Joni Mitchell: "Taming the Tiger" Song by Song Thread

Next up we are going to cover Joni Mitchell's 1998 album Taming the Tiger--her last album of new original content for the next nine years.

Previous threads in this series
Joni Mitchell: "Turbulent Indigo" Song by Song Thread
Joni Mitchell: "Night Ride Home" Song by Song Thread
Joni Mitchell: "Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm" Song by Song Thread
Joni Mitchell: "Dog Eat Dog" Song by Song Thread
Joni Mitchell: "Wild Things Run Fast" Song by Song Thread
Joni Mitchell: "Mingus" Song By Song Thread
Joni Mitchell: "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter" Song By Song Thread
Joni Mitchell: "Hejira" Song by Song Thread
Joni Mitchell: "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" Song By Song Thread
Joni Mitchell: "Court and Spark" Song By Song Thread
Joni Mitchell: "For the Roses" Song By Song Thread
Joni Mitchell: "Blue" Song By Song Thread
Joni Mitchell: "Ladies of the Canyon" Song By Song Thread
Joni Mitchell: "Clouds" Song By Song Thread
Joni Mitchell: "Song to a Seagull" Song By Song Thread

Taming the Tiger


Album Notes
Released September 29, 1998

©1998 Crazy Crow Music ASCAP
All rights administered by
Sony/ATV Music Publishing
8 Music Square West
Nashville, TN 37203

Except "The Crazy Cries Of Love" (Words by Don Freed)
©1994, 1998 Crazy Crow Music ASCAP/Scratchatune Publishing SOCAN

And "My Best To You" Written by Gene Willadsen and Isham Jones
©1942 Forster Music Publishers Inc. ASCAP
Lyrics Reprinted by Permission. All Rights Reserved.

Mixed by Joni Mitchell and Dan Marnien
Art Direction by Joni Mitchell and Robbie Cavolina
Album Photography by Theo Fridlizius
Management by Steve Macklam and Sam Feldman for S.L. Feldman and Associates
Special Thanks to Fred Wallecki and Brian Blade for rekindling my desire to make music.
Thanks to everyone at The Daily Grill for the good food and the good cheer.
Thanks to Edwin and the parking gang for their friendliness and courtesy.
Thanks to Julie Larson for fighting for me and with me.

And special thanks to Kilauren and Marlin just for being in this world.

©1998 Joni Mitchell. Made in U.S.A.



Taming the Tiger is the 16th studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. It was released in 1998 and was widely believed to be the last album of new material Mitchell would ever release (though this was dispelled with the release of her 2007 album Shine). The title refers to the unexpected commercial and critical success of her previous album Turbulent Indigo. As of December 2007, it has sold 133,000 copies in the US to date. [1]

Contemporary Reviews
"Back when she was loosening her ties to the folk world to explore jazz and world music, Joni Mitchell was asked about her career goals. There was only one, she replied: "To remain interested in the music."

Nearly 20 years after distilling her artistry to those six well-chosen words, Mitchell is on the phone from California and pondering a new question" Has she succeeded?

"It died for me a few years ago, and I intended to quit," Mitchell replies. "But a few things have happened to give me a new enthusiasm. And then I began spending time with my daughter and grandson."

Last year, Mitchell was reunited with the child she put up for adoption 35 years ago, when the singer was struggling, if not starving, young artist. She has no other children and is unmarried...

A new album, "Taming the Tiger" (Reprise), due out Sept 29, reflects that enthusiasm. It is a lush, haunting work; "Stay in Touch" captures the first enigmatic pangs of romance with a lingering melody loosely based on a classical work by Rachmaninov, while "Harlem in Havana" is a sly update of Cab Calloway's mirthful brand of jazz. "Lead Balloon" is a fierce, funny swipe at corporate arrogance, while "My Best to You" is an atmospheric interpretation of a 1940's cowboy-swing tune.

