Joni Mitchell: "Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm" Song by Song Thread

Yes, I'm not sure why "My Secret Place" was on the love-themed set when it clearly fits the theme. "Number One" and "Lakota" were included, which is a head-scratcher as those songs are not about love.

Perhaps something to do with licensing? It's on Spotify, along with all the rest of her catalog.

Next up:

Track 3; "Lakota"


LAKOTA
WORDS BY JONI MITCHELL
MUSIC BY LARRY KLEIN AND JONI MITCHELL
©1988 Crazy Crow Music/Dee Klein Music BMI
MANU KATCHÉ Drums and percussion
LARRY KLEIN Basses, keyboard
MICHAEL LANDAU Guitar
IRON EYES CODY Intro Vocal, background vocals
DON HENLEY Background vocals
JONI MITCHELL Vocals, background vocals

Lyrical Excerpt:
I am Lakota!
Lakota!
Looking at money man
Diggin' the deadly quotas
Out of balance
Out of hand
We want the land!
Lay down the reeking ore
Don't you hear the shrieking in the trees?
Everywhere you touch the earth she's sore
Every time you skin her all things weep
Your money mocks us
Restitution what good can it do?
Kennelled in metered boxes
Red dogs in debt to you

Complete Lyrics at Joni Mitchell's Official Site

Joni on 'Lakota':
"Lakota"
I have a friend who is a Macatek Indian. His name is Federico. He owned a shop down the street from where we were recording in Santa Monica. I went in to see him one afternoon before going to work on this song and he told me there was an Indian artifact show at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, opening at 5 o'clock that afternoon. He said, "There's gonna be some great stuff there like hummingbird baskets." Hummingbird and eagle feathers are illegal now, like elephant ivory, and would have to be sold under the counter. Federico said I should go early and meet him there because he knew the merchants and they would show me those rare, old things. So, at 4 o'clock, I told Shipley and Klein, "I want to leave for an hour," and Klein said, "Joan-Joan, we need you here!" In all my recording career, this is the only time I can recall that I was in the studio and wanted to be someplace else. I told them I would only be gone for an hour. Again, they protested. Just then the machines went down and I said, "Okay! Down time!" and borrowed ten dollars and a watch and promised to be back in an hour. I left.

Inside the Santa Monica Civic, this woman came up to me, stuck a 16mm camera in my face and asked, "What are you here for?" I looked into the lens and said, "I'm here to look at the artifacts and I can't stay very long."

She asked, still filming, "Do you know Iron Eyes Cody?"

I said, "No."

"Would you like to meet him?"

"Okay," I say. Up comes Iron Eyes Cody, wearing a grey braided wig (he'd gone bald), tied like a bonnet under his chin. He had on gobs of turquoise. I say to him, "Do you know any Indian songs?" And he says, "Well, yes; I know a few."

And I say, "Would you sing me one?"

Now we're standing in the aisle of this Indian show; he tilts back his head and goes,
Hey-ya-ho-ho
hey-ya-ho
hey-ya-ho
hey-ya
hey-ya.

and I'm delighted. Now I say to him, "What are you doing right now?"

And he says, We'll I'm going to dinner with some people at 9 o'clock."

I say, "I'm recording nearby. It's a song about the Lakota and the Black Hills. Would you come and sing on it?"

And he says, "You want me to overdub?"

So I come back to the studio. I'm 20 minutes late. I come back with four Indians and a film crew. The machine is still down, but Klein and Shipley give me the stink-eye anyway, like I broke my promise. They finally fix the machine and we play back "Lakota" for Iron Eyes. He listens with his eyes closed and when it's over, he says, "Oh, it's got the haunting! I think you're turning Indian! You want me to overdub?"

So Iron Eyes overdubs his beautiful song. He has just finished when we hear this clap of thunder. He and I rush to the back door and, standing on the back steps, we see coming down the telephone wire- a golden ball of lightening- riding on the lines and it's coming straight at the building. I run into the studio and yell, "Get the tapes off the heads!" That electrical storm was only in Santa Monica- nowhere else in LA. I'd never seen ball lightening before. I haven't seen it since.

 

Lakota
As we've already discussed, Iron Eyes Cody wasn't really Native American, but no one knew that at the time and it really makes no matter. Joni's story about the creation of this song is great (she's quite the storyteller) and the addition of the lightning at the end certainly has a cinematic flair to it. And I think Cody's chant works well on the song--it certainly feels respectful and adds a touch of something otherworldly to the piece. I quite enjoy 'Lakota.' Perhaps I'm a hypocrite because I like some of Joni's topical songs and dislike others, and it often has to do at least in part with how I feel about the subject matter. I think writing about the plight of Native Americans in this country is a very worthy topic for a song and I like that Joni focused not just on the historical atrocities committed against them, but also about the modern problems on the reservations right then in 1988 (many of which still exist today). It's another song that feels more open-hearted and less finger-wagging to me. I like the melody and the propulsive, rhythmic feel of it as well. Don Henley really just blends into the soundscape and I mostly hear lots of Jonis on the vocal overdubs. I think it's a fairly powerful piece.

 

Finding out the other day that the Native American was actually Italian won't change the fact that "Lakota" is one of my favorite songs on this album, but now I know how George Costanza's mother felt when she learned that Seinfeld's sage-advice-dispensing girlfriend, Donna Chang, wasn't Chinese.

 

I’m not a fan of most of Joni’s topical songs, but I like “Lakota”. It’s nice to hear her sing so passionately about this subject. She manages to convey the message of exploitation in a way that isn't forced or heavy-handed. And she does incorporate genuine Native American rhythms even if Mr. Iron Eyes was just playing a character.

 

Dubious claims to Native ancestry are so common that I find it pointless to get worked up over them.

But it's not hard at all to get me worked up over the message in "Lakota". Let's just say I'm very much part of the choir to which she's preaching, and it's something very close to my heart.

It's a moving track, and she clearly gets the concept of sacred land.

The summer following the album's release, Joni participated in a Sioux rally at Mt. Rushmore:

Joni Mitchell Library - Sioux Indians Take Their Crusade for Justice to Mt Rushmore: PRNewswire, August 5, 1988

 

My family was told for years we had full Native ancestry a few generations back. DNA testing has proven it not to be true.

It's why (all politics aside) I had no negative impressions of a certain politician's assertion that they had Native ancestry.

And yes, Joni was always an advocate for Native peoples and native lands.

 

Another song that continues the rhythmic theme and passionate feel of the record. Good tune.

 

"Lakota" - I have really enjoyed these first three songs, and I must confess, surprisingly. I really doubted I would jive with any of these tracks. I especially like Joni's vocal performance & arrangement on "Lakota".

Thus far, each of the guest vocals have been nicely done.

 

Haven't owned this album for years. It went to a secondhand shop probably in the nineties. Anyway my new copy arrives from Amazon today. One for the pile !

 

It's on Qobuz. Perhaps it's just an oversight by Tidal. I recall reading on this forum that someone contacted one of the subscription services about a missing album and they added it immediately.

 

Next up:

Track 4: "The Tea Leaf Prophecy (Lay Down Your Arms)"


THE TEA LEAF PROPHECY (LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS)
WORDS BY JONI MITCHELL
MUSIC BY LARRY KLEIN AND JONI MITCHELL
©1988 Crazy Crow Music/Dee Klein Music BMI
MANU KATCHÉ Drums and percussion
LARRY KLEIN Bass, keyboard
MICHAEL LANDAU Guitar
WENDY MELVOIN, LISA COLEMAN Background vocals
JONI MITCHELL Vocals, background vocals

Lyrical Excerpt:
Newsreels rattle the Nazi dread
The able-bodied have shipped away
Molly McGee gets her tea-leaves read
You'll be married in a month they say
"These leaves are crazy!
Look at this town there's no men left!
Just frail old boys and babies
Talking to teacher in the treble clef"

Complete Lyrics at Joni Mitchell's Official Site

This song is discussed at length in David Yaffe's Reckless Daughter:
"In her songs, big stories become gloriously condensed. And the story that began all the others--the story of her mother's life and marriage, and of her own birth--are all told, briefly, beautifully, and powerfully in an astonishing song, 'The Tea Leaf Prophecy.'

'It's a lot of history in a small space, shorthanded,' Joni told me. 'My other, Myrtle McKee, had been a country schoolteacher and she came into the city. She was working in a bank next to the police station, and the windows of the cop shop looked down into the tellers' area, and they were always flirting from the windows. But the tellers found Mounties and cops distasteful. She and her girlfriend went to the fancy hotel, and they had a tea leaf reader, a palmist also. They wore white gloves and hats and it was very la-di-da, because it was the tail end of the Canadian Anglophile era. So it was a kind of poshy thing to do. And when he read her tea leaves, he told her three things: you'll be married in a month, you'll have a child within a year, and you'll live to an old age and die a long and agonizing death, which is a terrible thing, even if you see it, to say.'

When Joni first recorded the song for her 1988 album, Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm, she used a pseudonym for her mother: Myrtle McKee became 'Molly McGee.' First she tells the story of her mother's visit with the tea leaf reader...'These leaves are crazy,' says Molly McGee. It's a joke. Consulting the leaves isn't crazy; they're just not making sense. And Joni's musical mind emerges here figuratively. There are no men, just boys 'talking to teacher in the treble clef.' The next verse is a beautiful, lyrical telling of her parents' unlikely wartime romance. The man in this love story is, like Bill Anderson, a sergeant on a two-week leave. They meet and their fate is sealed. Joni imagines her young parents making love--a topic that would be awkward for most--with tenderness...

This romance is immediately followed with the locked-in domesticity of long hard winters in the Canadian prairies that is her mother's life. There are endless chores, and the cycles are relentless, banal, with endless drudgery. And even her stated intention to flee becomes monotonous, too,: 'She says 'I'm leavin' here' but she don't go.' (Yaffe, 4-5).

 

The Tea Leaf Prophecy
It's interesting to me that Joni did not discuss this song at all in her song-by-song commentary included in the Geffen years box set, considering how personal it is. In one of the reviews I excerpted in the opening post on this thread, someone discussed this song as being about a wartime bride with no knowledge of the fact that the song is really about Joni's own parents. It's one of the most personal songs she had written in a while. I think it's quite a lovely song with more of that warm, familiar production and sighing background vocals from Wendy and Lisa (huge fans of Joni). I think the story of Bill and Myrtle makes for compelling subject matter for a song, even if Joni layers in an element of sadness to the piece. They live 'happily ever after' but, as Yaffe notes, the song does describe the boredom of their lives and even alludes to some of the things Myrtle would tell a young Roberta Joan:

"Sleep little darlin'!
This is your happy home
Hiroshima cannot be pardoned!
Don't have kids when you get grown
Because this world is shattered
The wise are mourning
The fools are joking
Oh what does it matter?
The wash needs ironing
And the fire needs stoking"

All of the musicians of Joni's generation came into a tough world, but their parents all had a real grit and determination to them. 'The Tea Leaf Prophecy' has universal themes, but it captures some distinct truths from Joni's singular life, and the life of her mother. It's a good one.

 

It took me some time to realise how significant this song is to Joni and thlis long-standing fan.
Firstly there's the balance and spirit of recompense (and personal maturity) to undo the very tough line she took with her mother on "Let the wind carry me'.
Secondly this is her first really great universal out of the personal lyric since the 70s, signifying she'd begun to get her touch back. For me her best song of the 80s by some way.

 

I finally started reading the Yaffe book and it really was a lightbulb moment to have it confirmed that "Tea Leaf Prophecy" was about her folks.

As we age, we do come to increasingly understand our parents, and it resonates a lot more at 54 than it did at 23.

I love the song, always have. Very much share the feeling of restoration that others have expressed, the "Yes! She's still in there!" reaction.

Which is funny, because (to lift from Depeche Mode) every fan has their own Personal Joni - but it shows there's also a sort of universal center we're tethered to.

And how awesome is it to have Wendy and Lisa on here? This coming not even a year after their former employer namechecked Ms. Mitchell on "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker".

Purple heaven!

 

There's something pure and honest and endearing about "The Tea Leaf Prophecy" that puts it high on my Joni list.
When Mitchell composes from her heart the result is always compelling, and this is one of those instances.​

 

The reference above to native Americans as "Indians" made me sit up and take notice. I recall playing "Cowboys and Indians" when I was very young. I imagine the people in question found the term highly offensive. haven't heard them referred to as "Indians" for decades.

 

Next up:

Track 5: "Dancin' Clown"


DANCIN’ CLOWN
WORDS AND MUSIC BY JONI MITCHELL
©1988 Crazy Crow Music BMI
THOMAS DOLBY Fairlight Marimba
MANU KATCHÉ Drums, percussion
LARRY KLEIN Bass
MICHAEL LANDAU Guitar
STEVE STEVENS Guitar
BILLY IDOL & TOM PETTY Vocals, background vocals
MANU KATCHÉ, JULIE LAST, LARRY KLEIN, MICHAEL LANDAU Cherchez la femme chorus
JONI MITCHELL Vocals, background vocals, guitars, keyboards

Lyrical Excerpt:
No you couldn't call Jesse a babe in the woods
He's just weak in self-defense
'Cause he's so thin skinned
He can't take a joke at his expense
"You're a push down window" says Rowdy Yates *
"I can run you up and down
Anytime I want
I can make you my dancin'
My dancin' clown!"
You're my dancin' clown
Dancin' dancin'
My dancin' clown
Dancin'
You're my dancin' clown
Dancin' dancin' dancin'
My dancin' clown

Complete Lyrics at Joni Mitchell's Official Site

Joni on the song:
"Dancin' Clown" Dylan heard "Dancin' Clown" and liked it. "How'd you write that song?" he asked. I told him, "I wrote it off a (horse) racing sheet- from the O.T.B. (Off Track Betting office.) "I had that idea," he said. "I thought it was a dumb idea."

 

Dancin' Clown
I'm interested to see the consensus on this one! I know @Planbee has expressed a soft spot for it. I first heard it on the Dreamland compilation and it was a bit of WTF moment. These days, I find myself kind of perversely fascinated by it. It's definitely catchy and I like the idea of using Billy Idol and Tom Petty to sing the "roles" of the bully and the kind getting bullied. But it's such an odd song! What the hell does "dancing clown" even mean? Why does a girl show up in the last verse and allow them to bond over their mutual lust for her? What is up with this Bob Dylan anecdote Joni told about the song, rather than actually explaining something about the composition or recording? This is a bizarre little piece. At least it's lighthearted and you can sing along with it (and I like how Billy sounds). I'd take this over some of the stuff on Dog Eat Dog or Mingus any day. Joni really did not care what anyone thought at this point, lol.

 

I didn't really like the song until I saw the video. It's just a bunch of silliness to me,
but it's fun and that's good enough reason to like it.

 

Dancin' Clown

Not particularly good, nor is it particularly bad. Just harmless pop, nothing more. It almost sounds more like Joni Mitchell guesting on a Billy Idol song rather than vice versa.

 

Who doesn’t love seeing happy relaxed Joni dancing around the kitchen with her cat in ratty slippers? I hope she did this often.

 

When I was last in the northwest, I believe 'Indin' was their preferred way of referring to themselves - after their tribal names. But, maybe that was just those I met. It's a tricky situation. I imagine you have a similar thing going on in Australia with the native people there. When I was little I never played cowboys and Indians, it was always Indians and cowboys...

Back to Dancin' Clown. Never liked it. Waste of Mr Petty.

 

The most I will say for Dancin' Clown is that it would have been one of the high points on a Billy Idol album.

 

The situation here is somewhat different. Historically they have been referred to as "aborigines" or "aboriginals". That word is of course a generic term for the native inhabitants of any country, not only Australia. The word is long and cumbersome, and has sometimes been shortened to "abo"; unfortunately that word became more or less synonymous with racial abuse, much like the word "nigger", hence it's a term that most decent people avoid using.

In recent decades the word "indigenous" has become the preferred way of referring to the people, and is generally considered the correct respectful term to use. Recently however I was surprised to read the comments of a well known aboriginal woman who says that she considers that word problematic, because technically "indigenous" simply means born and raised here, and could equally apply to a white person of English descent, Italian descent etc. She prefers "Aborigine", with a capital 'A'.

So the answer is, there is no generally accepted term that all parties are happy with. Work in progress.

Carry on discussing Chalk Mark...

 

Rule of thumb re "Indian": simply ask someone if they're cool with a label if you insist on slapping one into your discourse. Courtesy.

"Dancin' Clown"? Nah. I can theoretically appreciate it but it doesn't do anything for me. I'm not repulsed ala "Fiction", but nor am I drawn in. It's very 1988.

I agree that the video elevates it.

The footnote quote on the lyric page says Joni had no idea she was making a Rawhide reference when she cribbed the name from the OTB.

Had she gotten Clint Eastwood to do the Billy Idol part, it would've been interesting and tied in nicely with the next track.

Maybe Charles Bronson could've replaced Petty.