Joni Mitchell: "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter" Song by Song Thread

I don't think Cotton Avenue is a real place. I have never thought of it as such. More like a state of mind where we can all head. The name to me always seemed selected to draw from the history of the American South and cotton plantations, and the sad history of African-Americans.

I meant obtuse as defined "difficult to understand."

Yes, I found myself gritting my teeth at some of the negative reviews of the album when I was reading them this morning. So often, they seemed focused on what the album *wasn't* (another Blue or Court and Spark) rather than what it was actually offering. The burden of expectation. It has dogged many of the all-time great artists.

And I agree with everyone about Art Nouveau. A rare false step for Joni and it has aged absolutely terribly. And I know she has great respect for African-Americans and that makes it all the more jarring and awful.

I do like her character with the top hat and wide-armed grin on the cover. That image suits the wild music quite well.

 

Oh come on... her Art Nouveau character was innocent fun. Who exactly did it offend, other than some hypersensitive white people? It was a costume she put together for a Halloween party at Guerin’s house. The funniest part is nobody recognized her and all those warm, welcoming, white Hollywood party people were actually nervous about this sketchy guy hanging out at their little get together. She pretty much exposed their hypocrisy.

Joni said later “I was the only black man at the party.”

 

We humans have a very powerful pattern matching apparatus under the hood. Ah! The blonde girl with the guitar who sang that pleasant song before will sing another pleasant song now!

It takes a lot of brainpower to learn how to disarm that thing and accept artists on their own terms. To brave going without the comfort of predictability.

But music is sooooo much more rewarding after you do.

 

... and then put it on millions of album covers.

 

... and?

 

And it was then out of the context of "harmless fun at a private party".

Can't speak for others, but my saying it's not cool isn't "hypersensitive". It's not clutching at pearls offense.

It's me saying "that's not cool". Because it's not.

 

Not cool how? Two posts ago you were saying it takes brainpower to learn how to “accept artists on their own terms,” and lamented those who refuse to give up the “comfort in predictability”. Again, who exactly was offended - or in your words “harmed” - and why?

 

I am neither hypersensitive nor white. If you fail to see how mimicry of others over their differences may be offensive to those others, I'm afraid that may say more about you than it does about Ms. Mitchell.

Blackface was not entertaining when Jolson did it in the 20s. It was not entertaining when Lucille Ball did it in the 50s. It was not entertaining when Mitchell did it in the 70s. It is not entertaining to have to explain that fact today.

It is the lowest form of mockery of people who are not present to defend themselves against said mockery. And until very recently those who were mocked could be strung up for defending themselves. See Emmett Till.

I really did not want to engage with you over your comment, but you persist in asserting no harm was done. Every misappropriation of the identity of someone else does harm. It is theft. It is a belittling of the weak by the powerful. And I refuse to stand by when my beautiful brown skinned children are mocked. Okay?

 

I can see that I need to pop in at this precise moment to steer the thread in a different direction.

"Overture/Cotton Avenue" is awesome. Jaco's bass at the 1:45 mark! I don't hear six overdubbed guitars or whatever, but maybe my ears ain't that good.

Now, I'll start hiding

Since others have talked about songs further down the road, I'll say that "Talk To Me" could be left off the album and it'd be better for it, and if you also omitted "Otis and Marlena" and "The Tenth World" you'd have a tight Hejira-ish sequel. IMO, "Otis and Marlena" ranks down there with "Shadows and Light" and "The Wolf That Lives in Lindsey" as the worst Joni songs of the '70s. The music on "O&M" is so boring that I don't care WHAT she's singing about. Where's that guy again.

 

Sorry to take even one moment's attention away from the awesome music.

As I mentioned earlier, I came home this evening to give the album a second listen. And damned if the dog didn't interrupt at the same point... Unlike our critics, as @Black_Thumb mentioned earlier, I must have been ready for a change, because I was gobsmacked by Overture/Cotton Avenue in 1978, and I continue to be today.

 

Get a grip Doc. Mitchell wasn’t “mocking” anybody. I think you are being hypersensitive and miss the whole point of what she was doing. BTW, I’m not white either ... as if matters.

 

So, I'll direct myself firstly to the album itself. Having bought it when it came out and after Hejira, the listener is left to wonder... Is this it? Today it may not strike someone the same way when albums easily fit onto a disc or are available for download. But at the time I remember feeling shortchanged. DJRD comes in under 60 minutes as a double album, whereas Hejira was over 52 minutes, and the sides of DJRD seemed really under-filled on record being between 14 and 16 minutes of music, including some padding (Tenth World anyone???). So yes, there were some great moments here but it was certainly not a cohesive package and seemed at the time to be more of an effort to put something out for the sake of putting something out. I'm not sure where JM was in her use of drugs at this point, but to me, there's a real sense of self indulgence here that I haven't noticed elsewhere in her work. And I think the Overture is a good case in point... Clearly she was entranced by the use of the studio to take simple musical elements and build them into something evocative, but this really seems like a case of 'more is less', or, I have a slight song and need to pad it out? Once we get to Cotton Avenue, the production redeems a simple song, but again... This is the person who just came off Hejira and writing about the clouds of Michelangelo now wanting to go to a danceclub?!?

 

If it doesn't matter, why did you specify that the offended parties were hypersensitive white people?


My apologies, everyone. I'm out of here.

 

SHF has a groovy PM system that I would kindly recommend to anyone who feels like they have to expound further upon the Art Nouveau matter.

Back to the music ... and tequila anacondas.

 

@Planbee come out from under that chair, the music sounds better if you do and you'll certainly be able to hear more guitars. Just play the music again and enjoy! Otherwise I think it will have to be guns at dawn again for us come the morrow

 

In the case of Cotton Avenue you are correct that Hejira's songs were written before it. But six of DJRD ten songs by my reckoning were written either long or shortly before the road trips.
You were not to know this of course, when you played the album back in 1977/8, which was what the bulk of your post referred to.
I personally also believe Hejira's music is less self-indulgent than our current subject's, but that you can turn that argument round 180° concerning the semantic threads and perspective of the lyrics.
Could it be time for a reappraisal of Don Juan, though?

 

Back to the music indeed.
At the end of Cotton Avenue we have one of Duke Ellington's pieces playing briefly in the background. I'm hearing strong train mimicry in the sound in the longest part we hear. I went digging and found this fascinating podcast on Duke's train songs put together by Gordon Vernick:

Duke Ellington's Train Songs
It might be one of the first pieces Gordon plays that I'm hearing echoes of: "Daybreak express" from 1933.

 

Impedance. And if you excuse the awful pun, this album is like Viagra for your rig.

 

What's that based on ?

 

Pre-Hejira release

Jericho live in 74
Dreamland (on Hissing demo tape)
Don Juan's RD both live on RTR first leg.

Talk to Me referred to by her as ready to play in Jan -Feb 76 Hissing tour and is about her and Dylan's strange relationship on the two tours.

These are speculative:

Silky Veils of Ardor is very strongly influenced by songs sung by Baez or Baez/Dylan on RTR.
Off night Backstreet is very specifically about events with Guerin prior to the road trip, but could have been written after the fact admittedly.


Post Hejira release

We know for sure Paprika Plains came to her slowly during 1977 directly during and after her break for medical treatment and Otis and Marlena references events in March 77.
Overture / Cotton Avenue stylistically fits the 1977 songs better than the 74-76 songs.
Tenth World needed Alex Acuña to inspire its creation, he wasn't in her circles until 1977.

 

[

Thanks.

Does that suggest she didn't write much between release of Hejira (November '76) and release of Mingus June '79 (just has 3 of her tracks).

No live performances either in '77, and just 4 in the second half of '78. Two in '79.

What happened ? Creative block ? Or was it the direct effect of needing a break to recover from her addiction ?

 

Really poor physical health in patches I believe. IIRC Mingus has more input from her than three songs but I take your point about writer's block, and a lot more painting than before.

 

And you have to wonder what her record contract was... Maybe she needed to get something out and the easiest solution was to look around and see what pieces she already had laying around? Certainly on all her prior records there were songs that had long gestations, or else material she held back waiting for the right time to release them... But DJRD seems to lack a cohesiveness which makes me wonder if it was more slapdash, like a combination of record company pressure plus where she was physically/mentally. Oh, and then there's the short timing... I wonder now how it was priced when it came out? Sometimes double albums were sold for less than the cost of two single albums, but I'm not sure if that applies here.

 

The way I see it the album was as long as she wanted it to be, putting it on a single disc would mean a half hour each side which would be poor fidelity and I think that was paramount. I would disagree about cohesive, I find it to have a nice flow...of course all this is opinion anyway

 

Next up:

Track 2: "Talk to Me"


TALK TO ME
Guitar and Vocal Joni Mitchell
Bass Jaco Pastorius

Lyrical Excerpt:
We could talk about Martha
We could talk about landscapes
I'm not above gossip
But I'll sit on a secret where honor is at stake
Or we could talk about power
About Jesus and Hitler and Howard Hughes
Or Charlie Chaplin's movies
Or Bergman's nordic blues
Please just talk to me
Any old theme you choose
Just come and talk to me
Mr. Mystery talk to me

Complete Lyrics at Joni Mitchell's Official Site


'Talk to Me' was written on the Rolling Thunder Revue tour regarding Joni's inability to bring Bob Dylan into the kinds of meaningful conversations she wanted to, due to his legendarily taciturn/mysterious nature.