Joni Mitchell: "Ladies of the Canyon" Song by Song Thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Parachute Woman, Aug 2, 2018.

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  1. Socalguy

    Socalguy Forum Resident

    Location:
    CA
    This haunting song is one of her best. She's starting to use the percussive piano techniques and chord changes to create tension and urgency that appear later on songs like Same Situation. My favorite line: “You called your mother, she was very tanned.” LOL, quite the sleeper... great choice to open side 2.
     
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  2. CCrider92

    CCrider92 Senior Member

    Location:
    Cape Cod, MA
    OK! Now we're at the point where I heard Joni's voice for the very first time. Who the hell is that?! This is the song that made me a fan. Love the piano - her piano style as I do Neil Young's and Jackson Browne's - none of them are great pianists, but they get the job done to suit their style and music. This song never fails to haunt me - I've no explanation for it and have not had an experience that I can relate it to - perhaps it's a subconscious memory lurking in my mind. It has a sadness/melancholy about it that I very much feel. It's been chilling me since way back in the day. One of my favorite songs of all time.
     
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  3. Planbee

    Planbee Negative Nellie

    Location:
    Chicago
    For many years, the only Joni book I'd read was Karen O'Brien's biography, Shadows and Light. Despite some of the negative Amazon reviews, I like the book a lot.

    The Malka Marom compilation of interviews with Joni referenced above is also a good read.
     
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  4. Planbee

    Planbee Negative Nellie

    Location:
    Chicago
    Finally, "Rainy Night House" and side two, which I almost entirely like. Side one is OK, though only "Morning Morgantown" is IMO top-shelf Joni. "For Free" is pretty good, too.

    It was interesting to read the backstory of the lyrics to the title track, but it didn't make me like the song any more than I do. But now the really good stuff starts.
     
  5. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    While I love the first side very much, I would agree with you that the second side is the stronger of the two.
     
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  6. HenryFly

    HenryFly Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    There're just two or three arrangements by Joni & Tom Scott on 'Miles of Aisles' that don't do anything for me. The rest of it is sensationally well-performed and captured. @Parachute Woman I'm with you in detesting live albums where the audiences overdo the loud acclamation ie every rock concert post 70s, but intimate singer-songwriter concerts are amoung my favourite albums of all time.
    I recommend 'Dream Letter - Live in London '68' by Tim Buckley.
     
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  7. Quakerism

    Quakerism Lean into what frightens you.

    Location:
    Rural Pennsylvania
    Take away the midsong and end choir chants and this would be a rather disappointing beginning to side two for many people. It’s interesting, I d like to know who chose the sequencing of songs and what were their reasons if any, for beginning side two this way.
     
  8. chrisblower

    chrisblower Norfolk n'good

    Rainy Night House is a song I wished she played live after 74. Love the Miles of Aisles version. A top 5 song of hers for me.
     
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  9. Sear

    Sear Dad rocker

    Location:
    Tarragona (Spain)
    Rainy night house has a haunting and beautiful melody.
    I don't understand what the lyrics say but it's very evocative
     
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  10. Quakerism

    Quakerism Lean into what frightens you.

    Location:
    Rural Pennsylvania
    The piano work is impressive combined with her vocal talent but the meaning of the lyrics at the time without further insight are so mystical with the song’s theme. And then followed up by, The Priest. There is no hint of the explosion to come and I suppose that’s the beauty of the sequencing....it sets up something that demands resolution.
     
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  11. HenryFly

    HenryFly Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    Every listener will eventually come to their own conclusions on what the lyrics say - but - the posts earlier in this thread will give you an idea about who Joni had on her mind as she wrote them.
    If Leonard Cohen hasn't reached your ears yet, this could be the time to explore his music.
     
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  12. The Absent-Minded Flaneur

    The Absent-Minded Flaneur Forum Resident

    Location:
    The EU
    What can we get out of this song?

    The main thing about the man seems to be his chronic oedipal obsession (your mother "left you with your father's gun, alone upon her small white bed"). He's also hip and worldly ("a holy man on the FM radio") whereas the singer is from a less sophisticated milieu ("I am from the Sunday school").

    The man spends a night thinking about the singer but then clears off to Arizona to spend some quality time thinking about himself.

    Not an attractive portrait of the man, I would suggest. But neither is the singer quite the innocent creature she wants us to believe in: by the end of the song she has mercilessly nailed her lover as a self-obsessed mother's boy.
     
  13. HenryFly

    HenryFly Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    That sounds like at least half the story and resembles the song 'A Strange Boy' even more closely. We do know now the particular man involved, she's confessed! At the time of release though she made no comment, so she must have imagined the man and woman in the story would be viewed the way you have described. Not only flatteringly.
     
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  14. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    I have to post today's song a little bit early and I'll be out of pocket most of the day. I look forward to seeing your comments after work!

    Track 8: "The Priest"


    The priest sat in the airport bar
    He was wearing his father's tie
    And his eyes looked into my eyes so far
    Whenever the words ran dry
    Behind the lash and the circles blue
    He looked as only a priest can, thru
    And his eyes said me and his eyes said you
    And my eyes said let us try

    He said, "You wouldn't like it here
    No, it's no place you should share
    The roof is ripped with hurricanes
    And the room is always bare
    I need the wind and I seek the cold"
    He reached past the wine for my hand to hold
    And he saw me young and he saw me old
    And he saw me sitting there

    Then he took his contradictions out
    And he splashed them on my brow
    So which words was I then to doubt
    When choosing what to vow
    Should I choose them all-should I make them mine
    The sermons the hymns and the valentines
    And he asked for truth and he asked for time
    And he asked for only now

    Now the trials are trumpet scored
    Oh will we pass the test
    Or just as one loves more and more
    Will one love less and less
    Oh come let's run from this ring we're in
    Where the Christians clap and the Germans grin
    Saying let them lose, crying let them win
    Oh make them both confess
     
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  15. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    The Priest
    This is one I really look forward to the insight of other posters on. 'The Priest' has always been a song with a meaning that alludes me somewhat. It's incredibly beautiful in terms of melody and it really sets the mood very well--here is Joni, sitting alone in an airport bar having kind of a heavy conversation with this priest. I understand that their conversation seems to be about the world of the spiritual versus the world of the secular and whether they are both trapped in their respective worlds and could they run away together? ("Oh come let's run from this ring we're in / Where the Christians clap and the Germans grin"). However, is there more to it that I don't get? Do we think this was an actual experience Joni had, or is more a commentary on the late '60s/early '70s search for spiritual truth and the brief popularity of religion in the mainstream. The priest is a fascinating figure in and of himself. He must be young (wearing his father's tie) and he does "take his contradictions out" so I think he must be torn between worlds, as perhaps Joni is as well.

    No matter the meaning, I've always found it to be a beautiful and haunting sort of piece that pairs really well with 'Rainy Night House' and 'Blue Boy' after it, both similarly dark and mysterious in tone.
     
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  16. HenryFly

    HenryFly Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    Wearing his 'father's tie' is a circumlocution for 'dog collar' to scan better, IMHO.
    I'm certain the priest is supposed to be older than Joni, tbh.
    One huge issue I have with the last verse is the use of 'Germans grinning' as a visual identifier similar to the Christians versus the lions as something foreboding / terrifying. Are we supposed to see Germans grinning with a Nazi connotation? In 1970, Germans and Nazis were naively seen as almost synonymous in large swathes of popular culture.
    If Joni's reference has a more subtle meaning perhaps she assumes we associate the priest with Catholicism and Germans with Lutherism.
    I'm as curious as you are to hear the others' interpretations.
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2018
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  17. EddieMann

    EddieMann I used to be a king...

    Location:
    Geneva, IL. USA.
    Setting aside meaning for just a bit, this song reminds me a lot of Sandy Denny. It has, with her guitar playing, a very English folk vibe to it. Which, if I'm not mistaken, was really in it heyday in 1970. I sometimes forget how fresh the second WW was still in 1970. It was what 1993 was for us today time wise.
     
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  18. HenryFly

    HenryFly Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    Brilliant! I hear that slight connection too. There's also a lot of CSN in the mix of course. The guitar phrasing in the first verse is Dennyesque with the vocal quaver in the middle of this section being pure Joni 'he saw me young, he saw me old, he saw me sitting there'.
    I have a feeling Sandy Denny may well return to the discussion for the next album;)
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2018
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  19. Terry

    Terry Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee
    Spectacular song, as is the entire album.
     
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  20. Quakerism

    Quakerism Lean into what frightens you.

    Location:
    Rural Pennsylvania
    I don’t presume to imply there is only one interpretation but I focus on the last notes played. They are not fingerpicked as is the rest of the tune. As an arpeggio they stand out asking for recognition. It is the same notes of the Coventry Carol, an older English tune about the edict of King Herod to kill all infants in an attempt to stop a threat to his throne by the long awaited Jewish King. As a Carol, it is morose, portending a great slaughter of innocents. And to me, this is a song of pity for a man trapped by his religion.
     
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  21. HenryFly

    HenryFly Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    The most distinctive musical feature of 'Coventry Carol' is that it has one of the earliest known examples of a harmonic resolution called the 'Picardy third'. We found this device in Joni's music before:

    "Tin Angel", from Clouds (1969); the Picardy third lands on the lyric "I found someone to love today". According to Katherine Monk, the Picardy third in this song, "suggests Mitchell is internally aware of romantic love's inability to provide true happiness but, gosh darn it, it's a nice illusion all the same."

    Picardy third - Wikipedia
     
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  22. Socalguy

    Socalguy Forum Resident

    Location:
    CA
    I always assumed this was another song about Cohen. They’re chatting in an airport bar. Probably based on an actual experience early in their relationship. She thought of him as some kind of holy man.

    He wrote his own song, “Priests”, btw.
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2018
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  23. HenryFly

    HenryFly Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    Certainly could be.
    Lyrics have imagery Cohen could have used himself. That mention of Germans and Christians sounds like 'Blessed is the memory of everybody's child'. She really did have a serious obsession.
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2018
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  24. Socalguy

    Socalguy Forum Resident

    Location:
    CA
    Right. We sometimes think songs have deep mystical meanings because of odd, obscure or confusing references the writer uses, only to later come realize the words chosen were just shorthand for something maybe not so deep or mystical. Joni was particularly good at that (Cohen too). Not to take anything away from the absolute beauty of the song, but I think one could probably go through the lyrics line by line and decipher them down to nothing more than a romantic conversation between Mitchell and Cohen - the cool, smart, hip, older poet, who for a time she seems to have nearly idolized.
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2018
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  25. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    I really like your interpretation and how you've phrased this. That makes sense to me, and would put the sequencing of this song right after "Rainy Night House" into even greater perspective.
     
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