Joni Mitchell: "Hejira" Song by Song Thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Parachute Woman, Oct 10, 2018.

  1. lschwart

    lschwart Senior Member

    Location:
    Richmond, VA
    I haven't read deeply in the literature about Mitchell, but I certainly got the impression from Malka Marom's collection of interviews with her that it was of central importance to her sense of her self and her art. And I certainly hear that in her work from Court and Spark on (and in particular, as you say, on the two records that follow Hejira), although it's there in more muted ways earlier, too.

    L.
     
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  2. Smiler

    Smiler Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston TX
    This is one of my favorite Joni songs. When I think of great poetic (but not abstruse) lyrics, "pawn shops glitter like gold tooth caps/in the gray decay they chew the last few dollars off old Beale Street's carcass" comes to mind, along with "cheap guitars, eye shades and guns/aimed at the hot blood of being no one/down and out in Memphis Tennessee." With a few lines she paints the image and tells the story -- of urban decay and poverty and the desperation that comes along with it. Yet the romantic in her can see the place in its heyday. Then, of course she gets to the decrepitude in Furry.

    Add me to the list of fans of Neil Young's harmonica work here. It blends in, gives moody background texture, not in-your-face like, say, Dylan's on "Blood on the Tracks" (there's nothing wrong with that, but it's rare to have harmonica used so subtly). And her singing... "There was one song he played I could reeaaaalllly feeeeel" -- she makes us feel it too.

    For Furry's sake, I do wish she had changed the name; after all, she never identified her lovers by name in her songs.

    When I first visited in Memphis, in the 90s, of course I had to visit Beale St. because of this song. I was pleased to see both Daisy theaters still standing. The area is touristy now, true, but that's better than torn down.
     
  3. qwerty

    qwerty A resident of the SH_Forums.

    Hejira is a lovely album, but musically my ear tends to enjoy Hissing a bit more.

    The cover is also superb. The strong centralised image of the highway leading to clouds on the horizon makes me wonder if this was inspiration for the cover of Jackson Brown's Running on Empty which came out the following year.

    [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
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  4. VU Master

    VU Master Senior Member

    I’m about to go revisionist and make myself a pariah here again. :hide:

    I'd been giving more thought to this song, and your post reinforced some things that were on my mind. Let me respond to your comments first, then I’ll get to the part that will annoy everybody.

    You wrote "...she's really crafted her message to a point of incredibly high refinement and art and it's couched in this wonderful and incredibly vivid imagery of Beale street and Furry and these (in some ways) dilettante musicians and fans who ostensibly come to "pay homage" (but really to catch a contact high and feel self-righteous and cool) that serves to keep the lyric from sounding too self-serving/pitying - and adds the other layer of race relations and exploited musicians of color from prior generations. By this point clearly Joni had absolutely NO illusions about the whims of fame and what "fandom" typically ends up meaning. I think in fact it is likely the case that in this wonderful little short film, Joni identifies most strongly with or "is" Furry, not one of the visitors (or, maybe, she's equal parts each).

    I’m not quite sure what you’re saying about dilettante musicians and fans who come to pay homage to exploited musicians. That absolutely does happen, and maybe it happened that day in Memphis, but I don’t understand why you say that Joni identifies with, or is, Furry. Isn’t she, in his eyes, another dilettante musician that comes to pay homage? He resents but tolerates the visit. So if she identifies with him, and has been on the receiving end of that downside of fame, why is she doing the same thing with him?

    I got onto this tangent after reading the quote in the Wikipedia article where Furry said "She shouldn't have used my name in no way, shape, form or faction without consultin' me 'bout it first. The woman came over here and I treated her right, just like I does everybody that comes over. She wanted to hear 'bout the old days, said it was for her own personal self, and I told it to her like it was, gave her straight oil from the can.” As I wrote in my earlier post, that troubled me.

    But then I read Planbee’s post that said "According to the Shadows and Light biography, from Elliot Roberts: "all Joni said about him was 'Furry sings the blues', the rest is about the neighborhood. She doesn't even mention his last name. She really enjoyed meeting him, and wrote about her impressions of the meeting. He did tell her that he didn't like her, but we can't pay him royalties for that. I don't pay royalties to everybody who says they don't like me. I'd go broke.”

    To me, that’s just very wrong. I realize that those words came not from Joni, but from her manager, but she was the one who made the decisions. If she really told Furry that the meeting was just a personal thing for herself, and later on decided to write a song about it for her next album, I think she should have contacted him first to reach some kind of agreement. I know that after a person agrees to an interview, the interviewer can write almost anything they like, but if Furry was told that her visit would be off the record (no pun intended!), I think she should have worked something out before using the encounter in a song, especially since it’s not very flattering to him.

    For his time, she gave him cigarettes and booze. What an irony! Here’s this blues man, a groundbreaking pioneer, who’s considered one of the inventors of rock and roll. He’s sickly now and nearly broke. It’s a stereotype, but a true one, that a lot of these guys were badly exploited, they made records that sold well, sometimes earning good profits for white record label owners. Sometimes they weren’t paid at all, but were just given bottles of liquor at the recording session. And now here’s Joni doing the exact same thing.

    And I’m struck by another irony. In Court And Spark, The Boho Dance is an indictment of successful artists who "go slumming”. And here’s Joni doing the exact same thing, right?

    After reading these things, I’m conflicted about this song. I still think it’s fabulously written and performed. Joni’s voice is fantastic. But it sounds like Mr. Lewis was exploited in the process. I don’t know how to reconcile that, and it takes something away from the song for me.

    So that’s two songs in a row that I like but “philosophy” gets in the way and in this case, it’s got nothing to do with the actual song. Maybe I have a bad attitude. Like I said earlier, these questions didn’t come up so much in the old days, when we just played the record and enjoyed it for what it was, without all the background info. On these forums I've sees a lot of debates about whether our feelings about the artist, or their reputation, or the making of a recording, should influence our enjoyment of the music. I have huge respect for Joni Mitchell and have hardly ever heard a bad word spoken about her, so I know this is a very marginal thing. But for me, enjoyment of the music is somewhat influenced by these things, not by choice, just by reaction. I'm curious to hear others' reactions.
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2018
  5. Sordel

    Sordel Forum Resident

    Location:
    Switzerland
    I hadn't considered this and it's a really good interpretation which fits very well with the album in general. What's especially neat about it is that it adds a lot of meaning to the song even if Mitchell herself was unconscious of it. I admired the lyric previously but I think you've pushed it into a new league for me.
     
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  6. VU Master

    VU Master Senior Member

    Wow...album covers separated at birth. Good call!
     
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  7. HenryFly

    HenryFly Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    In the 20 hours since I last posted, I've made peace with the fact that I think differently than many of you about the coherent themes and coherent musical feel of the album being a good thing. This is no longer what works for me, and it used to a long time ago. I believed that strong link of the road trip made it a more rewarding record than any of her others; not so now, not in itself.
    What does that mean for my appreciation of these tremendous single songs in the future? I'm trying to work that out. It means a small slip in my enjoyment of the six songs on the album I really treasure; a tiny problem, but worth mentioning here I think.

    A dilemma, but like I said I'm at peace with how I feel. No further reasoning or rationalising required.
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2018
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  8. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    This is indeed all very complicated, @VU Master and I agree with what you wrote. It sounds like Furry felt very used after this song. I don't think Joni meant to hurt him--I think she sincerely wanted to write a song about this experience--but I think she may not have considered things from his point of view. I was glad to read that another of my favorite artists, the Rolling Stones, had Furry open for them a few times. In the end, it's a sad song made even sadder by the fact that the song itself reflects some of the (well) exploitation experienced by a lot of these older black artists. Again, I don't think Joni meant harm and now that Furry's gone the song stands as a kind of tribute to him. I know I probably wouldn't have heard of him without knowing this song, so there are positives. I don't think you're being sensitive about Mr. Roberts' comments though. Those sound very callous.

    Well...another very interesting conversation with a lot to chew on. Let me open things up for track 4:

    Track 4: "A Strange Boy"


    A STRANGE BOY
    Rhythm guitar Mitchell
    Lead guitar Larry Carlton
    Percussion Bobbye Hall

    Lyrical Excerpt:
    He keeps referring back to school days
    And clinging to his child
    Fidgeting and bullied
    His crazy wisdom holding onto something wild
    He asked me to be patient
    Well I failed
    "Grow up!" I cried
    And as the smoke was clearing he said
    "Give me one good reason why"

    Complete Lyrics at Joni Mitchell's Official Site

    "A Strange Boy" recounts the affair Mitchell had with one of the men she was traveling with from Los Angeles to Maine; he was a flight attendant in his thirties who lived with his parents.
     
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  9. bob_32_116

    bob_32_116 Forum Flaneur

    Location:
    Perth Australia
    "A Strange Boy" I regard as one of the lesser tracks on the album - which still means pretty good. I would not rate it lower than 8/10. It just does not have quite same intensity and emotion that I hear in the first three songs, and a couple of the others.

    Interesting that he was a flight attendant - yet despite this album's general themes of flight, both literally and as a metaphor for escape, there is no mention of flight or aeroplanes in this song.
     
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  10. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    A Strange Boy
    'A Strange Boy' has never been either a favorite or a least favorite of mine. I've always thought of it as just a good album track. I see we've got folks on both sides of that aisle in this thread and I look forward to reading everyone's comments. I think one of my issues with this song is the fact that I don't find the guy in it appealing in the slightest. I can't stand immaturity and the verse I quoted above is emblematic of this. "One good reason" why he should grow up...how about the fact that he is being a burden on his parents by continuing to live with them well into adulthood? Haha, this is all just personal opinion but I can't agree with Joni on finding this guy attractive. :D I do like the song for other reasons. Larry Carlton is great once again, adding some great textures throughout and I love the gentle percussion. The song has a lot of motion in it. I also love the final verse:

    A thousand glass eyes were staring
    In a cellar full of antique dolls
    I found an old piano
    And sweet chords rose up in waxed New England halls
    While the boarders were snoring
    Under crisp white sheets of curfew
    We were newly lovers then
    We were fire in the stiff blue-haired house rules

    What an astonishingly vivid description of staying in a slightly creepy old bed and breakfast run by an obviously straight-laced older woman (aren't most B&B's run by such women??) The image of all the glass eyes of the dolls staring at them in their intimacy, with the sounds of Joni tinkling away on a probably out-of-tune old upright. I think this verse is incredible and it really sells the song for me. It's also sort of a snapshot of a very specific memory of Joni's road trip, which adds to the 'storytelling' nature of the album as a whole and reminds that more happened on the trip than just Joni driving alone in a solitary car across burning deserts.
     
  11. DrJ

    DrJ Senior Member

    Location:
    Davis, CA, USA
    There was a nice aesthetic captured in these album covers that, to some degree, was present in the artwork of so many of the Asylum albums of that era. Both of these are favorites of mine.
     
  12. DrJ

    DrJ Senior Member

    Location:
    Davis, CA, USA
    Yes to the bolded part, which I also mentioned in my post. I said she might actually be identifying with both Furry and the dilettante musicians. But my suspicion (which of course I can't really confirm but it is just a sense from the larger lyric and the themes she was mining repeatedly around this time) is that she identified with Furry just as strongly as with the musicians coming to visit/take advantage of him.

    Obviously this is just one interpretation, but it resonates with me because it opens up a whole other layer to an already fine piece of writing and I think then the continuity with other themes on the album (and of this whole period) becomes clearer.
     
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  13. DrJ

    DrJ Senior Member

    Location:
    Davis, CA, USA
    Totally with you on this one. That last verse is just wonderful, so vivid you can just picture and hear and even smell everything.

    Very nice piece of work, but not really in quite the same league as many of the other tracks, and this is the song I have the hardest time really fitting into any of the unifying themes of the album. Almost like a palate cleanser before the grand finale of the side, the title track.
     
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  14. AlecA

    AlecA Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire, USA
    Would love a live album from that tour--and an expanded edition of Miles of Aisles!
     
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  15. Sordel

    Sordel Forum Resident

    Location:
    Switzerland
    I've never thought much about “A Strange Boy”: it's just there on the album, not doing very much musically. But I think that maybe there's a bit more there in the lyrics. As with the womanising Coyote, the strange boy is seen to have a part of the truth that Mitchell herself seems to be looking for and missing: “He sees the cars as sets of waves / Sequences of mass and space / He sees the damage in my face”. Whatever it is he sees in the cars is something that she, who spends most of the album in a car, can't see.