It arrives at a time when Mitchell is enjoying her highest artistic profile since the '7-"s. The Artist Formerly known as Prince sings her praises; Janet Jackson prominently incorporates a sample from "Yellow Taxi" into her recent hit "Got Til It's Gone", Billboard magazine recognizes her career achievements with its 1995 Century Award; the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year voted her into the pantheon alongside Bob Dylan and John Lennon."
Chicago Tribune, September 1998

"Few music lovers with an appetite for adventure will be able to resist when Joni Mitchell sings: Step right up folks! The show is about to begin, as she does on "Harlem in Havana," the enchanting opening cut from her exquisite new album, "Taming the Tiger."

Several years in the making, this meticulously crafted and sequenced collection of songs is an absorbing work that might initially sound enigmatic, abstract or even a bit dissonant to some listeners. But each listening reveals a wealth of nuances and a finely honed sense of logic, form and melody, much like a challenging film or book that creates and occupies a world of its own. Few musicians in any idiom achieve both as much freedom and structure, or grace and daring, as Mitchell, an accomplished painter whose art is featured on "Taming the Tiger's" front and rear cover and on the CD itself.

And the timing may again be right for such an original and uncompromising artist as this 54-year-old Canadian, who has struggled commercially over the past two decades, even as she influenced everyone from Sarah McLachlan and Jewel to The Artist Formerly Known As Prince. Then there's Janet Jackson, who liberally sampled Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" on her recent song, "Got 'Til It's Gone," and jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman, who performs a svelte instrumental version of "I Had a King" (from Mitchell's self-titled 1970 (sic) album) on his new album, "Timeless Tales."

Due in stores Tuesday, "Taming The Tiger" finds her writing and singing with poise and passion, while demonstrating renewed conviction. She often sounded glum and cynical earlier in this decade, including on "Turbulent Indigo," her Grammy Award-winning 1994 album, but "Taming The Tiger" is infused with optimism.

As fiercely independent as ever, musically and personally, Mitchell -- who is also credited as the album's producer -- has rarely been as confident or playful. By turns complex and spare, ethereal and earthy, her beguiling music casts a potent spell as she re-asserts herself as a singular artist who bravely charts paths that others follow -- or avoid altogether."
San Diego Union Tribune, September 1998

"Female singer-songwriters have never been in greater demand - or supply, for that matter. So it's nice to welcome back, after a four year absence, the original and, indeed, the greatest of them all to show everybody how it should be done.

The opening of "Lead Balloon" (""Kiss my ass," I said/ And threw my drink") suggests Mitchell may even have taken on board some of the post-Alanis Morisette feminist aggression, but the pay off ("Must be the Irish blood/Fight before you think") reveals that she's just being playful.

There's a similarly light mood to most of these tracks. It may be that one of the reasons Mitchell has never achieved the mythological status of her most obvious male contempory, Bob Dylan, is due to her preference for detailed miniatures over grand statements. Her only state-of -the -nation address comes on "No Apologies" ("What happened to this place?/ Lawyers and loan sharks/ Are laying America to waste").

Of course, another reason Mitchell has never been seen as a rock goddess is because she is not a rocker at all. Her jazzy oeuvre, boasting rhythms and melodies as sophisticated as her wordmanship, is probably too subtle and complex for mass consumption. She builds these tracks around gentle surges of rhythm with her soft-toned acoustic guitar to the fore and her vocals laying emphasis in unexpected places."
Daily Telegraph, September 1998

 

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First track:

Track 1: "Harlem in Havana"


Harlem In Havana
Larry Klein – Bass
Brian Blade – Drums
Wayne Shorter – Sax
Femi Jiya – Barker
Joni Mitchell – Guitar Orchestra, Vocals and Background Vocals
Engineered by Femi Jiya, Dan Marnien and Tony Phillips

Lyrical Excerpt:
At the far end of the midway
by the double ferris wheel
There's a band that plays so snakey
You can't help how you feel
Emmy may ran away
With a man as dark as night
You can see him, if you go there
Second trumpet to the right
They play "Night Train"
So snakey
Black girls dancing
Long and leggy
Barkers barking
Step right up, folks!
The show is about to begin
It's Harlem in Havana time

Complete Lyrics at Joni Mitchell's Official Site

 

