Something lost and something gained

The few hours of daylight have slipped away, and there are things that need doing before I sleep. 

 

I'll leave you with this. 

One star at a time

On the eve of the 150th anniversary of Confederation, Canadians are taking to social media to argue about "the most Canadian song". Well, I've answered this question on the blog, and naturally it's a Tragically Hip song.

But CBC Music decided to ask which was most Canadian: "A Case of You" by Joni Mitchell, or "Bobcaygeon" by the Hip.

I happen to think that "Bobcaygeon" is an Ontarian song; to me, it's all about cottage country, and that's always been out of my reach. Ontarians, bless 'em, think that Ontario is Canada. Some Hip fan told me to "STFU", and a Joni Mitchell fan remonstrated gently with him, saying his response "wasn't very Canadian".

Well, you don't tangle with Hip fans, to whom "Bobcaygeon" is practically a hymn, and I know that the song speaks to a lot of people, some of whom may not even be from Ontario.

Here's a current Canadian song. I don't think it's the most Canadian song ever, but when I hear it, I will think of the spring of 2017. I probably like it because the band is British Columbian, so their music speaks to me.

It's certainly not a hymn either; I apologize in advance for the "F" and "S" bombs - which, come to think of it, is rather Canadian of me.

Feeling like an ash hole

I'm eating cold sausages and bacon rashers left over from last night's pancake feast. Ash Wednesday today, so the Resident Fan Boy will give up coffee for the next forty days and compound his sacrifice by making coffee for me after dinner. This evening, if the weather is not treacherous, he will take the dried out fronds of the palm leaves that have been stuck behind a picture frame above the computer and get smudged with the ashes at church.

In the meantime, I climb the hill to younger daughter's school, trying to take arty pictures of February devastation.As I bring younger daughter to her locker, I take the opportunity to congratulate Guardian Angel on her award.
"What award?"
"The book review award."
"I won an award?"
At this point Russian Prodigy, a rather nasty piece of work who has been known to speak to younger daughter as if she's an imbecile when people are watching and stuff snow into her boots when they're not, appears from nowhere, fixes me with an alarmed stare and declares: "She's not supposed to know! We were told not to tell her!"
I return her stare and say: "But the parents got an email about it yesterday! There was nothing in it about it being a surprise!" Indeed, the lengthy and rather poorly punctuated message had appeared on my monitor the previous morning. Why on earth would they send such a notice and try to surprised the recipients more than 24 hours later? All the same, I leave the school under a cloud, and feeling rather upset and disgruntled, am halfway home before I remember I was wanting to take pictures of the stuff I missed en route to school.

While I'm snapping, I see a regular on my street, a book under one arm and her trusty dachshund under the other. It's a mystery, of course. The book, that is.
"They end well," she shrugs apologetically. "That's why I like 'em, I guess."
"Yes," I say, being a P.D. James fan and of not much else in that genre, "Justice prevails."

I wind up in the coffee shop to scribble and sort. I'm re-examining two of my favourite books about writing, both by Henriette Anne Klauser: Writing on Both Sides of the Brain and Put Your Heart on Paper. She's since come out with two more books and all are available at my library. A guy in one of the booths making business calls is intrigued and asks if I'm a writer. "Not for money," I smile ruefully. I've just read in one of the books: "The difference between a writer and an author is Page 53."

The coffee shop seems to be tuned to an easy-listening satellite station this morning; they're playing The Carpenters and that ghastly "I Am Your Lady" song from the Eighties, which would easily make the Songs I Loathe list. Before I'm driven out, though, a James Taylor ditty that I do like comes on (I don't like all of James Taylor's stuff, but he did write some lovely songs), and it just happens to be another one of the songs Launchcast sent me when I first began listening to my station. Here's the video for it, and check out who's singing back-up! Feeling a little less ashen, I make my way into the salty morning.

This will be my last Joni Mitchell post (for now)

Some songs (this applies to plays too, I guess) are a kind of litmus test. I'm thinking of the memorial concert at Wembley for Freddie Mercury in April 1992 where various artists performed those dramatic, epic, operatic Queen songs and the wheat was separated from the chaff. (Biggest surprise: George Michael's fabulous performance of "Someone to Love". I don't care for the man's music, but man, has he got the pipes...)

The songs of Joni Mitchell have a similar effect on singers. With emotionally complex lyrics and intricate melodies, these are not that easy to sing. While I'll take Joni performing her own stuff in most cases, there are singers of enormous talent who can redeem a song I've overlooked and/or not particularly cared for, or reveal a whole new universe in an old favourite. Here are three of my preferred Joni Mitchell covers:

1. "Ladies of the Canyon" - I don't dislike this song; I've just never particularly liked it. It's a bit cute and hippy-dippy, to my mind. Then, last year, I was ambushed by Annie Lennox's version:

Holy cow.

2. "The Magdalene Laundries" - Never paid much attention to this until I heard Emmylou Harris. (Actually, Emmylou Harris seems to improves most songs.) Can't find the whole version of this, but you can hear a snippet here and compare it with Joni's original, if you like. Christy Moore's version ain't half-bad either.

3. I've always loved "Carey", but oh my gawd, listen to where Cyndi Lauper takes it. (And she took it right in front of Joni Mitchell herself; the woman's got guts!):
Now, obviously, the band is fabulous, but don't those back up singers do a gorgeous and subtle job?

