Joni Mitchell: "Court and Spark" Song by Song Thread

Okay, I'll give you Twisted. Otherwise, there's not a weak song on the whole album and I don't believe I can say that about any other Joni album, even my favorite.

 

Ignoring 'Twisted' which really is a self-indulgent miss-step, hi the gap between weakest and strongest on my second favourite (DJRD) would also be as big as here. But the highs are more frequent. Hejira, my favourite, is in a completely different category (strong and weak tracks seem like meaningless categories)

 

Joni should have used Twisted as a B-side, it sounds out of place tagged onto the end of the album.

 

I like twisted
she goes out with a sense of humor = flip city

Raise on Robbery is the track I vacillate over liking that much

 

Odd how a song can hit different people in precisely the same way.

I was about 10 or so when "Help Me" was a hit. Loved it then, and remember hearing it often enough on the car radio to be very familiar with it. I was way too young to get the gist of the lyrics, but it's that moment, when she holds the note in the bridge, that got me. Still does, and probably always will.

 

As I said before, Help Me was my first Joni 45 - really my first Joni purchase of any kind. I knew her material from Big Yellow Taxi and the CSN&Y version of Woodstock, but Help Me just drew me in like a magnet. At the time, this wasn't even the style of music I enjoyed. But there was something special about the song that really got to me. The 45 was crap - noisy and distorted from the very beginning. The final 10 seconds of the fade out were awful, like someone had put 25 grams of pressure on the tone arm and gouged the grooves. So I was happy to get the album as a replacement a bit later when I had saved up enough money. What a revelation! Help Me wasn't even nearly the best song on the record! Of course, a kid of only 13 years old is not going to understand the nuances or the deep, mature backdrops of what's going on lyrically or musically, and so my love of this song (and album) have grown with me as I've aged. Joni wasn't afraid of expressing her sexuality, and with the final few lines of Help Me, she's struck a chord that strikes miles deep into the complexity of relationships:

Both of us flirting around
Flirting and flirting
Hurting too
We love our lovin'
But not like we love our freedom

 

Yes, this is so true about Joni's music growing on you with age. I was 16 when I first heard her and loved her right away, but my love for her music has grown more profound and much deeper as I've aged and become more able to understand the complexities and maturities of her writing (understand in every sense). It has been the opposite of "growing out" of an artist. Growing into one.

 

I was too young to hear '60s radio (imagine a time when I was actually too young for something--haha), and most of my earliest radio-listening time in the mid-'70s was spent at WLS-AM 890 (pretty much THE local station back then), where I don't recall EVER hearing "Free Man in Paris", but was given plenty of doses of "Seasons in the Sun", "Disco Duck", "The Night Chicago Died" (the geographically-challenged song about the "east side of Chicago"), et cetera and ad nauseum. They DID play "Help Me" a lot, though.

Since becoming a fan in the early 2000s, in the rare times I've actually heard a Joni song on the radio my first thought is usually "oh sht, Joni passed away." No lie.

 

Help Me

In the For The Roses thread I wrote that You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio once was a beloved favorite, but I didn't much care for it now. This later single still sounds fantastic to me though, and probably always will. The song itself is a gem, the arrangements are perfect and I like the jazz stylings in her vocal. The recording and the mix are excellent. As others mentioned, not many top 40 hits have also been artistic triumphs, but this one sure was. Great that she hit a home run on all those levels in one song, and great that she got so much public exposure out of it. David Geffen must have been very pleased. I wonder how much the commercial success of this single meant to her at the time, and then later on, looking back?

 

It took me another twenty years and my sister to re-introduce me to Joni, via Blue and Hejira. It wasn't 'til my 30's that I started to get it. I had to work my way back and forward.

 

Help Me

I love Larry Carlton's contributions on this song (especially the understated beauty of his playing on the song's final 40 seconds).
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Note that the original album cover was embossed:


I can't get used to seeing the non-embossed cover (with too much color added).

 

It's hard to say, but she stopped playing "Help Me" live after the Court and Spark tour, along with much of her earlier catalog. With Hejira she arrived at some songs she would revisit and revise for some time to come. "Help Me"feels like something she could have been playing and singing convincingly 20 years later, but as far as I know, she didn't.

 

"Help Me" is a song that she rarely plays. However, she played it for at least some dates on the Hissing tour as well as the Wild Things Run Fast tour.

The Hejira songs thankfully never left her live repertoire.

 

Just listened to my recently acquired via barn sale quad copy last night and sold a regular release to a friend today @ $3.

 

Two heads are better than one!

 

I just think it's an amazing one two punch, that then goes to three with 'Free Man'... Yes, it's in a pop vein, but with such insight in the lyric, and the jazzy vibe which was way ahead of it's time...

Btw, I think you could space it out PW. I don't always have time to check in every day, but then again, if that dilutes interest you could do 36 hours???

 

Me to, it was just a case of spending some time looking at her catalogue.

 

Hate to be a downer, but a week ago yesterday Max Bennett passed away at age 90. I didn't know until just now doing a little web searching on the C&S sidemen.

 

Thank you for that info. I had no idea.
I spoke at length with Max 15 years ago. He was a very gracious and fan-friendly man!

He had a great career that included everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Frank Zappa.

 

I have to say I love every song on this album...

 

yes, with it's special guests!

 

tied with Ladies of The Canyon for me! every song is perfect!

 

I find it hard to separate this, ladies of the canyon and hejira

 

I don't have that problem...but I can understand yours...: )

 

Help Me is a standout along with the other big hit, Free Man in Paris, but my favorites are the more melancholy Just Like this Train and Trouble Child. She really turned her songwriting up a notch on this and I love the jazz-based arrangements and instruments.