Taming the Tiger
This album is almost definitely the Joni Mitchell album I have listened to the least amount of times (along with Travelogue). And that isn't a reflection in its quality, necessarily. I've worn out all of her classic first nine. I've listened to the Mingus-Chalk Mark period many times as I tried to find my way into and understand those recordings and why Joni loved them so much. I have tremendous affection for Night Ride Home and Turbulent Indigo. Shine came out when I was in college and a Joni Mitchell fan. This one just kind of slipped through the cracks somehow. I did once read quite a scathing review of it in a music magazine called Blender in which they opined that it was boring and full of overly busy sax solos. Overall, I think it's enjoyable and I really like some of the songs on it but I don't have a real personal connection with it or any memories to share. It is just an album in my collection (a good one) and I'm glad that this wasn't 'the end' for Joni. I also noticed that the tone in most of the contemporary reviews were kind of fawning and placed Joni in the context of all of the Lilith Fair-era female songwriters of the late '90s. There was definitely a sense that the old guard of folks like Joni and Dylan were doing us all a favor by continuing to record music. I don't say that as an insult at all, just a general perception of the time. Taming the Tiger is a good listen and very overlooked, considering Dylan's work of the same period (Time Out of Mind) was met with adulation.

Harlem in Havana
The opening track is absolutely one of the strongest on the album and probably my favorite as well. What a wonderful jazzy composition with a confident, soulful vocal from Joni and highly visual lyrics that immediately bring you into the world of the carnival. This one makes an interesting little pair with the beautiful "That Song About the Midway" from way back on Clouds. Joni wrote and recorded them at two completely different points in her life. I like to hear them back to back (and would have sequenced them as such on the Love Has Many Faces box set, but Joni didn't include "That Song") and hear the evolution. "Harlem in Havana" is undeniable and evocative and even fun. We talked about this in another thread--and I can't remember which one--but Joni included this song on her Artist's Choice CD. This was a series in which artists picked a series of songs that they loved or that had meant a lot to them. Joni was the only one to include one of her own songs on her set, haha. Here's a link to the full set on her website if you have an interest in the full track listing.

In that set, she wrote of the song:
“The highlight of the summer, when I was growing up in Saskatoon (Saskatchewan), Canada, was the week the fair came to town. At the end of the mile long midway, there were two adult, Vegas-style shows - Club Lido and Harlem In Havana. Parents seemed to be scared by Harlem In Havana. Don’t let me catch you there! Every kid I knew got that instruction. Every hour or so (if you wanted to), you could hear the barker shouting through the roar of the crowds and rides, ‘Step right up folks - it’s Harlem In Havana time!’ When I heard this, I’d go running - to see the band file out - horns in hand - and seat themselves behind the blue and silver music stands. They’d begin to play this brassy, stripper groove - so slow and humid. Then, out came the girls - black girls - some chewing gum - and they’d begin to move - slowly - flipping their capes open and closed to the beat - like they had done a million times - a tired, bored tease. I stuck my song in here beside “Jeep’s Blues”, just for fun - just to check something out. I didn’t intend to, but I left it here - between Johnny Hodges and Louis Jordan - because somehow it fits. In reviewing this song, I found two influences that I unconsciously assimilated - Marvin Gaye and the whisper singers of Burundi.”

 

That's a very cool little article up there.
The thing that's kind of blowing my mind and revealing my ignorance, is I kind of felt that Joni had emptied her bag by the early eighties and in light of that ignorance never really paid much attention to new albums ... Although I must say up until you starting these threads my only stuff from Joni was Ladies Of The Canyon, Miles Of Aisles, Court And Spark, Hejira and Shadows And Light .... I honestly don't know why I never got more as I enjoyed them all a lot ... My only defence would be trying to forge my own music career (flat on face lol) and just enjoying so much different music .... Anyhow
Thanks for tagging me in these as, although I haven't gone through everything, I have enjoyed what I have heard immensely ....
This track starts off with a Massive Attack kind of feel and then does so much it is hard to contain in a small run down ... We have some beautiful chord arrangement with folk and rock and pop overtones and then some luscious jazz embellishments ... it sounds like a mess on paper (or ethernet waves I suppose) but it is blended so well and makes so much sense it is very refreshing ... and from what she says up there, I imagine the break was refreshing.
It seems in the near future I will need to see if there is a latter day box set, that is the equivalent of the other you made me buy

 

Great opener, one of my favorite post-Wild Things Joni songs. The album reviews I looked up the other day all talked about the synth guitar (I forget the precise term) that Joni started using on Taming the Tiger to ease her post-polio health issues. I suppose some people might not care for that sound, but I'm fine with it.

 

Don't particularly care for it, to be honest, other than Man from Mars, dumb 'boo-hoo' lyrics and all.

 

Here’s good explanation of the guitar synth Joni started using at this time — in brief, a device that changed the tuning of the guitar electronically so she didn’t have to physically do it:

The new influence at work is an electric guitar that Mitchell’s old friend Fred Walecki built for her to alleviate her ongoing frustrations with using alternate tunings – one of the reasons why she stopped touring in 1983 and was on the verge of quitting the stage permanently in the spring of ’95. Walecki, of Westwood Music in Los Angeles, designed the Stratocaster-style guitar to work with the Roland VG-8 – the Virtual Guitar – a very sophisticated processor capable of electronically creating her tunings. While the strings physically stay in standard tuning, the VG-8 tweaks the pickup signals so that they come out of the speakers in an altered tuning. This means that Mitchell can use one guitar on stage, with an offstage tech punching in the preprogrammed tuning for each song.

“This new guitar that I’m working with eliminated a certain amount of problems that I had with the acoustic guitar,” Mitchell explained. “Problems isn’t even the right word; maddening frustrations is more accurate. The guitar is intended to be played in standard tuning; the neck is calibrated and everything. Twiddling it around isn’t good for the instrument, generally speaking. It’s not good for the neck; it unsettles the intonation. I have very good pitch, so if I’m never quite in tune, that’s frustrating.” Over the years, Mitchell has learned to slightly bend the strings to compensate for the intonation error, but that effort is still often defeated by the extreme slackness of her tunings. “In some of those tunings I’ve got an A on the bottom or a B-flat, and it’s banging against the string next to it and kicking the thing out of tune as I play, no matter how carefully I tweak it.” The VG-8 sidesteps all these problems: as long as the strings are accurately in standard tuning, she can play all over the neck in the virtual alternate tunings and sound in tune.

In every gig since the 1995 New Orleans Jazz Festival, Mitchell has used the VG-8, using its effects to build a guitar sound reminiscent of her Hejira era. But the VG-8 is having a much more far reaching impact on her music than just providing a workable stage setup. In composing and recording the songs for her next album, she’s thrown herself into a heady exploration of the VG-8’s sampled sounds. “Sonically, it’s very new,” she said of the tracks recorded so far. “I don’t know what you’d call it. It’s my impression, in a way, of ’40s music. Because I don’t like a lot of contemporary music – it’s just so formulated and artificial and false – I kind of cleared my ear and didn’t listen to anything for a while, and what emerged were these vague memories of ’40s and early ’50s sounds. Swinging brass – not Benny Goodman and not Glenn Miller but my own brand, pulled through Miles [Davis] and different harmonic stuff that I absorbed in the ’50s. Because this guitar has heavy-metal sounds in it and pretty good brass sounds, I’m mixing heavy-metal sounds with a brass section, so it’s a really strange hybrid kind of music. I’m a bit scared of it sometimes, you know. I don’t know what it is.”

The VG-99 Inspires - Roland U.S. Blog

“Harlem in Havana” and Taming the Tiger start with what I think must be Joni playing this guitar synth — it’s a ringing, metallic, heavily filtered sound that barely resembles a guitar but you can just tell from the syncopated rhythm and the feel that the starting point is Joni’s playing.

 

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing! As someone who does not play guitar and generally knows little about them on the technical side, this is really fascinating stuff.

 

Don’t know this album at all, just hearing it for the first time...

“Harlem in Havana” is one cool song! Awesome groove and hilarious lyrics. (That Emmy May was a wild one, eh?) Nice to hear Joni’s voice still strong. Good stuff!

 

The guitar synth must have seemed like a godsend to Joni ... but I think it was detrimental to the sound of this album, in comparison to the last two which had nicely mixed acoustic and electronic sounds. There’s a weightlessness and a lack of warmth... you can feel that it’s a digital translation of a guitar.

And on top of that there’s something less approachable generally about this album... The lyrical themes aren’t as compelling, I’d say (though I’m not about to claim she wasn’t writing good lyrics anymore). And I felt Joni’s strumming patterns and suspensions were getting repetitive... it feels like she’s playing the same floating chord through the entire album. And her voice continues to diminish in strength and tone.

All this said... “Harlem in Havana” is a great song, maybe the last great song she wrote. It’s lively and inventive musically, and she always found gold when she wrote these songs about her youth and the things that brought colour into her drab, uptight world. It feels like a companion song to “Cotton Avenue” for me.

 

I really enjoy Harlem in Havana. It's very unique for Joni, something that I hadn't really seen or heard since around the Don Juan's/Mingus days.

 

I have yet to take a listen to this album but plan to tonight or tomorrow.

However, I don't think we have commented at all on album art, have we? Perhaps with Court & Spark, I don't remember.

Once again, Joni provides a self-portrait. I am curious about the cat though as I recall the cat imagery in "Yvette in English" & the cat in the video (for which track?).

Am I just a sucker for kitties? Or is there a certain theme happening?

I really like the last 2 covers. I see Travelogue & Both Sides Now also have self-portraits.

 

The next song, “Man From Mars,” is about her cat running away. Really.

 

I need to listen to this album again. I have only heard it once, and remember thinking it was a bit similar to Turbulent Indigo but not as good. Or perhaps I thought it was OK but that I only needed to own one of those two albums.

Need to listen again, as I said.

 

Wait for it.....we finally AGREE on something!!!

 

It only took until 1998...

 

Next up:

Track 2: "Man from Mars"


Man From Mars
Brian Blade – Drums
Joni Mitchell – Bass, Guitar and Keyboards
Engineered by Femi Jiya, Dan Marnien and Tony Phillips

Lyrical Excerpt:
Since I lost you
I can't get through the day
Without at least one big boo-hoo
The pain won't go away
What am I gonna do?
Man From Mars
This time you went too far

Complete Lyrics at Joni Mitchell's Official Site

The cat's 'Meow-meow-meow!'
by Edna Gundersen
© USA Today, September 29, 1998

On Man From Mars, a lament about a loved one who's abandoned her, Joni Mitchell pines,"There is no center to my life now, no grace in my heart." At first, she had declined a request to pen a mournful tune for the Grace of My Heart soundtrack, insisting, "I'm not a hack. I have to feel what I write."

She reconsidered after her beloved tomcat Nietzsche (seen in Mitchell's self-portrait on the cover of Taming the Tiger) ran away from home. "The grief that I felt in his absence coincided with the grief of the character in the movie," she says.

Nietzsche, by her account, is quite a character himself.

"I call him Man From Mars because he's a little lavender lion who looks like an alien and walks on his hind legs as an expression of affection for me," she says of the yellow-eyed Abyssinian mix. "He's a real fraidy-cat and very devoted to me. He's romantic but you can't snuggle him. He'd give me these deep, long looks and chew on my hair while I rubbed his head. The absence of that ritual left a big hole."

He vanished after a spat. Incensed by the cat's habit of piddling on floors, Mitchell finally cracked, scolding ,"If you're going to act like an animal, you're going to live like one!"

Then she grabbed him by the stump of his tail and scruff of his neck, held him at arm's length and marched him outdoors. He was too offended to return, she says. Night after night, Mitchell called him from her yard and anxiously waited. The song's delicate sounds mimic what she heard: the rustling of leaves, bird songs, the drone from a distant freeway.

This love story has a happy ending. Mitchell relates, "It took me 17 days to write this song, and the night I finished it, my amazing little mancat appeared in a neighbor's yard and I retrieved him. That was kind of mystical.

"When I found him, he just yelled at me, almost hyperventilating by telling me off. So I yelled back in his language, you know, 'Meow-meow-meow!' When I changed to coaxing tones, he stopped yelling and went belly up."

