― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 26 May 2005 22:38 (nineteen years ago) link
Hejira: Coyote is sensational. Full of the specificity someone above said her post-Blue work lacked (as is Song for Sharon, and Furry). Amelia is one of the prettiest songs she wrote. The whole Jaco emphasis and the thematic consistency make it stand out and give it heft. "Blue Motel Room" > "Centerpiece" as the obligatory faux-jazz blues song. Except for Refuge of the Roads, the lesser songs all have something musically or lyrically to recommend them. The album cover art is 50 times better than the cheesy Hissing cover. Hejira really defined Mitchell's deepening interest in jazz and non-linear forms; it is the critical hinge between her classic period and the rest of her career; it is her Blood on the Tracks.It just isn't any contest.
Also, Amazon tells us that Hejira is more popular today than Hissing. It tells us that Blue is the most popular of Mitchells original albums, followed by a close grouping of Hejira, Court, and Ladies, all of which have ranks within about 800 places of each other (around #2000). Hissing is next, but is ranked in the 8,000s overall. Obviously a cheap argument, but in this case the public is right.
― Vornado, Thursday, 26 May 2005 23:51 (nineteen years ago) link
― A Viking of Some Note (Andrew Thames), Friday, 27 May 2005 01:51 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Emancipation of Baaderonixx (KERERU 4 LIFE!) (Fabfunk), Friday, 27 May 2005 06:32 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Emancipation of Baaderonixx (KERERU 4 LIFE!) (Fabfunk), Friday, 27 May 2005 11:32 (nineteen years ago) link
I love the most decadent-sounding tracks best, and the way they're married to lyrics of stasis and boredom - the title track and 'Harry's House/Centrepiece'.
― The Lex (The Lex), Friday, 27 May 2005 11:36 (nineteen years ago) link
― Masked Gazza, Friday, 27 May 2005 11:41 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Emancipation of Baaderonixx (KERERU 4 LIFE!) (Fabfunk), Friday, 27 May 2005 11:44 (nineteen years ago) link
To illustrate, I think the following, sung over loops of African drumming with occasional throaty yells, is a somewhat embarassingly Heart of Darkness in its association of Africa with The Primal, The Lawless, The Primitive, etc., in contrast to repressed Civilized white people in New York:
The jungle line, the jungle lineScreaming in a ritual of sound and timeFloating, drifting on the air-conditioned windAnd drooling for a taste of something smuggled inPretty women funneled through valves and smokeCoy and bitchy, wild and fineAnd charging elephants and chanting slaving boatsCharging, chanting down the jungle line
Which is not to say I don't respond to it (as I do to Conrad, or to Riefenstahl), or that I don't think it's a pretty good, subtle lyric, especially in the parallels it draws between Henri Rousseau's painting and jazz and (implicitly) Mitchell's own music. And the drumming is very cool, and this was to my knowledge the first significant use of a looped sample in pop music. When it came out, this was my favorite song on Hissing, for sure, although even then I thought it went a couple of clicks beyond good taste. My reference to Riefenstahl above is pertinent; when Hissing first appeared, the exhibition and then publication of Leni Riefenstahl's The People of Kau had made a huge splash and provoked a lot of debate about the representation of Africans in Western art. Whether or not Mitchell was consciously influenced by Riefenstahl when she did "Jungle Line" (maybe so, maybe no), I thought and think that there is a fair amount of Riefenstahl's aesthetic in that song. Which makes me ambivalent -- not condemnatory, ambivalent.
― Vornado, Friday, 27 May 2005 12:42 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Emancipation of Baaderonixx (KERERU 4 LIFE!) (Fabfunk), Friday, 27 May 2005 12:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― Vornado, Friday, 27 May 2005 14:15 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Emancipation of Baaderonixx (KERERU 4 LIFE!) (Fabfunk), Friday, 27 May 2005 14:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Friday, 27 May 2005 14:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 27 May 2005 14:56 (nineteen years ago) link
There's a lot of songs on the album that set up an idealisation/reality split, where the music is at least nominally on the side of the idealisation.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 27 May 2005 15:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 27 May 2005 15:15 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Friday, 27 May 2005 15:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 27 May 2005 15:25 (nineteen years ago) link
― Will Elliott, Tuesday, 18 October 2005 19:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 20:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 20:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 21:53 (eighteen years ago) link
Hejira is also my favorite. 'Coyote' may be my favorite Joni Mitchell song. Jaco's bassline is something else on that tune.
― Earl Nash (earlnash), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 22:51 (eighteen years ago) link
I took her to a hockey game, too.
Yeah.
Good times.
― M. V. (M.V.), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 01:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 02:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― Baaderonixx weaves a daisy chain for... SATAN!! (baaderonixx), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 16:25 (eighteen years ago) link
I've been listening to Court & Spark most lately, actually. I only pull out Hejira for special occasions, when I really need it.
