From: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V2011 #388 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 Sunday, October 23 2011 Volume 2011 : Number 388 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Re: Court and Spark ["Mark" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2011 22:09:22 -0700 From: "Mark" Subject: Re: Court and Spark So much to respond to and so many thoughts running around my brain. Where to start? What to say? Take a deep breath...... Bobsart, So many of those lyrics you cited from 'Court and Spark' were the very words that compelled me to identify so strongly with Joni. I was around 20 at the time I first heard them and not in any kind of what you would call a romantic relationship. But I wanted so much to be in one. My insecurity and self-consciousness, however, made that seem hopelessly out of reach. Also the whole description of a one night stand in 'Down to You' was, unfortunately, an all too familiar scenario for me in those days: You go down to the pick up station craving warmth and beauty You settle for less than fascination A few drinks later you're not so choosy And the closing lights strip off the shadows on this strange new flesh you've found Clutching the night to you like a fig leaf you hurry to the blackness and the blankets To lay down an impression and your loneliness I felt so driven at that point of my life to find that connection, to lay down my loneliness, that I would put myself through those sometimes humiliating experiences. When I was in a particularly dark frame of mind 'I'm just living on nerves and feelings with a weak and a lazy mind' felt like it fit me all too well. And 'I worry sometimes' is a mind set that plagues me to this very day. I guess I had some mental health issues back in those days! (I'm sure I still do.) When Bob Muller first posted about that theme running through 'Court and Spark', I remember suggesting that an alternate title for the album might be 'Love and Madness'. The conflict between commitment and freedom can be traced as far back as 'Cactus Tree' from Joni's very first album. I think fear is a significant factor in that conflict. It could be fear of losing her artistic autonomy. It could have grown out of her early initiation into the negative side of sexual relationships - her out of wedlock pregnancy followed by the defection of the baby's father, her subsequent marriage to another man and, if we accept Joni's version of the story, her husband's betrayal. From 'Cactus Tree': Now she rallies her defenses For she *fears* that one will ask her for eternity 'I Don't Know Where I Stand' is all about her hesitancy to reveal her feelings to a new lover. She is afraid that the feelings will not be reciprocated. Hurt and disappointment will follow a rejection so she won't send that 'I love you', written in her finest hand. From what Joni and Graham Nash have both said about their relationship, it almost seems like Joni projected her own fear of commitment onto Graham in the song 'Willy'. That's debatable I suppose in light of the photo of the two of them riding in a car with Joni showing Graham the newly written lyrics of 'Willy'. Muller mentioned 'Help Me' in relation to the theme of mental/emotional instability that I also see running through all of 'Court and Spark'. That 'help me' springs from fear of 'that crazy feeling'. Her past experiences of 'hard hot blazes' that have 'come down to smoke and ash' have made her apprehensive and afraid of exposing herself to that emotional turmoil again. 'The Same Situation' describes how love grants what can be a fearful power to the object of that love. She refers directly to this power later on in the song 'A Strange Boy' - 'I gave him power over me'. In 'The Same Situation' she has given the man the power to pass judgment on her and thus manipulate her emotions. He can either make her feel joy or inflict pain and insecurity. So she longs for 'somebody who's strong' but adds the qualification 'and somewhat sincere'. She wants 'a strong cat without claws'. She fears the pain that can be inflicted by those claws. In the song 'Man to Man' from 'Wild Things Run Fast', the album that has been branded by some as 'love happy', she sings When I saw you standing there I was *scared*, I thought Here's a place I could break down and care I sure hope he can care I hope I can really care And in 'Moon at the Window' she flat out declares 'and pleasure always turns to fear, I find'. And yet she craved that connection and created that tension in her art that Bobsart described. There is a thirst for love pulling her one way and a need for freedom pulling her in the opposite direction. 'She will love them when she sees them and she only means to please them' but 'she's so busy being free. She described how sexual freedom was embraced in the late 60s and 70s in that line 'We love our lovin' but not like we love our freedom'. In 'Hejira' she tells us 'We're only particles of change I know, I know, orbiting around the sun' and then asks the question 'But how can I have that point of view when I'm always bound and tied to someone?' Finally, my take on 'Miles of Aisles' is that either Joni or the people in control of Asylum's marketing may have decided that it would be smarter not to include a lot of material from a highly successful record that was still a fairly recent release. 'People's Parties' may have been a teaser for people who first joined the Joni Mitchell party with 'Court and Spark'. I think it was Kakki who suggested that 'Miles of Aisles' was an opportunity to create renewed interest in Joni's back catalogue. If that was the strategy, in my case anyway, it worked. I'm sure there were other meanderings of my mind that I missed putting into this. After I hit 'Send' and then re-read what I have written, I almost always find something I wish I had added or changed. But eventually I say to myself 'Let go of it, Mark. Let it go.' Mark in Seattle hitting 'Send' now - -----Original Message----- From: Robert Sartorius Sent: Friday, October 21, 2011 10:28 AM To: joni@smoe.org ; onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org Cc: scjoniguy@yahoo.com Subject: RE: Court and Spark Bob wrote: "The whole of C&S is multi-thematic I think, and one of the streams of theme running through it is mental health. People's Parties - I told you when I met you I was CRAZY Help Me - When I get this CRAZY feeling.... Just Like This Train - Jealous lovin' will make you CRAZY And then the bookends that conclude the album - Trouble Child and Twisted; one very heavy dealing with mental health issues and one very playful. As much as Hejira is my musical touchstone on any given day I'll call C&S my favorite Joni." Whoa - there you go again, Bob, coming for "conversation". Amid the stretch of six original recordings from Blue through Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, I bet a majority of us could say the same about our favorite and our next favorite on any given day, but there would be a pretty wide distribution of answers for the favorite and next favorite. Heck, you could even throw in LOTC and make it seven. At one time or another, I think I have loved all of them the most. The mental health theme in Court and Spark rings true to me - I think the songs reveal a vulnerability akin to her "Blue" recording period, which cannot really be masked by the shift from solo performances to having a band and a gang for support. Some additional bits of evidence (beyond those cited by Bob above): Court and Spark - "He saw how I worried sometimes, I worry sometimes" People's Parties (more) - "I'm just living on nerves and feelings....fumbling deaf dumb and blind...I wish I had more sense of humor, keeping the sadness at bay, throwing the lightness on these things, laughing it all away...." The Same Situation - "You've had lots of lovely women, now you turn your gaze to me, weighing the beauty and the imperfection to see if I'm worthy, Like the church like a cop like a mother, you want me to be truthful Sometimes you turn it one me like a weapon though and I need your approval". This song has been speculated as her Warren Beatty song, but it could well be Jackson Browne, in the context of Car on a Hill - especially the lines "like a mother" and "weapon though, and I need your approval." Car on a Hill - "I watch for judgment anxiously" "I've been sitting up waiting for my sugar to show......He said he'd be over three hours ago..... now where in the city can that boy be?" And, if the "Girls Like Us" account is accurate, these concerns bothered Joni more than a lot. Down to You - "Everything comes and goes, pleasure moves on too early and trouble leaves too slow, just when you're thinking you've finally got it made, bad news comes knocking at your garden gate". Just Like This Train (more) - "I went looking for a cause, or a strong cat without claws, or any reason to resume......what are you gonna do now, you've no one to give your love to". Another main theme - the search for love vs the struggle for higher position - - runs through through several of the songs (continuing, as it were, where she left off in For the Roses). In terms of inspiration, this album seems more and more to me to have been influenced by her Jackson Browne period, much as her earlier records were inspired by her Cohen, Nash and Taylor periods. I can picture that relationship (and its end and aftermath) as the inspiration for Help Me, The Same Situation, Car on a Hill, Down To You, Just Like This Train and Trouble Child. Those tensions and themes - mental health, search for love vs art, the arc of a specific relationship - fueled Joni's art. The more intense the moments, the stronger the art, or so it seems to me. She was going through a lot at that time - and a lot came out of her through it. One thing that has always raised my eyebrows - Miles of Aisles was recorded and released after Court and Spark, and recorded during her "Court and Spark Tour", yet Joni included only one C&S song on MOA. Does anybody know why? Bobsart ------------------------------ End of JMDL Digest V2011 #388 ***************************** ------- To post messages to the list, send to joni@smoe.org. Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe -------