TS: Joni Mitchell - 'Hissing of Summer Lawns' vs 'Hejira'

I'm not so sure. To me it feels more like an offhand dismissal of hipsterism as a solution to the dullness she describes in the rest of the album ("Jungle Line" could also be seen as such), or at least as a universal one. Neither attitutes, street hipness or glamorous frivolity, would work, if they don't stem from the person inside (70's belief in self-development and all...).
What's interesting in the song is that she doesn't really know herself what exactly would be the path for her. There's some doubt, and maybe some envy, when she dismisses her friend's obscurity as something for her.

uh no way. the lyrics and the music are intertwined anyway. summerlawns works here to, ah, whats that when the sum is greater than the parts? hejira is all parts. and rhythmically? lawns has jungle line. and centrpiece. and shadows and light.

Having to choose between her two best albums, I will go for "Summer Lawns", for its more varied sound. On "Hejira" that chorus guitar becomes a bit weary on you after having been used on every single track.

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...) (webmail), February 16th, 2004 4:27 PM. (GeirHong) (link)

vs.

I prefer "Summer Lawns" for its somewhat more varied production. "Hejira" has interesting songs too, but you do get tired of that chorus guitar after having listened to it for an entire album.

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...) (webmail), June 11th, 2004 4:12 AM. (GeirHong) (later) (link)

Stand by the lyrics bit - Summer Lawns has the rather enjoyable but trite morass of its title track to answer for. Hejira leads off with one of J.M.'s best lyrics EVAH. For me Hejira is second only to Blue.

NB I used to really represent hard for Summer Lawns but then I joined the Hejira cult

I think the lyrics on Hissing are generally pretty great, and they're often very powerful because - under the sumptuous imagery - they're pretty pointed. But I think she was mainly
working with tighter song structures on that album so there's nothing as, yeah, decadent as "Song For Sharon" or "Hejira" or "Amelia". I half-agree with Geir that the basic sound of Hejira is very repetitive (or, rather, consistent), but I happen to love its sound so I don't mind at all.

at the time it exerted a powerfully strange hold over me. and even now i cannot hear it any other way - it may be pretentious - certainly my love of it is grounded in mystery.

court and spark passed me by somehow. have to rehear that.

(shameful middle class admission: joni was the first "intelligent" woman i ever heard say "fuck")

Just listened to Hejira in the car driving to Kamloops; it still wins for me. One of my very favourite albums every released.

Joni's getting a little shameless with the repackaging, however; two new comps of old material out this fall, one an oddly-paced 'best-of' and the other a self-determined collection of 'political songs'. They're handsomely packaged with her paintings and all, but is this really necessary?

Perhaps Blue has to hit you all at once. It hit me when I was 14 or so, and I can't be objective about it.

If I needed a second I'd sooner look to Ladies of the Canyon or even Both Sides Now.

Further proof that Joan Didion and Joni Mitchell are actually the same person.

Some day we will have to have a thread about author/musician doppelganginess like that.

These two women are so closely linked in my mind that they shall ne'er be separated.

evoke rooms with heavy curtains shielding them from the harsh mid afternoon California sun...

Nice one. That's what I really love about Joni's music. I need to check out Didion's stuff (I only read "Slouching..." so far)

i really like "the jungle line." i don't know about the title track.

i've been listening to a lot of joni lately. i'm venturing, tentatively, into her 80s and 90s stuff. i'm not sure what i think, yet.

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.