I've wondered whether to drop this without mentioning "A Case of You". I don't think I can. There are other Joni Mitchell songs that have more to do with my personal history, but this has to be the very best song she ever wrote. Many, many fine covers have been done of it, most of which you find on YouTube and elsewhere: kd lang's, Tori Amos's, and Allison Crowe's are among the best, but this is one that really belongs to the woman herself. Her original luminous recording from the album Blue is up on YouTube, along with a lovely live recording from the early 70's with James Taylor (commenters there are claiming a romantic liaison with him, which is the first I've heard of it), but here is a gentle 1983 Wembley performance:
...and this is a good place to shut up....

Grown-up Sex

Among my pet peeves is the use of the word "adult" to describe anything with sex in it. These means a whole range of movies, books and songs aimed at an adolescent mind-set (and by this I mean, overly concerned with sex and the body in general) are grouped under the heading "adult" which no longer means "a person having reached the age of reason".

This is not to downplay, minimalize or even diss sex. But how about sex for grown-ups? And more specifically, sex for grown-up women? (Because, truth to tell, sex for grown-up men sounds an awful lot like adolescent sex, doesn't it? Or am I being vastly unfair?) As an antidote to ditties about hotness, lollipops, muffins, whatever, I intended to offer yet another Joni Mitchell song: "Come in from the Cold", from the 1991 album Night Ride Home It's about connection, uncertainty, and by golly, it's about sex, but it's a grown-up woman talking about sex. Up until today, they had a lovely version of the video released with this song, but it's been withdrawn to a "copyright claim by a third party", and the other two versions on YouTube are mysteriously silent. I may check in and embed in a few days.

In the meantime, if you want to hear a woman's rather less reflective take on sex, may I suggest one of my personal favourites Right Hand Man by Joan Osborne (to which I can link, but not embed)? There's been several claims that this song is about masturbation, but I say, bosh. Why would she be asking to borrow a toothbrush and clean shirt? And (let me stress this is a rhetorical question), how many people walk differently after masturbation? I think this lady's been busy with a partner...

A third helping of Joni Mitchell

With Christmas closing in like a ravenous wolf, I have reverted to my time-honoured method of keeping on-track and am accounting for the various blocks of time in my notebook as I move jerkily through my day. Right now, my notes inform me that I have spent the last fifty-one minutes surfing (there's yer problem!), so glancing at my to-do list, I've decided to ignore it for the sake of another Joni Mitchell post. And no, it won't be "River", because everyone knows that one...

Today, I'd like to draw your attention to a very early song of hers, from her album Clouds which contains two very famous songs: "Both Sides Now" and "Chelsea Morning", as well as the not-quite-so-famous "The Gallery". Our Joni had a rich and varied love-life, and this sounds like one of her more famous lovers being indicted here. (Leonard Cohen is a possible suspect; they are supposed to have been briefly involved around 1967.) But it hardly matters. This is a beautiful meandering melody with, as usual, clever and wry lyrics. Here she is, singing it on the Johnny Cash Show, probably in 1969, by which time she was living with Graham Nash (not that that matters either):

Railing against the tireless watcher

2005 was not a great year. In fact, I would join with Lucy Van Pelt of the comic strip Peanuts in declaring that I had been stuck with a "used year". That February, I saw a television special called From Time to Time. It was a suite of six dances, all set to Joni Mitchell songs. The fifth of these was called "Neighbourhood Suite" and was set to "Sire of Sorrow", a song that I had not heard until then, probably because at the time the album "Turbulent Indigo" came out, I had one small child and was expecting another. The song haunted me for days after the television show, particularly its chorus: O you tireless watcher, what have I done to you, that you make everything I dread and everything I fear come true? In fact, one winter morning, as I was accompanying younger daughter to school from a speech therapy appointment, I was so mesmerized by that song playing in my head that I missed our Transitway stop and ended up way out in Orleans, having to find our way back.

The song is meant to be Job, railing at God from his ash pit, where he has retreated, covered with sores, having lost everything including his children. His neighbours come down to the edge of the pit to offer advice and to suggest what he may have done to tick God off. (Not helpful.) Eventually God himself shows up, only to ask: Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? (Actually not terribly helpful, either.) Job is eventually relieved of his suffering and gets to have more kids, but the scholars aren't kidding when they say Job is one of the more problematic stories of the Bible.

The first person voice in "Sire of Sorrow" is for me, however, unmistakeably that of a woman, which is why this song gets me where I live. Besides, 2008 is showing all the hallmarks of being a "used year". Here's a YouTube video that furnishes the lyrics:

Hades freezes over

Winter has been playing cat-and-mouse with us this past week, filling up the streets with March-like muddy slush, and alternating between rain and snow. Rude behaviour from a season which isn't supposed to officially arrive until the solstice in a month's time. However, sometime around Hump Day, it pounced and the snow remained on the sidewalks, roofs and trees. Ottawans now retreat into their drab winter gear: navy blue, olive green, dirt brown, and dead black, with only the occasional flash of red. Long forgotten muscles ache in my legs as I try to get used to trudging around in boots again. We're in for this for the next six months.

Everything feels like a set-back at this time of year and I'm in rather a Joni Mitchell mood. Trust a girl from Saskatoon to get the feeling right. Here's an earlyish song of hers, "Urge for Going", sung on the old Oscar Brand show "Let's Sing Out", circa 1968:
Gosh, she was young then, and hadn't adopted her unmistakable vocal style quite yet. Oscar Brand is the fella seated to her right, and was very well-known in Canada, particularly for his song "Something to Sing About" which darn near supplanted "O Canada" as the national anthem, at least among folkies and around the campfire. (He also recorded a couple of albums of filthy traditional songs, but never mind....)