From: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V2013 #1704 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://jonimitchell.com JMDL Digest Tuesday, November 26 2013 Volume 2013 : Number 1704 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Re: JFK assassination njc [Catherine McKay ] Blues [Dave Blackburn ] re: Strange Boy [c Karma ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 03:39:22 -0800 (PST) From: Catherine McKay Subject: Re: JFK assassination njc I remember the day very well myself. Kennedy was very popular here in Canada too and maybe the fact that I went to Catholic school made him more popular among Catholics, especially any with Irish roots. It didn't hurt that he was young and good-looking with a lovely wife and two young children. I think his assassination was the beginning of the end of innocence in much of the western world. Maybe we just didn't have the ability, or the will, to dig into the dirt back then as we do now (and as we seem to relish doing.) Those years were a time of great change and it's only in retrospect that we realize how much was accomplished in that short period of history that was positive, even despite the war in Viet Nam. Yes, it's hard to believe people could have wished him dead, but I also find it beyond belief how many people in my city continue to support our idiot mayor. Some people are very fecked up - a lot of them in Toronto, it seems. Last night I was at the debut presentation of "The Kennedy Suite," a song-cycle/rock opera written by a local school teacher and presented by the Cowboy Junkies (sung by a variety of mostly, if not all, Canadian performers, including the Junkies, the Skydiggers, Jason Collett and Sarah Harmer. I've already listened to the CD at least ten times. The songs are absolutely brilliant, in particular the lyrics. There's a blurb on the songs with bits of some of them included, and it doesn't do the songs justice: http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/TV%20Shows/The%20National/ID/2420128719/ >________________________________ > From: Jim L'Hommedieu >To: JMDL >Sent: Friday, November 22, 2013 11:39:51 PM >Subject: JFK assassination njc > > >On local TV here in Columbus, they interviewed two people who recalled >the day when JFK was killed. The first experience was just like my own- >an elementary school student who was stunned and grappling to comprehend. > >The second story was about a student in the deep south, in a racially >segregated school. I was stunned to hear that some folks were happy to >see JFK go. I just can't imagine a hatred so deep that they would >celebrate the death of a president, but hey, it was a different time, in >a different place. They knew that JFK was in favor of integrating >schools and restaurants, and the country as a whole. > >Things are better now and I hope that most of us have learned to be >vigilant and ever wary. I'm not saying that JFK single-handedly >delivered us from bigotry but he did his part. > >Jim ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 17:43:51 -0800 From: Dave Blackburn Subject: Blues Mike, Blue Motel Room actually contains little that one could call blues musically despite the lyrics I got the blues inside and outside my head. Some people think of blues as a feeling, or an attitude, so in that sense it may be blues, but it doesn't employ the scales or chords that are usually called blues. Its more of a torch ballad in the vein of My Funny Valentine or Body and Soul, to my ears at least, drawing from a 40s sensibility. What is different about it is that it is clearly written on guitar and not piano like most standard ballads were. The chord motion is more the parallel shape movement that guitar is so good at than the extended ii-V-I motion of most standards. A Strange Boy is not really a blues either but it has a bluesy sounding pentatonic riff and Larry C ran with that and played all his coolest blues licks over it taking full advantage of the Dmajor/D minor ambiguity that runs through the song. Be Cool, by contrast is certainly a blues and has some jazzed up reharmonizations in it to boot. Its no wonder so many jazz vocalists are covering it. Dave On Nov 23, 2013, at 10:25 AM, Mike B wrote: > Kakki thanks for flagging up that Hejira interview, it's a great find! > I like Dave and Sue's suggestion that Chogyam Trungpa influenced 'Strange > Boy', and that in the 'He sees cars...' verse she's admiring his simplified > uncluttered insight, whether into traffic patterns or facial patterns. > A musical question for Dave (or fellow-musicians, but I know Dave has played > this), if I may: how 'blues-ish' is Blue Motel Room? Is Joni actually using > traditional blues chords here, or did she more likely stumble on > blues-sounding voicings through the particular tuning used for that song? > Thanks for the great discussions! > M ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 02:58:56 +0000 From: c Karma Subject: re: Strange Boy I believe that line references someone looking out at a freeway.(Hmmmm, the 405?) and becoming mesmerized by the peristaltic visual of groups of cars as they clump and relax...imagine the larger picture of what it looks like when you are in traffic and the drivers in front of you slow and stop briefly, forcing you to slow to a stop, which forces those following you to slow to a stop and on and on (mass), then suddenly the traffic eases and the group of cars has space between as they accelerate, only to slow and stop again (mass). It's a repeating sequence of mass and space.CCFrom: Bob.Muller@Fluor.com Subject: Strange Boy Mike, thanks for that - what do you (or any of you) make of these lines: "He sees the cars as sets of waves, sequences of mass and space" ? ------------------------------ End of JMDL Digest V2013 #1704 ****************************** ------- To post messages to the list, sendtojoni@smoe.org. Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe -------