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JMDL Digest        Sunday, November 23 2014        Volume 2014 : Number 1448



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TOPICS and authors in this Digest:
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  re: The Interview                            [c Karma <ckarma@hotmail.com>]

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Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 03:36:48 +0000
From: c Karma <ckarma@hotmail.com>
Subject: re: The Interview

<This is me.  Chalk up another interview in which Joni challenges assumptions
and speculation toward interpretation that her work may have offered, even
some long held ones.  I'm beginning to distrust whether I understand the
English language. >
Q: The poem has a line about "the gilded bait" of fame that so many of these
stars desired. Did you ever feel like you took the bait?A: No. I've never been
very ambitious. I never felt like I had any talent. I was a painter but the
musical and writing gift hadn't come in - even though that poem is pretty
precocious
<OK Joninow I'm completely at a loss for context:>Example 1:"I slept last
night in a good hotel.  I want shopping today for jewels.  Now me I play for
fortunes and those velvet curtain calls.  I've got a black limousine and two
gentlemen escorting me to the halls." -- For FreeExample 2:"Up the charts, off
to the airport.  You're name's in the news, everything's first class.  The
lights go down and it's just you up there making them feel like that....I
guess I seem ungrateful with my teeth sunk in the hand that brings me things I
really can't give up just yet.""Oh the power and the glory.  Just when you're
getting the taste for worship they start bringing out the hammers, and the
boards and the nails." -- For The RosesExample 3:"I looked at the granite
markers, those tributes to finality, to eternity.  Then I looked at myself
here, chicken scratching for my immortality." -- HejiraExample 4:"I was a
hopeful in rooms like this when I was working cheap.  It's an old romance, the
Boho dance.  It hasn't gone to sleep.  But even on the scuffle, the cleaner's
press was in my jeans.  And any eye for detail caught a little lace along the
seams." -- The Boho DanceExample 5:"Sharon, you've got a husband and a family
and a farm.  I've got the apple of temptation and a diamond snake around my
arm .  But you still have your music, and I've still got my eyes on the land
and the sky." -- Song For SharonExample 6:"W.C. Handy, I'm rich and I'm fay.
Why should I expect that old guy to give it to me true.  Fallen to hard luck
and time and other thieves, while our limo is shining on his shanty street."
- -- Furry Sings The BluesExample 7:"I spot you through the smoke with your eyes
on fire from J&B and coke as I'm coming through the door.  I'm coming back.
I'm coming back for more!" -- