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

I’m going to start catching up now if you don’t mind. Feel free to ignore. I would say that for some reason Morning Morgantown has a similar vibe as a song Joni wrote and Judy Collins recorded....”Both Sides, Now”. And I like both. But Morning Morgantown speaks to me because my wife and I started out life with little to our name and all we really aspired to was to find a little quiet corner of the world in a small town where we could make friends, live happily if not well to do and enjoy a cup of coffee on the front porch on a Saturday morning while we watched people and traffic go by. And maybe a neighbor would come up on the porch and chit chat. Then there would be a downtown with a shoe store, a bakery, a pharmacy, a library and a diner.

 

For Free evokes memories of my father. He was one of those street musicians. He played rudimentary guitar but had a voice reminiscent of Eddy Arnold. I have a treasured photo of him standing on a street corner with his 1959 Gibson ES 125T grinning from ear to ear as he had just submitted and had approved a jingle for a local grocery store. It was the only claim to fame he ever had save the people that used to call the house just to hear the singing voice messages he used to tape inviting you to leave a message. I inherited the guitar bug and there’s nothing more satisfying than to hear a quarter thump onto the soft velvet of the lining of your guitar case. It is confirmation that music is not strictly for professional musicians......perhaps even less so.

 

Conversation......it is so universal isn’t it? She wishes there was more to it than friendship, he’s got no clue what he wants. If Joni wasn’t singing about herself, then she does a great job projecting feelings with her voice.

 

Ha, no, not Croz (still have my own liver). But yeah, I know about their little feud and care even less about it.

 

Blue Boy gives me goosebumps.

 

what a beautiful story...I know the feeling of any recognition...it's wonderful and always large no matter how small...

 

one of the coolest things I've read tonight. : )

 

There are few pieces I can say that the lyrics hold up strictly on their own and perhaps even better than being sung? But Ladies of the Canyon is that kind of song or poetry to me. Musically, all I keep focusing on is the guitar....I believe a 12 string Martin. The strings ring out. Of course, Joni does a masterful job of singing perfect pitch.

 

This might be my antihipsterism talking but I think I understand the theme of the album now. “Willy is my child he is my father.” Hmmmm.

 

I never could quite resolve why Joni seems concerned that Willy “can’t hear the chapel's pealing silver bells” ... when two albums later she proudly professed that she and her old man “don’t need no piece of paper from the City Hall...”

 

Perhaps 'My Old Man' (1 album later btw) was about the next guy.......! Perhaps she's contrasting the new relationship with the one with Nash that got so heavy towards the end.

 

Is it true Joni's target/muse for this song was unimpressed or indifferent?

 

If it was Lol Coxhill (reputedly on saxophone and busking in London), then my guess is his musical universe would have taken him off in a very different direction to Joni and he would probably have been indifferent to her style. Can't confirm anything though unfortunately.

Here's a user review of his Ear of the beholder album:
Lol is famously the guy who was playing sax in the street when a certain Joni Mitchell heard him and was inspired to write "For Free". Lol certainly does play real good, but there is some decidedly odd stuff here as well. You're never quite sure if he is playing it for laughs a la Bonzo Dog Band, or if he really is crazy. As long as you're not too worried about political correctness you may well get a blast out of this totally unique, eccentric collection from one of the true individuals on the music scene.

 

This thread is becoming very revealing .. first Volman, now Coxhill (who you would often read about in Melody Maker or NME in the Seventies).

 

Rainy night house is my favorite song of this album

 

It's in my top three too. We still have to finish Side 1 though yet. There's still one song to go: that dark brooding mystery 'The Arrangement'

 

It is strange, given Joni's almost lifelong antipathy toward marriage, that they broke up over Nash's unwillingness to get re-married so soon after his abandonment of his wife and children in England and the subsequent ugly divorce.

Just goes to show, I guess, that this was a very special relationship for Joni.

 

Welcome @Quakerism ! It's never too late to join in the conversation. Next we have the final song on Side 1:

Track 6: "The Arrangement"


You could have been more
Than a name on the door
On the thirty-third floor in the air
More than a credit card
Swimming pool in the backyard

While you still have the time
You could get away and find
A better life you know the grind is so ungrateful
Racing cars whiskey bars
No one cares who you really are
You're the keeper of the cards
Yes I know it gets hard
Keeping the wheels turning
And the wife she keeps the keys
She is so pleased to be
A part of the arrangement

You could have been more
Than a name on the door
On the thirty-third floor in the air
More than a consumer
Lying in some room trying to die
More than a credit card
Swimming pool in the backyard
You could have been more than a name on the door
You could have been more than a name on the door
You could have been more
You could have been more
You could have been more

Footnote
Elia Kazan adapted his autobiographical novel The Arrangement, the number one bestseller of 1967, for the screen. The Arrangement (1969) has a score by noted musician David Amram. In a 1977 interview Amram reveals that Joni was hired to collaborate with him on a song for the movie, but eventually Kazan decided against using her lyrics. The later song, written entirely by Joni, is obviously inspired by the plot of Kazan's melodrama. The song takes the point of view of "the other woman," played by Faye Dunaway in the film. This famous bit of dialogue is certainly relevant:

Gwen: OK, yes, I know, I'm nothing, I never was, but you! You could have been...
Eddie Anderson: What? What?!
Gwen: ...What you could have been. ...What happened to you, Eddie? Must kill you to think what you might have been.

From Wiki on the film
It tells the story of a successful Los Angeles-area advertising executive of Greek-American extraction, Evangelos Arness, who goes by the professional name "Eddie Anderson." He is portrayed by Kirk Douglas.

Eddie is suicidal and slowly having a psychotic breakdown. He is miserable at home in his marriage to his wife, Florence, played by Deborah Kerr, and with his career. He is engaged in a torrid affair with his mistress and co-worker Gwen (Faye Dunaway), and is forced to re-evaluate his life and its priorities while dealing with his willful and aging father (Richard Boone).

The critics were overwhelmingly negative when the film came out, and it was the consensus that Kazan should never have filmed his own best-selling novel, which was panned by most literary critics as trash when it was published in 1967.

 

The Arrangement
While it is a bit strange to think that this song was written for and about a specific film with a specific storyline, it works very well without that knowledge (in fact, I didn't know a thing about the Elia Kazan film for years). This is a moody, contemplative song and probably the darkest song on the first side. It discusses a figure who is trapped by the 'grind' of an empty, soulless office job but had the potential to be something better. It's a familiar tale and we all probably know someone or even are someone like that figure. The titular "arrangement" is left quite mysterious and it is really only with context clues that we can pick up on the fact that it refers to an extramarital affair. The themes present on this song would become the bedrock upon which The Hissing of Summer Lawns was built. Really good composition and one of the most mature of Joni's catalog so far.

 

TheArrangement (1969) has a score by noted musician David Amram. In a 1977 interview Amram reveals that Joni was hired to collaborate with him on a song for the movie, but eventually Kazan decided against using her lyrics. The later song, written entirely by Joni, is obviously inspired by the plot of Kazan's melodrama.
@Parachute Woman Thanks. I had no idea about this connection. But there's another weird coincidence that this film rejection throws up. Perhaps the two most prominent songwriters of the 60s and 70s both fail at the their first attempts to get on a film soundtrack and in the same year. 'Lay Lady Lay' was commissioned for the big hit movie of 1969 'Midnight Cowboy'. Dylan couldn't keep to his deadline so Fred Neil & Nilsson got the chance.

 

Yes, very interesting! I didn't know that about Dylan. I really wonder why Kazan decided not to use the work done by Joni.

 

I usually skip this one. The overly-earnest, yodel-y soprano doesn’t work for me.

 

The Arrangement ....I just listened to the album a second time....it is a pretty theatrical ending to the first side. It makes me want to flip over to side two to see where things are going because thus far it’s been very “Broadwayish?” in a first person narrative sort of way. I don’t think Joni Mitchell ever got the credit for her sophisticated approach to musicianship.

 

Could just be artistic license. Not everything that a poet writes has to be reality.

Or certainly a person can change their opinion in the span of a few years.

 

Of course. Still interesting to compare and contrast.