I also am looking forward to learning about Joni and her music since I know very little about her career; I love Hejira - it's fusion, yeah! I never could get into Blue, though; maybe someday it'll click. "My old man, yada, yada, yada, bleh" doesn't work for me. But this band is excellent! I'll chime in when a certain song comes up For now, just listening.
Thank you for your wonderful stories of travel, @VU Master ! I'm mostly a natural homebody but my father's position in the military meant I had the fortune to travel quite a bit, including two cross country trips through America. You never really grasp the sheer size of this nation until you drive straight through it. I can picture those landscapes moving outside the window as I listen to Hejira. @bob_32_116 I agree that this album feels very North American of Joni and several of the songs (Song for Sharon most explicitly) revel in and explore Joni's Canadian heritage. As she travels around restlessly, it would make sense that she would reflect back on the land she came from. She continued this on Don Juan-- an album that goes in many often wild directions but has Paprika Plains at its heart...perhaps her *most* Canadian song. The cover images were taken in Wisconsin, but that state has deep ties to Canada like all the Great Lakes states. Joni's from the prairies in the west, but those icy images could easily be Saskatoon. It's kind of poetic that they aren't in Canada though. She's still traveling and away from her ancestral home...
You guys really have me curious. I'll dispense with the suspense (haha) and say I that like "Black Crow" a little less than the rest, but it's still a very good song. That's about as critical as I can get of this album. If either of the "one" or "two" are "Amelia" or "Song for Sharon", I'll be happy to recommend a good ear doctor.
I've been enjoying this discussion of "Coyote," which is I think one of Mitchell's greatest songs. Here are a few bits of a longer post I wrote about the song on an earlier thread about the album: Leaving aside the biographical context of the song (Sam Shepherd, the Rolling Thunder tour), in the song itself, the singer is singing in the wake of a brief encounter—probably a one night stand—that seems to have occurred in the course of a road-trip through some rural area late at night. Just look at the second verse. After seeing a farmhouse burning down (“in the middle of nowhere/ In the middle of the night”), they (she’s not alone on this trip) pulled up to a roadhouse, where a local band was playing and locals were dancing, and she got picked up by one of those local guys—the Coyote. They danced; they slept together, and she got up the next morning and continued on her way with her friends (what they did that night is never said). It seems as though they didn’t even eat breakfast together. She’s now, in any case, remembering him, imagining his condition, and indeed imagining addressing him. No regrets. He had his reasons for sleeping with her. He’s struggling, she imagines, within his own constraints and with his own conflicted desires. She has no designs on him. She has her own issues. She’s prisoner of the white lines on the freeway, and that figures both her being on her road trip, but also her constant inner state of wandering—she perhaps has no idea where she’s going, but she knows that that’s just the way she is, restless and in motion. She might be with others at any given moment, but in a sense she’s always alone (no matter how close to bone and the skin and the eyes and the lips she gets….). Related, but alone. He also has left a flame burning in her—she has some ardor for him, or for his memory, or for what the encounter seems to mean to her. She’s basically a sort of cold person, at least on the outside—or at least when it comes to sustained attachment, which isn’t exactly her thing (“this Eskimo,” she calls herself). But the flame is there inside her nonetheless as she remembers. In fact, the flame seems to be driving her remembering. Or maybe it’s even better to say it drives her to art. Not back to him, but to her representation of him, her turning of him into a symbol (singing of him in that studio, writing of him on that typewriter—the “carbon ribbon”). She doesn’t, in any case, go actually back anywhere anyway. She’s a prisoner of the “free way.” The freedom to move forward all the time, and to only look back in memory and art—rather than say, regret—is a kind of freedom, but also its own kind of constraint. I think the song is a very great work of art. A beautifully crafted song that takes whatever its original autobiographical material might have been and turns it into a deeply compelling narrative, framed by the fictional address to the man that the singer encountered, left behind, and so vividly remembers (and imagines—a man she remembers and imagines as having been so like that Coyote she also so vividly remembers—the one she “looked right in the face/ On the road to Baljennie near [her] old home town”). It’s all so haunting and so deftly detailed! The movement of the verse and melody—which is often closer to a speech-contour than a identifiable tune—are so powerfully linked, the rhymes and other sound echoes so subtly placed, that even after all these years it still gives me goose bumps every time I hear it. And I haven’t even said a word about how powerful it was for a woman to tell just this kind of story at that particular moment in cultural history! Let alone sing it surrounded and musically supported by all those guys in The Last Waltz!! And as far as the finger and scrambled eggs lines are concerned: I agree about the "finger-pie" reference. It's exactly what she means. Coyote's in the coffee shop He's staring a hole in his scrambled eggs He picks up my scent on his fingers While he's watching the waitresses' legs I think these might actually be the best lines she ever wrote. Their profundity is a matter of how they work in context. This guy's state of being is observed with profound attention to physical and psychological detail, and profound empathy, too, that somehow coexists with an exacting judgement. L.
A week ago I found a list of Top 10 Albums of the 70s that I made in 1986. Most were the usual suspects: Who’s Next, Dark Side of the Moon, Born to Run. Hejira was #1. It was the third Joni album I bought (after DJRD and Hissing), in 1980. As a 23-year-old romantic, moody introspective who wrestled with thoughts about mortality, and as a fan of the DJRD Joni + Jaco sound, I loved it. It soaked into me and became a soul companion. Listening again after several years, I still love it. Listening to these albums again, I was struck by how Hissing, while in my Top 4 Joni albums, felt a little like mellow jazz, with a sameness to a lot of the arrangements. The musical setting for the coiled snake of “Edith and the Kingpin” is not that different from the Cinemascope backdrop of “Scarlett,” or the cellar bar of “Boho Dance.” There isn’t a wide variety of textures on Hejira, either, but Jaco adds an edge, a little out-thereness, that makes it easy to see why Joni wanted him. “Coyote” and “Black Crow” are the only songs I would rate a B. Musically, “Coyote” has great movement and feel, but I’d like just a little more melody or hook to hang onto. Lyrically, it’s excellent. “He picks up my scent on his fingers/While he's watching the waitresses' legs” are my favorite lines too – in two lines, you get this guy. He’s a womanizer, and he’s unapologetic! And she is equally unapologetic about this fling with a married man (“no regrets, Coyote”). Clearly, we have left the slightly clinical observations of Hissing and have stepped into Joni’s personal road diary.
Her way of pronouncing the word is "odd" only if you treat it as a word of English origin, which it is not. Most people have no trouble pronouncing the word "cafe" with two syllables, whether or not there is the accent on the 'e', because the French derivation is well known. "Coyote" is analogous to that. The modern spelling probably comes from the fact that the Spanish speaking invaders, who would have heard it spoken by the natives, would have spelled it according to Spanish language convention. I've always heard the word spoken the way Joni sings it, except perhaps on some old Wild West movies. It would not be the only example of (some) American pronouncing a word a different way from everyone else.
Story of the Hejira cover: Joni Mitchell Library - The Making of the Hejira Cover: Rock Photo, June 1985 I have walked across that same frozen lake several times! — David
Around 75/76 the still reasonably unknown Jaco was a bit of a revelation. Aswell as his contributions to Hejira, he appears for the first time on some tracks on Weather Report's superb Black Market. Wayne Shorter in full flow on this one. He also plays on Pat Metheny's first solo album Bright Size Life, another 'must hear' album. Fretless electric bass guitars suddenly became all the rage. Bet there's thousands hiding away in people's homes, played once and put aside when realised how difficult these things are to play.
Hejira is one of my favorite albums of all-time, all genre's. A top 20 album, maybe top 10. I borrowed Court and Spark from the library in the late 1970's when I was in high school. Help Me was a familiar song from the radio. The rest of the album sounded good, but I was not in love with it. Fast forward to the summer of 1987. I was just about to head off to graduate school, and I was eating lunch in my car one day, listening to a good Bay Area radio station, and on came Blue Hotel Room. The announcer did not say it was Joni Mitchell..the song transfixed me. The arrangement was so spare, and Joni's singing so beautiful. When the song was finished, the announcer gave the song and album title. There was a record store nearby and I purchased a cassette version of Hejira. Wow, I played that cassette in the car over and over for years. At this point, I have a CD, and several different LP versions. I still play Hejira often..it is an album like Kind of Blue, or John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman, or Exile on Mainstreet, that I will never get tired or bored with.
Coyote is a great start to this album and it's one of my favorites here. It’s about captivity and freedom at the same time. I like that it tells a long story and it has a lot of lines. And like PW and Ischwart, I was always amazed by He picks up my scent on his fingers / While he's watching the waitresses’ legs. That may not be most blatantly sexual line I’ve ever heard in a song but it’s the most disarming, because it’s so brutally personal. The preceding line, Staring a hole in his scrambled eggs, intensifies it even more. I wonder how hard it is to write or sing a line like that, that at least appears to be about yourself. Whoa. But there’s a lot of truth in it, too. After a night of sex men can be hyper-confident and flirtatious with other women. (Bedroom hair audacity--suddenly we're Jack Nicholson.) Those lines are extremely potent, and no one hearing the song for the first time could imagine that such an image was coming up! I’m a little familiar with San Shepard’s plays but had no idea the song was about him. From now on I guess I’ll have a different reaction when hearing his name. It’s funny that I never noticed it before but yes, musically this song does seem new and different to me now, compared to her earlier albums. I’m sure that hearing it so many times, I just got used to it and never thought about that until now. Possibly a small part of me misses the “old Joni” and wonders what this would have sounded like with more than four instruments but it doesn’t really matter, because I like the song so much. The bass is perfect here, that’s for sure. As PW pointed out, obviously this is a specific group of essays about the North America road trip experience, and the thoughts and encounters one might have on a long road journey there. Joni sang about Greece and the Spanish Steps in other albums, but there’s nothing international about Hejira. It may have been an odd choice for my backpacking around Asia, except as a letter from home, like coming across an American magazine in some foreign place. Hejira is perfect for a long road trip across the U.S. though and I’ve enjoyed it that way many times, too. (Apropos of that, I’m looking especially forward to Furry Sings The Blues.) Thanks to all here for all the great posts so far.
