From: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V2013 #367 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 Wednesday, March 13 2013 Volume 2013 : Number 367 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Re: Lady of the Canyon question ["Mark" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:17:48 -0700 From: "Mark" Subject: Re: Lady of the Canyon question Here's what 'Estrella' Bersoni wrote about it: Songs like tiny hammers hurled at beveled mirrors in empty halls This was in reference to a song I wrote. It was nearly ten minutes long, in three separate, counterpoint melodies, movements, and rhythms, called, "Song About A Flower". It was sort of a symphony about the long descent of a flower child into oblivion. (I later recorded it with members of The Paul Winter Consort, including Paul McAndlis on oboe, and Glen Moore playing a 300 year old, Czech double bass, bowed and plucked.) "Songs like tiny hammers hurled" has a couple of layers. The first has to do with how I played the guitar. I had vigorous classical guitar training, blues and jazz guitar training, and my first instrument, starting at the age of seven, was upright acoustic bass. To say my left hand was strong "for a girl" is to ignore that it was more like a bionic hand. Because it was that strong, I could easily use a technique called the "hammer on". This is where your right hand strikes the string, but your left hand fingers keep hammering on the strings as though it doesn't need the right hand at all. You can hear this kind of playing in Stephen Still's song, Black Queen, and throughout that solo album. Stephen and I had the same source influence: Bayou Blues, tropical Latin, snaky Cajun Gree Gree feel, and boy could he do it good. I'd just be transfixed, sitting in a living room, three feet away from him, watching the resonating bones in his left hand fingers make tones and percussion, learning everything I could. My left hand was as much a percussion instrument on the strings as my right. You can hear the "hammer on" in my songs, Texas Tornado, When The Lovin's Good, and Tattoo, on my CD, Estrella, The Secret Songs Of A Lifetime. Tattoo was about taking the "hammer on" to the max. I liked to play like my left hand was chewing up the fret board. Of course, you can't really play that way without being that kind of person. Which may also be why Stephen and I never became friends. Though I appeared calmly demure on my surface, the "tiny hammers" are always close by, like passive, hidden claws, in someone born the year of the Tiger. (It's not unusual for me to take on a multibillion dollar drug company's product, or the whale killing industry, and winning, with a few sharp, well chosen words) The particular instance Joni referred to, the other part of the double meaning she wrote into that Ladies of the Canyon verse, was of my hurling the song hammers, and the guitar "hammer on", at the situation going on up at Denny Doherty's house. He had that beautiful voice in the Mamas and the Papas. Brokenhearted over Michelle, he was acting out rather badly. His lovely, castle-like house was at the very top of the Canyon, on Apian Way. He was not the only "Flower Child" rapidly declining there. The beveled mirror was at the top of his staircase leading to the second floor. These are some of the lines of my long song, whose images Joni converted in her song: (Our two songs become like a mirror reflecting a mirror, infinitely) Wind-willow birds collect in the sky Fly through the dawn And land when they die............. Awake from a screaming nightmare He climbs to the top of the stairs And there stands a mirror reflecting an era That's no longer there He's wondering where Did it go............. It sounds like this Lady of the Canyon does have an urge to hurl some tiny hammers when the situation merits it. Mark in Seattle - -----Original Message----- From: Eaton, Shari Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2013 10:36 AM To: Joni List Subject: Re: Lady of the Canyon question Beautiful, Anita. There's actually a lot written about this subject on jonimitchell.com http://jonimitchell.com/music/song.cfm?id=139 Links at the bottom of the lyrics On Mar 13, 2013, at 8:57 AM, Anita G wrote: > Another unbelievably brilliant image - I imagine a song of anger, of > rage. I see shards of glass, prisms, long, high ceiling halls. I > imagine an image of a person splitting into thousands of > pieces......... > Anita > > On 13/03/2013, Shari Eaton wrote: >> Songs like tiny hammers hurled at beveled mirrors in empty halls. >> >> Do you imagine that sounds good or bad?! ------------------------------ End of JMDL Digest V2013 #367 ***************************** ------- To post messages to the list, sendtojoni@smoe.org. Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe -------