From: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V2011 #374 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk Unsubscribe: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe Website: http://jmdl.com JMDL Digest Thursday, October 20 2011 Volume 2011 : Number 374 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Re: Trouble Child [Robin Adler ] Re: Trouble Child [Lc Stanley ] Re: Trouble Child [Anita G ] Re: Trouble Child [Anita ] Re: JMDL Digest V2011 #373 [Chris Treacy ] Trouble Child [Robin Adler ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 08:19:40 -0700 From: Robin Adler Subject: Re: Trouble Child Laura and Anita, Wonderful exchange between you two and Mark. Can we get together this afternoon for some tea and just visit? I'll put the kettle on.... Robin On Oct 20, 2011, at 7:15 AM, Lc Stanley wrote: > Anita wrote: > > The things about water is that it can flow around obstacles and > can > find its own level, is both a cleanser and a healer. We feel it in > every > cell and it and can hold and support our often heavy bodies. The > opposite is > that water can stagnate, so the importance is in the quest > to find balance. > > I > have the email lawntreader here because I need more earth and less > water, so I > thought I'd better be on the ground/lawn having been far > too emotional > (watery) in life :~)) I love the song Dawntreader so > much, but can get quite > lost in the peridots, the galleons, blue > medallions. > > > High Anita, > > Wow... I love the way you talk about water here!! I'm teaching about the > peripheral nervous system and bone and cartilage right now, and water is SO > important to both. It is what gives cartilage in joints the ability to > withstand compression. And water is an important component of the fluid > around neurons that contains salt ready to rush into the long axons of > neurons and move like electricity down an electric cord. We are water, and > there is life on earth because of water. > > Where did the water on earth > come from? Dihydrogen monoxide. It cover 2/3 of the earth, and only 2-3% is > "fresh" water. Our blood is like salt water. When I think of water, I think > of movement. It is in constant motion in our bodies and on earth where it > circulates from gas to liquid to and from the sea and across the land. And > then it is still in the icebergs. Some say water was made on earth, others > say in space... either hydrogen in the atmosphere reacting with the oxides of > the land or from "snow comets?" Some say it came from both. > > Interesting idea, water being "feeling" and land being "thinking." Yes, > we need a balance. I couldn't help but think of the hissing of summer lawns > with "lawntreader." When I think of hissing, I think of blowing steam out of > one's mouth like the warm evaporation of water that comes off the hot lawn in > the summer time. When we get angry, we heat up and need to let off some steam > so they say. We have lots of steam, humidity, way down south in Dixie, but > the people are mellow and don't hiss much. > > Thanks for giving me things > to think about and watering my garden today. I always grow reading this > list. I cherish you and everybody on this list. > > Love, > Laura thanks, Robin - ------------------------------------------------- New CD available now! "Safaris to the Heart: The Songs of Joni Mitchell" by Robin Adler & Mutts of the Planet. To listen or learn more: http://www.reverbnation.com/robinadlermuttsoftheplanet To purchase: http://www.robinadler.com/products.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 07:15:08 -0700 (PDT) From: Lc Stanley Subject: Re: Trouble Child Anita wrote: The things about water is that it can flow around obstacles and can find its own level, is both a cleanser and a healer. We feel it in every cell and it and can hold and support our often heavy bodies. The opposite is that water can stagnate, so the importance is in the quest to find balance. I have the email lawntreader here because I need more earth and less water, so I thought I'd better be on the ground/lawn having been far too emotional (watery) in life :~)) I love the song Dawntreader so much, but can get quite lost in the peridots, the galleons, blue medallions. High Anita, Wow... I love the way you talk about water here!! I'm teaching about the peripheral nervous system and bone and cartilage right now, and water is SO important to both. It is what gives cartilage in joints the ability to withstand compression. And water is an important component of the fluid around neurons that contains salt ready to rush into the long axons of neurons and move like electricity down an electric cord. We are water, and there is life on earth because of water. Where did the water on earth come from? Dihydrogen monoxide. It cover 2/3 of the earth, and only 2-3% is "fresh" water. Our blood is like salt water. When I think of water, I think of movement. It is in constant motion in our bodies and on earth where it circulates from gas to liquid to and from the sea and across the land. And then it is still in the icebergs. Some say water was made on earth, others say in space... either hydrogen in the atmosphere reacting with the oxides of the land or from "snow comets?" Some say it came from both. Interesting idea, water being "feeling" and land being "thinking." Yes, we need a balance. I couldn't help but think of the hissing of summer lawns with "lawntreader." When I think of hissing, I think of blowing steam out of one's mouth like the warm evaporation of water that comes off the hot lawn in the summer time. When we get angry, we heat up and need to let off some steam so they say. We have lots of steam, humidity, way down south in Dixie, but the people are mellow and don't hiss much. Thanks for giving me things to think about and watering my garden today. I always grow reading this list. I cherish you and everybody on this list. Love, Laura ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 10:46:08 +0100 From: Anita G Subject: Re: Trouble Child I would like to thank everyone for their kind words regarding my post. I have been very busy and haven't posted for a while, so, in water terms, my tide in relation to JMDL has been out. Then I say a few words and the tide feels in - if you get my drift! My own connection to those here strengthens again. Mark, I am pretty awe struck by your posts on 'Trouble Child'. Of themselves, they are so fluid and your train of thought is so clear and easy to follow. When you write; "Most surely, Joni Mitchell has found inspiration many times while contemplating that green water in motion." I remember Joni's connection to the land and all things elemental, which was underlined for me when I first saw the dvd of 'Painting wth Words and Music'. In the tradition of the Medicine Wheel that I undertook in the late 80s, I was taught that in the South was the element of water (I believe in other traditions, water may be in a different direction, elsewhere).The South is the place of emotion (as opposed to the element of air in the north,the place of the mind). The South holds intuition,is the place of swimmers like dolphins and whales and is also the place of sands, where the whole world is held in every grain of sand. The things about water is that it can flow around obstacles and can find its own level, is both a cleanser and a healer. We feel it in every cell and it and can hold and support our often heavy bodies. The opposite is that water can stagnate, so the importance is in the quest to find balance. I have the email lawntreader here because I need more earth and less water, so I thought I'd better be on the ground/lawn having been far too emotional (watery) in life :~)) I love the song Dawntreader so much, but can get quite lost in the peridots, the galleons, blue medallions. My own quest for balance reminds me often to get out of the ocean and walk about. It's good to have found a way to experience much less 'breaking' like a wave. I think turtles have taught me a lot! Certainly more than shining, firey dragons with their ridiculous certainty :~)) Anita x ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:33:07 +0100 From: Anita Subject: Re: Trouble Child Robin tea with you right now would be fabulous! And Laura,the feeding of the garden and the cherishing of those who meet here is something else we share.I guess we could all now sing "We are stardust, we are water'! Love Anita x Sent from my iPod On 20 Oct 2011, at 16:19, Robin Adler wrote: > Laura and Anita, > Wonderful exchange between you two and Mark. Can we get together this afternoon for some tea and just visit? I'll put the kettle on.... > > Robin > On Oct 20, 2011, at 7: > http://www.robinadler.com/products.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 03:36:07 -0500 From: Chris Treacy Subject: Re: JMDL Digest V2011 #373 Thing's actin' screwy again. :-/ Sent from my iPhone On Oct 20, 2011, at 2:00 AM, owner-joni-digest@smoe.org (JMDL Digest) wrote: > > JMDL Digest Thursday, October 20 2011 Volume 2011 : Number 373 > > > > ========== > > TOPICS and authors in this Digest: > -------- > New Library item: THE CLINTON WEEKEND [TheStaff@JoniMitchell.com] > Malibu House... [Chris Treacy ] > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:24:11 -0600 (MDT) > From: TheStaff@JoniMitchell.com > Subject: New Library item: THE CLINTON WEEKEND > > Title: THE CLINTON WEEKEND > Publication: JaneFonda.com > Date: 2011.10.17 > > http://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=2441 > > ------------------------------ > > Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 03:22:50 -0500 > From: Chris Treacy > Subject: Malibu House... > > Hmmm, I dunno about this. I've been to JM's house in Bel Air, not as an invited guest but more as a stalker... Wally nearly stopped speaking to me after I beat him up on the phone for an hour to get the proper address out of him. Anyway, I thought the Bel Air house was the only other CA home she'd owned besides the Canyon house, and in between she'd lived with Geffen (which is where much of C&S was written). Just my two cents, if anyone knows better/different, I'm all ears! > > Sent from my iPhone > > ------------------------------ > > End of JMDL Digest V2011 #373 > ***************************** > > ------- > To post messages to the list, send to joni@smoe.org. > Unsubscribe by clicking here: > mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe > ------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 06:23:01 -0700 From: Robin Adler Subject: Trouble Child First, thanks so much Sue, Chuck, Mags, Stewart, Kakki and Mark for participating in this discussion. Each of you has helped shed a little more light on the meaning of this song for me. Mark, I also thought of Nurse Ratched. Also, James Taylor comes to mind. She probably knew of his time spent in a psychiatric hospital for depression and certainly his drug addiction. Now, lying in bed I can't seem to get The Last Time I Saw Richard out of my head. Whew! Love to you all, Robin On Oct 17, 2011, at 9:02 PM, Mark wrote: > Crosby popped into my mind, Kakki, and it is probably because, as you mentioned, his name came up in other discussions of this song. > > I've always felt there was more empathy in the song than lecturing even though the final line before the repeated 'trouble child breaking like the waves at Malibu' is 'you know it's really hard to talk sense to you'. Even though Joni is addressing the subject of the song in the 2nd person 'you', she seems to be seeing things from that subject's point of view. > > There was no Betty Ford Center at the time the song was written and I'm not sure the term 'rehab ' had entered the vernacular yet. It seems obvious that this person is in some kind of medical/psychiatric/institutional type of setting - 'up in a sterilized room where they let you be lazy.' Not exactly a comforting or comfortable place to be. Whether it be substance abuse or severe depression he (I think the lines 'the peacock is afraid to parade, you're under the thumb of the maid' and the reference to the lion that Kakki pointed out indicate that the song is about a male) has reached a breaking point. He may be weak and spacey from exhaustion following detox or he could be doing the 'Thorazine Shuffle'. He's feeling powerless, unable to confront his demons or the authority-controlled situation that he sees himself in, 'the dragon shining with all values known, dazzling you keeping you from your own.' The peacock being under the thumb of the maid maybe feels somewhat emasculated as well. Those lines always make me think of Nurse Ratched in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'. > > This guy is lost and can't admit it or find his own way although he knows his 'attitude's all wrong'. But, as the song says, change in a person's attitude, patterns of thought and behavior aren't easy. The man's outlook is self-defeating and bleak. Life seems unbearable but, even if he has self-destructive tendencies, he is incapable of making a deliberate attempt to end it. He doesn't trust his care-givers or those treating him. 'They open and close you and they talk like they know you. They don't know you. They're friends and they're foes too.' There is no comfort in spiritual guidance of the religious variety since he 'can't seem to believe it'. He is jolted by the feeling that none of his personal relationships are permanent or meaningful - 'only a river of changing faces looking for an ocean'. That river of faces seems to trickle through his 'leaky plans', taking yet 'another dream over the dam' and he feels like his 'right to be human is going over too'. In his head, the words 'you know it's really hard to talk sense to you' are the ineffective words of a scolding parent to a 'trouble child'. Something he has heard some version of for most of his life. > > Waves are regular and repetitive. That suggests to me either relapses into substance abuse or recurring incidents of mental breakdown that have become almost predictable in their regularity. But I've never been sure about that. 'Breaking like the waves at Malibu' could mean so many different things. > > The choice of the word 'trouble' as opposed to 'troubled' is interesting to me. Apparently the subject is viewed as trouble as opposed to being troubled. It occurs to me that if Joni is implying that the subject of the song has always been made to feel this way about himself - that is he is trouble - it puts a more sympathetic spin on the song. If she is saying that the guy's behavior is that of a child always causing trouble and pain in the lives of those close to him, the lyric could very well be a good dashing of cold water in his face. > > Mark in Seattle > going on too long as always > > -----Original Message----- From: kbhla > Sent: Monday, October 17, 2011 3:52 PM > To: robinadler@sbcglobal.net ; 'Joni List' > Subject: Trouble Child > > Hi Robin, > > > > I recall that we did have extended discussions about Trouble Child here a > long time ago. I had always thought that Joni was speaking personally in > the song because it seemed to relate to her escaping to Canada in the early > 70s to get away from the music business and get over her broken heart (James > Taylor). She has spoken in interviews of that period in her life being dark > and depressing but she eventually healed and came back to "the world" with > the brilliant For The Roses album. > > > > However, there is another take on Trouble Child that I believed was > discussed long ago. Somewhere it was revealed that Joni wrote the song > about David Crosby, who was going through some hard core depression after > the tragic death of his girlfriend, drug addiction and problems with the law > during that time (and into the early 80s, too) and had been hospitalized at > times. I know I've read this from an authoritative source and think it may > have come from one of David's autobiographies or perhaps other CSN bios. At > the time, many of Crosby's friends were trying to help him into recovery. I > did a search on the articles/interviews with Joni on JM.com and it did not > readily come up, so maybe it was from a Crosby related source. What makes > it seem possible is the line "where is the lion in you to defy him when > you're this weak and this spacey." Crosby is a Leo. On another note, both > Crosby and Nash sang backround vocals on a few of the songs on Court & > Spark. > > > > Maybe someone out there can shed more light on the meaning. I don't think > there is a way to search the old smoe.org archives but there is lots of > discussion of the song there. > > > > So happy to hear of your good groove with your "new" bandmate, too ;-) > > > > Kakki > > thanks, Robin - ------------------------------------------------- New CD available now! "Safaris to the Heart: The Songs of Joni Mitchell" by Robin Adler & Mutts of the Planet. To listen or learn more: http://www.reverbnation.com/robinadlermuttsoftheplanet To purchase: http://www.robinadler.com/products.html ------------------------------ End of JMDL Digest V2011 #374 ***************************** ------- To post messages to the list, send to joni@smoe.org. 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