I always think of "Song For Sharon" as the centerpiece, if you will, of this album. It is pretty straightforward, eschewing, as usual for this album, any choruses or typical songwriting structure at all, and like a long road just lays out a story. It does seem a little too "trad" for a boho like Joni, yet it's understandable that these feelings and desires would still be there under the protective layer of "artiste". It also features what we've come to expect from Joni, and that is vividly drawn images and scenarios that set the scene so well. It's a beautiful tone poem, languid and luxurious, not rushing to finish or leave us wanting more-it's an understated masterpiece, a beautiful conversation, and easily one of her best.
Okay, I am home and have my book in front of me. Here is the excerpt in question, from page 230 of David Yaffe's Reckless Daughter (U.S. hardcover, first edition). I have placed in bold those sentences which began this discussion: "Max Bennett played bass on Furry Sings the Blues and Song for Sharon, as sturdy, precise and empathetic as ever. He and Pastorius never saw each other in the studio at all, and Bennett was feeling so alienated from Joni, he never even owned the album. Larry Carlton played guitar on five songs--Coyote, Amelia, A Strange Boy, Blue Motel Room and Black Crow--and he overdubbed his parts, with Joni just telling him, 'Play what you feel.' The same year, Carlton played on Steely Dan's The Royal Scam--including a legendary solo on Kid Charlemagne--where he showed off rock theatrics and sophisticated understanding of jazz chord changes at the same time. Carlton's parts are memorable: lyrical on Amelia, aggressive on A Strange Boy, sophisticated and harsh on Black Crow. He saw neither Bennett nor Pastorius. He played by day, they played by night. Joni was sufficiently self-possessed, her sidemen could each work independently on overdubs." In the notes/bibliography section at the end, Yaffe says of the chapter in which this appears (21, 'Crazy Wisdom'): "This chapter draws on interviews with Joni Mitchell, Robben Ford, and Sharon Bell Veer conducted in the years 2013 and 2015." I have no other information about where the insights come from.
Hi and thanks for replying. My friend is going through a tough time, so I forgive him for his grumpiness. Mostly, his wife will have to deal with him for a while. As far as his attitude towards discussion of drug use in the book, it's not one I share. I'm not terribly interested in tales of drug use, but they don't bother me, and I think that if it's relevant, then it's fair game for discussion. Further, if Yaffe had completely omitted talk of Joni's drug use, then he would be guilty of dereliction of duty as a journalist. After all, Joni herself mentions "...pills and powders to get them through this passion play..." and "...fine white lines..." in Coyote. It was the 70s; drugs were just part of the "scene" at the time. I only mentioned my friend's aggravation with the repeated drug references because after he found and read the passage dealing with the recording of Hejira, and was ticked off that it didn't match what I'd told him, I passed along to him the hope that he'd at least enjoy the rest of the book, which was when he mentioned he wasn't going to read the thing for the reason related to talk of drug use. He does like reading musician biographies -- he liked the Graham Nash book, he was disgusted with the Eric Clapton autobiography, he's read several others, so you would think he'd be used to drug references and be able to pass over them, but... Also, my friend complained that Yaffe says in the book that Mitchell first heard about Jaco from Robben Ford, and that conflicts with what Joni Mitchell says in the film Jaco (which I haven't seen, but my friend has). So he's pissed off at the book, and by extension, me. He'll settle down. I'll see him again in a couple of months, and hopefully he'll be feeling better by then.
Ok, ya, it's coming back to me now... Renaldo and Clara, hoo boy, no wonder Shepard ran away back to his ranch. What'd it sell, like 100 copies?
Of course. That's why it was published 5 times -- to sell another 20 copies. Er... 6 times. So it must have sold at least 120 copies.
I think the power of Song for Sharon is almost overwhelming, where she take successive verses and adds more and more to the narrative. So what starts out as a contrast between the life her friend lived staying in Saskatoon and where she ended up pursuing a career became so much more... And with that she can stage a dialectic between the childhood yearnings they had and the realities of their adult lives... Which creates a universal poignancy. Another thing I find fascinating is that this seems like one of her few 'New York' songs, with much of the action taking place while she's doing things in the big apple. In case the reference to 'Buy myself a mandolin' is lost on anyone, you can check out the footnotes on the JM website: Joni Mitchell - Song For Sharon - lyrics PS I always wonder what the 'diamond snake' is, she has wrapped around her arm...
Little to add to what everyone else has said about Song for Sharon, but I will say that there isn't an ounce of fat on it, so to speak. It may be a long song but it's a journey that we're engaged in, as if we are sitting in the front seat beside her as she plays tic tac toe with those big 18 wheelers.
I love Song for Sharon. I was taken the first time I heard it. I do understand why a few people have called it cool and detached, but I still think it works. Joni is encountering things in the city but her mind is elsewhere, with Sharon back home in Canada. There is certainly detachment yet the things on her mind are extremely personal and emotional - love, marriage, childhood dreams. I think that is an interesting tension and it keeps things from getting overly sentimental this way. Like with the other songs on the album there is a feeling of going through the motions while being lost in your thoughts. And that feeling I think is very relatable, even if the exact events are not. It's amazing how effectively she can evoke a mood, a frame of mind. The minimalist, repetitive music does the same.
I got to thinking about the lost art of letter writing today. I was particularly voluminous myself, especially after procuring a typewriter to save my correspondents from my chicken scratch handwriting - guess I wanted to get my money's worth on postage (which was 13 cents when Hejira came out). So I'm particularly pleased by "Song For Sharon" and the mere idea that an insanely creative schoolmate would years later be inspired to send such a missive out to the world at large. How easy it was back then for us who moved a lot to lose contact with those kindred spirits and pleasant company we'd left behind, and how difficult it often was to restore a link when they came to mind. But that all seems so quaint as I gaze at this device that connects me to the world and potentially anyone in it, something only the visionaries could imagine 42 years ago. Nowadays you don't need a record deal to let the world in on your musings, but you do still need to be insanely talented to hold someone's rapt attention for 8 minutes with no choruses.
Nice! Y’all are on fire - I can’t add much Except just to say that I believe the background singers are all Joni, multitracked And that this song to this day reminds me of a brief but very intense relationship with someone I wish I had treated a whole lot better. I mean we clearly did not have staying power but I regret that I was really confused and vulnerable at the time and as many young men do in such situations I basically cut and run. Ugh. Not proud of that in the least but that is the way it was. Anyway this was during med school and we regularly skipped class during the peak of our “possessive coupling” to lounge and listen to HEJIRA - which I AM proud to say I introduced her to - and a few other fave albums of the period - Robyn Hitchcock’s GLOBE OF FROGS and Game Theory’s LOLITA NATION, Replacements TIM, a few others. An odd time but some nice memories mixed in with some cringe-worthy moments (all on me). I distinctly remember her being particularly taken by “Song For Sharon” and “Refuge of the Road” the bookending lengthy and hypnotic masterpieces on side 2 - which we nigh on wore out on vinyl. Sorry if that is TMI but Joni’s music is so vivid it just instantly takes me back to very specific associations like this. I have similar fond memories of first hearing and becoming obsessed with WILD THINGS RUN FAST with my future wife just before we started dating and it was a vivid backdrop to the courting. I remember driving home on cloud 9 savoring another listen to the sublime opener “Chinese Cafe” on the car cassette player. Joni often gets pigeonholed as being intellectual, cold even, but I find a lot of her work is indescribably sensual. Something about the openness is appealing - a vulnerability but without weakness or dependency, not clingy. I think a lot of men (and for all I know women) respond to that. Song for Sharon perfectly captures that “strong vulnerability.”
I agree entirely. The entire album is filled with lines or snatches of lyrics that have been profoundly influencing and comforting to me over the years, but I particularly love the almost throwaway line in "Furry Sings The Blues" "time and other thieves". I had never heard time referred to as a "thief" before hearing this song when I was in my middle school years and it has stayed with me for the past 40 years.
There are so many layers to this song, it can be breathtaking. I'm not sure it is the best track on the album - sometimes I think it is, and then songs like "Amelia", "Furry Sings the Blues", "Hejira", and "Refuge of the Roads" wave at me. Sometimes I think it may be the best song Joni ever wrote. In the third verse (there is no chorus, so I guess they are still called verses -- or perhaps stanzas?), I love the way she leads you in with the airy-fairy typical hippie story about visiting the gypsy on Bleecker Street (fat chance there'd be one there today) and then cuts through it with the cold calculus of the price it exacted in physical legal tender. I always took the line "to face the dream's malfunction" as being both a commentary on the end of her love relationship and the state of America in that bicentennial year, given that 1976 New York City was a pretty miserable place - dirty, crime-ridden, fiscally ruined, etc. Lastly, the lines "it seems we all live so close to that line and so far from satisfaction" have provided solace on many occasions over the years. A remarkable song.
There’s a gulf between our perspectives here, Henry. I do feel there are elements of humility. Re-reading the lyrics now, I do see four or five sections she where she describes herself as foolish, unlucky, self-centered, stuck in adolescent fantasies, etc. Maybe some of that is more self-critical than humble but, I just never saw this the way you did. And at least two people described this one as cold or detached…I don’t get that at all, either. (Actually, I can be a little cold and detached though...maybe because of that, nothing seems amiss in the song.) I expected Hejira to get a lukewarm response and thought Sharon would be lauded by everyone here, but it’s been the other way around. (My first draft about Hejira actually actually had some fairly harsh criticisms, But when I realized how strongly others felt about it, I figured that I just didn’t get it or that it’s strengths eluded me, plus I was afraid of upsetting people, so I re-wrote it.) It’s strange how long time fans here have totally different reactions to some of these songs. It goes beyond likes and dislikes…our interpretations and gut-level reactions have been opposite at times. I’m a little surprised.
Our 'little community project' as I presumptuously referred to it on one of the earlier threads, (actually, it's PW's gift to a community that didn't really know it existed) has been the source of huge pleasures for me. To stretch the analogy to beyond breaking point, the project's milestones have been set and goals met spectacularly well. There's barely been any conflict, very much against my expectations and experience from other forums, and I really think we haven't been treading on eggshells to achieve this; more, most of us have found something very valuable in 90% of the posts made. Long may that run. That said, I think 90% of the Sharon posts have been more positive than mine so I don't see how you sense there's been a lukewarm reaction to the song. I would have been really interested to read your preliminary comments on the album by the way.
Thanks Henry and I totally agree about quality and politeness of the replies to these threads. It's been amazing, really. On these forums it's a rare gift to be able to totally disagree on things with no hard feelings. In the post above, the preliminary comments I mentioned were about Hejira the song. I've always been crazy about the album overall, though after looking at it closely again this week, some things bother me now. (I went over that in recent posts, no need to re-hash.) It seemed that several here were not fully enthusiastic about Sharon, but I'm not sure. Too late to add a poll to this thread?
^^ Please no polls. Leave polls to poll threads. Polls are a great way to reduce everything to numbers, and that's the last thing we want here. The best way to determine the feeling of SHF members about this particular song is to read their comments about it.
Well put, SW. "Song For Sharon" is vividly drawn and poetically descriptive. As a visual artist I see in my mind's eye pictures of what I read, or hear in song, and Joni paints an amazing and vivd landscape of her youth, travels, dreams and disappointments beautifully...the same way your Dali painting avatar shows an artist's imaginings and dreams most vividly. A favorite by Dali - love it. And a favorite by Joni. The best way to describe "Song For Sharon" and the whole of Hejira is: a masterful painting in song. ...and I agree with "bob". PLEASE no polls here! I particularly dislike those "your-favorite-song(s)" elimination polls. Just a genuine appreciation-thread for Joni here.
This might have been mentinoed by someone else, but on "Coyote" it's not really that's there's a relative absence of percussion. The percussion is very prominent and propulsive. It's just that it's a Latin approach to percussion, not the drumset approach that folks are used to.
Good point. One of the most percussive albums ever is John Mayall's 1969 "Turning Point". A groundbreaker for him in that Mayall completely eliminated a drummer for this live tour. Yet the recorded live album is very percussion oriented. At first the listener doesn't even realize there is no drummer, the rhythm is so strong. It doesn't take a drummer to create a compelling rhythm....just a talent like Joni or John to pull it off.
Not to worry, everyone: no polls, no voting. These threads are all about the discussion, and everyone has blown me away with their contributions. Our "community project" as Henry says! Next: Track 7: "Black Crow" BLACK CROW Bass Jaco Pastorius Rhythm guitar Mitchell Lead guitar Larry Carlton Lyrical Excerpt: In search of love and music My whole life has been Illumination Corruption And diving diving diving diving Diving down to pick up on every shiny thing Just like that black crow flying In a blue sky Complete Lyrics at Joni Mitchell's Official Site "Black Crow"'s lyrics deal with the practical difficulty for Mitchell of traveling from her second home on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast.[10]