I have good ears but unfortunately 'burned-out eye syndrome' instead, so I struggle to move the tone-arm to exactly the right place when skipping songs on Side 2. Sometimes I catch a short snippet of Jo telling Shaz how woeful it is to have enough money for a $1000 a-day cocaine habit!!
Great kick-off to the thread, everybody! We continue: Track 2: "Amelia" (Musical comic by Nathaniel Barlam, his work here) AMELIA Rhythm guitar Mitchell Lead guitar Larry Carlton Vibes Victor Feldman Lyrical Excerpt: A ghost of aviation She was swallowed by the sky Or by the sea like me she had a dream to fly Like Icarus ascending On beautiful foolish arms Amelia it was just a false alarm Maybe I've never really loved I guess that is the truth I've spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitudes And looking down on everything I crashed into his arms Amelia it was just a false alarm Complete Lyrics at Joni Mitchell's Official Site Amelia Earhart was an American aviator who was the first woman to fly solo over the Atlantic Ocean. She disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937.
Amelia Oh, Amelia. I think this song is a great masterwork and one of the clearest distillations of what Joni was doing on Hejira. It's sublime. When I listen to a song like this, I find myself in a kind of awe. I honestly don't think music can get much better than this. There's a reason Joni is my favorite and that reason is songs like 'Amelia.' There is so much open negative space in this song, perfectly calling to mind the vast and expansive landscapes Joni was traveling over as she nursed a broken heart and tried to make sense of her own relationship with love and with her fierce and indomitable individual spirit. We've talked about this going all the way back to 'Cactus Tree' on the first album. In many ways, I think the major theme of Joni Mitchell's work is the constant push and pull between her intense romanticism and her natural independence. She loves her loving...but not like she loves her freedom. It was a complex battle within her own heart and she wrote about it over and over again. 'Amelia' is full of gorgeous imagery of this solitary woman on a road trip, with Joni drawing parallels to the great American aviator Amelia Earhart and her own solitary journey. Larry Carlton's guitar is a sensitive and wistful cry in the distance beneath Joni's own rhythmic, moody guitar. The song is an expansive six minutes and it takes its time, but it never feels lengthy to me. It feels hypnotic, meditative...deeply personal but incredibly relatable at the same time. I have loved Amelia Earhart since I was a girl. In third grade, we did presentations on great American heroes (and had to dress up as our chosen hero and give a speech as them) and I was Amelia. In fourth grade, my mother and I traveled to Amelia's childhood home in Atchison, Kansas. She is someone I admire in some of the same ways I admire Joni Mitchell and I love that Joni made this connection and wrote a song with Amelia at its heart. I hope you all enjoy the video I posted for 'Amelia.' Nathaniel Barlam is one of my favorite YouTubers and he creates 'musical comics' to illustrate favorite songs. He loves a lot of the same music I do, so that helps. He also has one for 'Song for Sharon,' which I will post when that song comes around. I think his illustrations capture some of the simplicity and vast beauty of this track. I think this is an essential composition in the Joni Mitchell canon and one of her all-time greatest works. It makes me feel tremendous peace. Another of my personal favorite artists, David Crosby, did a beautiful and simple cover of 'Amelia' last year on his amazing album Sky Trails.
I think this is a great song, but not perfect. The repetition of the tag line about "false alarm" gets a little tiring, especially since I am not sure what she means by it. (And yes I do know who Amelia was and the story behind the song.) For that reason I would have to give it an A-.
The second song we have come to, after 'The Jungle Line' that I would definitely put on my all-time top 10 Joni compositions list. It's the song of hers I've played most often from playlists and in prior years on home recorded cassette greatest tracks compilations. That it doesn't dwarf side 1 pays testimony to the fact that this sequence of five tracks is the best side of songs I've encountered in all song-based album progamming (if sides still matter). Beyond that, I'm so sorry, but I'm lost for words right now. I have some time later...