    The point of the song is not about whether the strange boy is a fit target for Mitchell's wander/lust but whether in becoming members of society we aren't losing something important. His crazy wisdom is not folly.
     
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  16. Black Thumb

    Black Thumb Yah Mo B There

    Location:
    Reno, NV
    You're not alone. I've wrestled with the same thing myself.

    One lens to view the whole thing through - a potentially controversial one - is that she was laboring under a cocaine habit throughout this period and lord knows that cokeheads often exhibit questionable decision making.
     
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  17. Fortysomething

    Fortysomething Forum Resident

    Location:
    Californ-i-a
    This was the song I mentioned earlier, the one song on Hejira that I really, really loathe. One of the few Joni songs that I actively dislike.

    I appreciate that Joni was moving into a more observational style in her work, and that isn't the issue. The music in this track is inventive, and I appreciate that, too. I have issues with the lyrics.

    I may have liked it a bit more or loathed it less if it had just been about seeing Furry. But I really hate the last verse. And especially the first two lines of it:

    "W. C. Handy, I'm rich and I'm fey
    And I'm not familiar with what you played"

    Just ugh.

    Makes me flinch every time I hear it. I know she was in the room with Furry, but it felt to me like it was all being written at a remove, from the back seat of her limo. I felt the same way about a lot of PJ Harvey's most recent album - appreciating that she was trying to address something in a song, but feeling very much like it was a weird sort of reporting, almost siting in judgement.
     
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  18. Kavorka

    Kavorka Chief Bottle Washer

    Location:
    North America
    "A Strange Boy". Here we come to what is one of the highest pinnacles in Joni's opus (I know I'm the lonely one in this assessment, but hear me out).

    There is only a handful of Joni's songs that approach the brilliance of this unique song ("Cactus Tree", "Both Sides Now", "Gallery", "People's Parties", "Edith And The Kingpin"). I regard "A Strange Boy" as an absolute masterpiece.

    The tugging of the super ambiguous quartal harmonic progression that is at the same time pushing the song forward and creating an immobile stasis is something that all musicians strive for all the time. It is an almost impossible musical feat to accomplish, and yet Joni managed to nail it in this song! (Wayne Shorter complained to Joni that he doesn't know how to solo over her songs, because she keeps breaking all the rules and keeps stacking unresolved quartal chords on top of each other; Joni didn't give rat's ass about the rules)

    Furthermore, the absolute genius of the arrangement is something so unique, that it has no precedent (nor does it have antecedent). The swelling of the guitars creates thunderous dynamics that appear larger than life, while in actuality remains subtle and gentle. The absolute hero on this song is Larry Carlton's guitar playing. He swoops and swells and slides, underlying and emphasizing Joni's impeccable vocal delivery. His guitar is so perfect that makes one wonder -- how did he pull it off? Here is Larry's explanation:

    "I was in the studio by myself and she said ‘Just play, Larry.’ And so I would play three, four, five approaches and then she later would choose the goodies that she liked."

    So in the end it was Joni who made all the parts work in perfect concord. She was not only the Miles Davis equivalent, she was also the Teo Macero equivalent.

    I cannot explain what this song does to my body chemistry. It TRANSFORMS me when I listen to it. Not only does it hit on my emotional strings, but it also affects my metabolism, my physical body to such extent that I then have to walk out of the house and spend hours wandering the streets letting my body vibrate with this song, until it gently settles down.

    Such is the power of Joni Mitchell's music. Now, who else can do such thing with their music to a poor schmuck like me? Only a few musicians -- the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis... The list is short.
     
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  19. Socalguy

    Socalguy Forum Resident

    Location:
    CA
    Sorry, “Strange Boy” is just plain weird. The image of Joni making it with some semi-adult kid who rides skateboards and still lives with his parents is ... well ... what can you say? Not her finest moment IMO, musically or otherwise.
     
  20. Kavorka

    Kavorka Chief Bottle Washer

    Location:
    North America
    I'm amazed to read how almost everyone in this thread is only focused on lyrics and the gossip implied. How come no one discusses the music, the vocal delivery, the arrangements? Isn't that what Joni is all about?
     
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  21. lschwart

    lschwart Senior Member

    Location:
    Richmond, VA
    Interesting comments. Like "Furry Sings the Blues," this is a song that I've only recently come to really appreciate. But my sense of its power has nothing to do with the likability or naive wisdom (or lack there of) of the "boy." What attracts me is the singer's perception of him--not her attraction to him or her ambivalent appreciation of him, just the sharp intensity of poetic perception that seems to have arisen in her from being around him. The song contains some of the most intense poetry of on the album:

    A strange boy is weaving
    A course of grace and havoc
    On a yellow skateboard
    Thru midday sidewalk traffic

    ....

    What a strange strange boy
    He sees the cars as sets of waves
    Sequences of mass and space
    He sees the damage in my face

    ....

    See how that feeling comes and goes
    Like the pull of moon on tides
    Now I am surf rising
    Now parched ribs of sand at his side

    And of course the whole final verse. These passages have a pull to them, like those tides of feeling, and I think the song follows from that opening image, "weaving/ A course of grace and havoc" through to that final image of "fire in the stiff blue-haired house rules." That conclusion ties the song back to "Coyote's" flame in the Eskimo singer, and the after-image of the lover in "Amelia," but the sense of distance makes it different. I don't get any sense of longing in this song, although it's plenty ambivalent about the grace and havoc she experienced, the pleasure and the exasperation. But this one, for good reasons, is gone, having left only the song. The feeling of distance and a kind of resistance mixed with the attraction ties it in some ways to "Furry...."

    L.
     
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  22. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    I don't see this at all. We are discussing the music and arrangements and singing of each song right alongside the lyrics. The lyrics are absolutely an essential part of understanding and enjoying Joni and should be discussed. Exploring their meaning doesn't denote gossip.
     
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  23. bob_32_116

    bob_32_116 Forum Flaneur

    Location:
    Perth Australia
    That's mostly what I focus on - and in my case, I find it musically satisfying, though not in the same league as some of her other songs on this album and others.
     
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  24. lschwart

    lschwart Senior Member

    Location:
    Richmond, VA
    Thanks for this beautiful appreciation of the musical structure of the song and track. What you say about how the
    quartal harmonic progression pushes the song forward while also creating a sense of "immobile stasis" fits with my sense of the song's odd relationship with time, the way it's both so present to the past events and yet also places them so firmly in her past.

    I just noticed now, listening to the song with your description of the music in mind, that it begins in the historical present tense, like she's back there in the midst of the grace and havoc, and then in the third verse ("We got drunk...") she shifts unexpectedly into the past tense proper, only to shift back to present in last three lines, but now as an observation about herself in the process of remembering. The feeling comes and goes as she is rising sea then beach at low tide. This feels as if, in describing the feeling, she's pulling on time and releasing it back the way she says the moon pulls the water then lets it go (or draws it from the other side of the earth). Musically this effect also comes to rest at a moment of rest in the harmony--the coming back to the tonic that ends each verse, although there are restless elements in the guitar and bass parts (if I'm describing all of that correctly).

    After that particular point in the lyric, she stays firmly in the past tense, which is what gives me that firmer sense of distance and pastness here (firmer than in "Coyote" and "Amelia"). She remembers vividly, but without longing.

    L.
     
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  25. Socalguy

    Socalguy Forum Resident

    Location:
    CA
    Fair enough. Musically it’s an interesting composition, and the vocals are right on (I’ve said before Joni never sings a bad note). The structure is indeed unusual, if not downright strange, and thus suits the theme. However, in this case unusual to my ears doesn’t equate with “good”. It’s not unpleasant, just a bit remote and not particularly compelling.

    When guys like Shorter can’t figure out what you’re doing musically, there’s a good chance you’re starting to get a little too far “out there”. This may be one of those instances. I’m willing to bet even Carlton spent some time scratching his head trying to come up with something complementary to play.

    Perhaps it’s simply outside my musical grasp. I’m glad you like it though.
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2018

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