― derrick (derrick), Wednesday, 21 December 2005 01:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Baaderonixx weaves a daisy chain for... SATAN!! (baaderonixx), Wednesday, 21 December 2005 10:35 (eighteen years ago) link
Having said that, didn't Joni have some erotic obsession with black men in the 1980s or something?
Don't forget, however, that we're talking about an album which is 30+ years old now. A lot's gone on in that time - and we can't really retrospectively apply the values we have today.
The Hissing Of Summer Lawns is a wonderful album, though. It ended up, along with Saint Etienne's last one, being the soundtrack to Summer 2005 for me. Her evocation of West Coast America contrasted with suburbia in Harry's House is intoxicating. And anyone who's had an affair with a 'free-thinking' bastard will relate directly to Don't Interrupt The Sorrow.
― klee (klee), Wednesday, 21 December 2005 10:39 (eighteen years ago) link
Put me down as a huge fan of [i]Hejira[/i] who needs to get [i]Hissing of Summer Lawns[/i] on cd after not having heard it for years. The box set of her 80's Geffen albums is endlessly fascinating. I forgot how good [i]Dog Eat Dog[/i] is. Surely "The Three Great Stimulants" is one of her best late career songs.
William
― WB, Saturday, 14 January 2006 16:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 14 January 2006 16:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 2 February 2006 23:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 2 February 2006 23:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 2 February 2006 23:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 3 February 2006 00:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Friday, 3 February 2006 00:14 (eighteen years ago) link
I think Hejira has some of the most well-crafted, evocative, etc. etc. etc., lyrics of any record I could name. Hissing of Summer Lawns is elliptical and inscrutable and disillusioned in the best possible way, but her narrative powers were at their absolute peak on Hejira, imho. It's had a huge influence not just on my own writing, but on the way I've processed events in my own life.
And in contrast to Hurting, above, I absolutely love the way it sounds - sparse, wintry, bell-clear. It's a gorgeous, timeless record, one of my top five of all time.
― Myke. (Myke Weiskopf), Friday, 3 February 2006 00:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 3 February 2006 00:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― Vornado, Friday, 3 February 2006 00:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 3 February 2006 01:22 (eighteen years ago) link
C&S has pretty great high points (title track! Trouble Child!) but there are some fillers and it somehow lacks the cohesiveness of the two following albums.
― Baaderonixx, born again in Xixax (baaderonixx), Friday, 3 February 2006 08:57 (eighteen years ago) link
Ironically, for all the talk of Hissing's arty inscrutability she was much better on that album at matching complex lyric and melody, and Hejira simply circumvents the problem by mostly jettisoning choruses. I actually consider For The Roses and Court & Spark to be Joni's "difficult" growing pains albums, and the subsequent two albums to be much more fully realised and comfortable-sounding.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 3 February 2006 10:01 (eighteen years ago) link
That's why I love it. There are refrains in these songs - The "white lines on the freeway" section of "Coyote"; "Amelia, it was just a false alarm" - but they're narratives, art-songs, not as beholden to a "pop" formula. It taught me so much when I was a kid about what a song can consist of. Mark Eitzel is one of the few songwriters who comes close to Joni's work in this form; for some reason, I find it much more intriguing than feeling shoehorned (to borrow your word) into the standard verse/chorus/verse formula.
I agree with Tim 99%, although I admit to being charmed in a hokey way by the "energetic flapping" of "Raised on Robbery". And, yes, the form of Court and Spark is a marvel - that middle stretch through to "Trouble Child" is hard to beat.
"Twisted" just shoots the plane right down, though. What was she thinking...
― Myke. (Myke Weiskopf), Friday, 3 February 2006 12:21 (eighteen years ago) link
Whereas the more complex, visually arresting stuff always comes once, so you're struggling to absorb it even as it fades from hearing (the title track especially, lyricism as exquisite bloodletting)
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 3 February 2006 12:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 3 February 2006 12:40 (eighteen years ago) link
Even with "Just Like This Train" and the title song and "Down to You"?
I actually consider For The Roses and Court & Spark to be Joni's "difficult" growing pains albums, and the subsequent two albums to be much more fully realised and comfortable-sounding.
This is very OTM, regarding For The Roses, which is never mentioned much even though "Barandgrill" and "Electricity" and of course "You Turn Me On (I'm A Radio) [an even better pop song than "Help Me"].
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 3 February 2006 13:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Baaderonixx, born again in Xixax (baaderonixx), Friday, 3 February 2006 14:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― Anne, Sunday, 23 April 2006 18:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 23 April 2006 20:22 (eighteen years ago) link
Is anyone able to describe the differences with the new remixed version on that compilation she released last year? I haven't heard it.
― milton parker (Jon L), Monday, 24 April 2006 01:39 (eighteen years ago) link