From: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V2013 #869 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 Thursday, June 27 2013 Volume 2013 : Number 869 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- This Rain, This Rain - the lyrics [Catherine McKay Subject: This Rain, This Rain - the lyrics Here are the words for "This Rain, This Rain." Wording varied somewhat from one night to the other, with Joni sometimes repeating a word or phrase here and there, and this is an amalgam of the two. I'd like to thank Vincenzo Mancini for his help on this. The version he found had clearer sound than my own recording and, along with the section of Emily Carr's journal, as well as Joni's talks about it both at TimesTalks and before she began the poem on stage, helped to clarify some of the parts that weren't making a lot of sense because we couldn't hear them well ("tree-souls," for example, and what about those "balky sheets"?) B This rain, this rain by Joni Mitchell Is this the wettest place on earth? My little fire is sputtering. Oh, now my hot water bottle's gone and burst, And I'm mean mad And I'm muttering Soggy biscuits! Balky sheets! The bucket brimming where the canvas leaks. I smack my dogs for muddy feet. Oh, this rain, this rain will not retreat. That painting I made yesterday - Who would want to look at it? It's just a mess! Greens and greys. I threw a stupid book at it. I'd hoped to catch tree-souls in paint. But hope! That's for idiots And saints. My soulless trees Are so incomplete. Oh, this rain, this rain will not retreat I wish I had a real good pal, Someone I could stand to listen to. I don't care - guy, gal, Just someone who could take me too. If I was nicer, less astute, Less compelled to spew the truth... For truth is seldom soft and sweet, And this rain, this rain, Will not retreat, will not be beat All big cities make me sick, Except in Europe, I don't know why. Big buildings stretching brick by brick. Like my cedar groves, they scrape the sky. It doesn't rain like this back there. Oh, it rains enough, just enough to wash the air and sweep the litter off the street. But THIS rain, Oh, This rain will not be beat I wrote this poem for Emily Carr, Though she's been dead for quite some time. Most of these words are hers, But some are mine. I made them rhyme. This rain, This rain, Oh, this rain "This Rain, This Rain" is based on the writings of Emily Carr and is part of one of Carr's journals. This particular journal is called "Hundreds and thousands." When Carr talks about "The Elephant," it's her little house on wheels. (See photo at http://tinyhouseontario.com/2012/02/05/emily-carr-another-tiny-houser/emily-c arr-dogs-and-elephant/) Excerpt from "Hundreds and Thousands,"B by Emily Carr (pp 88-89) "Such a terrible loneliness and depression is on me tonight! My heart has gone heavier and heavier all day. I don't know any reason for it so I've mixed a large dose of Epsom Salts, put my sulky fire, which simply would not be cheerful, out, smacked the dogs all round for yapping and shut myself in the Elephant, although by clocks I should not be thinking of bed for three hours yet. This is the dampest spot I was ever in my life. The bed, my clothes, the food, everything gets clammy. I burst two hot bottles two nights running. I took a brick to bed the next night; too hot, set fire to the cover. Tonight I invented a regular safety furnace. I put the hot brick into an empty granite saucepan with a lid on. It is safe and airing the bed out magnificently. (One thing that did go right.) "I made two poor sketches today. Every single condition was good for work, but there you are - cussedness! What a lot I'd give tonight for a real companionable pal, male or female, a soul pal one wasn't afraid to speak to or listen to. I've never had one like that. I expect it is my own fault. If I was nice right through I'd attract that kind to me. I do not give confidences. Now look at Mother "Pop Shop." There she is in her tiny shop doling out gingerpop, cones, confidences and smiles to all comers. Let any old time-waster hitch up to her counter and she will entertain him and listen to him as long as his wind lasts. Tonight one was there a full hour and a half. She has nothing to sit on at the counter. She's awfully fat and heavy but she lolls with this bit of fat on a candy box and that bit on a pop bottle and another bit on the cream jars and the counter supports her tummy while she waggles her permanent wave and manifold chins and glib tongue till the sun sinks behind the hill and her son whimpers for supper and the man has paid his last nickel and compliment. Then she rolls over to the cook stove complaining at the shortness of the day. Does she get more out of life by that sort of stuff than I do with my sort of stuff? I wouldn't change - but who is the wiser woman? who lives fullest and collects the biggest bag full of life? I dunnob&." Carr, Emily. Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of Emily Carr. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2006. ------------------------------ End of JMDL Digest V2013 #869 ***************************** ------- To post messages to the list, sendtojoni@smoe.org. Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe -------