone for a kind of beguiling opacity.

if I were revoting today I'd vote "Amelia" #1. I am absolutely spellbound by it. is that Joni on slide?

It's Carlton, I think.

Best song on Hejira - totally entrancing.

'amelia' would've been my #1

My #2

so it was just a false alarm?

Given a massive showing in the top ten is unlikely, it appears For The Roses has been predictably underrated in this poll. It'd be nice to be proven wrong of course.

I was the no. 1 vote for "Come In From The Cold" - a choice both strategic and genuine.

Last day - top 10 results! I hope everyone has enjoyed the rollout. I've certainly enjoyed running this poll.

10. Car on a Hill (Court and Spark): 300 points, 12 votes

It always seems so righteous at the start
When there's so much laughter
When there's so much spark
When there's so much sweetness in the dark
Waiting for a car
Climbing
Climbing
Climbing the hill

Mordy, you are a gentleperson and a scholar...to Mordy!

Love the way her voice slides on "car on a hilllllll..."

Top 10, Friday on the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.. perfect! I think it will be all Joni on our three hour drive to the cottage today :D

09. You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio (For the Roses): 320 points, 12 votes, 1 1st place vote

Oh honey you turn me on
I'm a radio
I'm a country station
I'm a little bit corny
I'm a wildwood flower
Waving for you

Same effect used to great effect in "willllllldwood flower..." Great groove. A bit on the corny side but she owns up to it. My #6.

god I love that song so much. The metaphors are heavy handed but I enjoy that.

"You Turn Me On" is arguably a better let-me-try-and-write-a-hit than "Help Me."

08. California (Blue): 333 points, 12 votes, 3 1st place votes

So I bought me a ticket
I caught a plane to Spain
Went to a party down a red dirt road
There were lots of pretty people there
Reading Rolling Stone reading Vogue

They said "How long can you hang around?"
I said a week maybe two
Just until my skin turns brown
Then I'm going home to California

'california' is pretty much a perfect song to me