I listened to four "Amelia"s last night - this one, the one on Shadows, then on Travelogue and finally the 1983 live clip on YouTube - and was transfixed throughout. The song, and the way Joni inhabits it, is just that good. I can easily see how Ms. Earhart would come to her mind as she drove alone through the wide open - as she's said, the song is from one solo pilot to another. You can't help but think about the potential of simply vanishing out there, when you haven't seen another soul for hours and the only sign of civilization is that road and the endless mile markers and white lines on it. I'd forgotten how much I love that gorgeous Metheny / Mays bridge between "Amelia" and "Hejira" on the live album. Here's that 1983 one. The user that posted it is called Canned Poo, which struck me as incongruous!
Beautiful post! I agree that "Amelia" is Mitchell's greatest song. It's a keystone in the personal mythology she created, and it's just soaringly beautiful. There's a lot to say about it, but I'll just start with something I discovered during that earlier thread about the album. In the first verse the reference to "the Hexagram of the heavens" is cannily allusive. She knew exactly what she was doing in not only evoking the I Ching, but a particular hexagram. The hexagram of six solid lines ("9's" as the lingo goes, "in all six positions")--here, the six vapor trails and the six strings of her guitar--is indeed, as the lyric says, the hexagram associated with "Heaven" or the sky. Here's the standard translation of what the traditional text has to say about this particular hexagram: Ch'ien - The Creative ----- ----- above Ch'ien The Creative, Heaven ----- ----- ----- below Ch'ien The Creative, Heaven ----- The Judgement The Creative works sublime success, Furthering through perseverance. The Image The movement of heaven is full of power. Thus the superior man makes himself strong and untiring. The Lines Nine at the beginning means: Hidden dragon. Do not act. Nine in the second place means: Dragon appearing in the field. It furthers one to see the great man. Nine in the third place means: All day long the superior man is creatively active. At nightfall his mind is still beset with cares. Danger. No blame. Nine in the fourth place means: Wavering flight over the depths. No blame. Nine in the fifth place means: Flying dragon in the heavens. It furthers one to see the great man. Nine at the top means: Arrogant dragon will have cause to repent. When all the lines are nines, it means: There appears a flight of dragons without heads. Good fortune. There's a lot to unpack here. "Wavering flight over the depths/ No blame" and "Arrogant dragon will have cause to repent" seem particularly appropriate. Note also that each verse of the song has six lines, and the first six verses all deal with the singer's movement, her flight, and her contemplation of her estranged lover and Amelia Earhart, whom she of course also addresses in each refrain (more on that later). In the seventh, she describes herself at rest (or restless rest, dreaming of flight). So we begin with the I Ching and the heavens, and end with Genesis, rest, on earth dreaming. L.
Amelia - Possibly (as it is too hard to call) my favourite Joni track. The guitar lines are marvelous. Again there is this liquid chord progression that is as smooth as undisturbed bathwater, yet far removed from a standard progression. The vocals come across fantastically, with no straining, not too much falsetto, just a really nice delivery. Lyrically it is a little vague ... it starts off sounding like an apocalyptic vision with the references to six jet plains echoing through the first couple of verses, and the false alarm seems to be a response to the fear that, that may bring. Through the next series of verses she sings of regret in relationships and relates to herself as cold and aloof in many ways, and speaks of crashing into a lovers arms, and perhaps the false alarm was a fear of an unwanted pregnancy via the "strange pillows of her wanderlust" ... It is intriguing, and often with poetic lyrics, it is the images that are more important than the meaning.
I've long felt that this was the answer to the question about the false alarm that has the most power to make the song's lyric cohere. In fact, if we think of this as the false alarm, everything gets pretty tightly tied together (the failed relationship, the wandering, the quandaries about freedom, its necessity for her, and and it's downsides, the address to a heroine famous for her independence and--precisely--for refusing to play any of the female roles conventional for her time, with a marriage that was a partnership, no children, solitary work that led a career and enormous fame, etc.). Mitchell, of course, chose not to specify the referent of the false alarm, so it is designed to remain open, but I do think there are plenty of prompts in the song, invitations, to consider the idea of a pregnancy that turns out not to be. Mitchell, after all, had some painful experience with unwanted pregnancy. So, any sign (lateness, etc.) would certainly have brought up some powerful emotions she could work into song, especially if it were followed by relief rather than the struggles an actual pregnancy would have led to. L.
For years I've had a weird little mental block that makes me think the line is "747s over geodesic domes". Perhaps because a good friend of mine once lived in one? I do like the imagery it conjures.
Dreams and false alarms I always thought the meaning was quite clear. And very true, at least in my case... Anyway, "Amelia" is my second-favorite Joni song. If there's a grade beyond A+, this would get it. Along with another song from Hejira that apparently HenryFly and I don't see eye-to-eye on (what's new?--haha). Or should I say nose-to-nose?