 

Here is the piano only version of 'Man from Mars.' The YouTube description reads: "From the accidental initial release of the 'Grace Of My Heart' soundtrack featuring Joni Mitchell's vocals - 1996"


Man from Mars
This is one of the those songs where knowing the backstory makes me love it more. I liked the album version and thought it was a beautiful lament for a lost love. Finding out it was written about Joni's cat made me fall very deeply in love with it. I am a major animal lover and especially a cat person. Some may think writing a song like this for a cat is silly, but I do not. The love you feel for your pets can be immense. I would be incredibly distraught if either of my cats ran away. My male cat had to stay overnight at the vet a few years ago for a health problem and I sobbed right there in the waiting room. I'm very tender-hearted when it comes to my cats and Joni is even more a kindred spirit knowing she feels the same way. The song itself is gorgeous. I might prefer the piano version to the album version, just because it exposes the emotion so fully. Both are beautiful.

 

Man From Mars

Having shared my home at times with one or more puddytats (note I did not say "owned a cat"), I can relate. Joni got pissed off because the cat pissed on the floor; in retaliation the cat pissed off. Cats can be irrational and moody, too, like humans. Glad she retrieved her pet.

Of course I knew she was a cat person from the "two cats in the yard" line from Graham Nash.

I don't want to hijack the thread, but I thought I would share this clip from local Perth act Simone & Girlfunkle. (The name sounds like a spoof, but the band is actually quite good.) Apparently this song is dedicated to her cat which had passed away.

 

Beautiful song about loss by a brilliant maturing artist or start of slow descent into becoming a certified Cat Lady Recluse ... you decide.

 

So what's your opinion?

 

I love this song, but stylistically, it always struck me as Joni working within the framework of a Carole King-style song.

Appropriate given the genesis of the song re: the soundtrack for that particular movie.

 

“Man from Mars” was an effective title for the song, as in the film the Carole King-like lead character is singing the song about a crazy Brian Wilson-like musician she’s in love with (though I can’t recall how it’s used in the film). Joni used the cat for emotional inspiration but didn’t put any explicitly feline references in the lyrics so it would work in that context. She even worked in a variation on the title.

Grace of My Heart isn’t an especially good movie from what I recall (though music buffs can enjoy picking out which story elements come from the lives of which musical figures) but in addition to “Man from Mars” it brought us the fantastic Elvis Costello/Burt Bacharach song “God Give Me Strength,” and by extension the rest of the work they’ve done together. Elvis only just recorded his own version of another song he wrote for the movie, “Unwanted Number,” for his Look Now album last year.

 

"Harlem in Havana"
Having never heard this song until yesterday, allow me to admit I am in love with it!

I love how Joni Mitchell in the 90s uses technology in a much more organic manner, if that makes sense? Or perhaps our ears just got so used to it that it no longer phases us like maybe it did the ears of the fans in the early & mid-80s? I can't even say why I like the synth in the beginning of this song or the steel drum style keys, but I sure do. The guitar swarms a little with the seagull sounds low in the mix. And Wayne Shorter swirls around with some sultriness and Joni's voice comes in like it is part of his sax line.
Her vocals throughout this song are like none I have heard from her...playful & secretively barely heard.
I feel so silly gushing like this.

What great imagery: "God! The gossips had a gourmet feast / chomping on how she was born"

The lead tracks on Taming The Tiger & Turbulent Indigo just know it out of the park!

 

My sentiments exactly!

Forgive a wee story: I walked my 2 dogs in the park & wilderness corridor at the end of the block 3 times a day for over 15 years. A somewhat older gentleman in the mobile home backing onto the green space would wave & shout greetings as his yappy dogs went ballistic. I'd always thought him a bit of an oddball. After he noticed I had only been walking 1 dog for a couple weeks, he got in his car searching for me where he thought we lived. Once he caught up to me, he expressed his sympathy and said one of the most profound things I have ever heard: "Our pets are like our children who never grow up."

When @Squealy replied that the song is about her runaway, I loved it immediately. Oddly, the song made little lyrical impression in me until I read that reply. Upon 1st listen, I thought the title was stupid & was a little dismissive, but I liked the orchestration.

And I think herein lies why the song is so successful. Once I understood the character, it just went up another level.

The imagery is terrific, as if I needed to point that out:
"Everytime I think of you / Swallowed by the dark"

The silence is so full of sounds
You're in them all
I hear you in the water
And the wiring in the walls

Might this be the only example of the words "boo hoo" used in music?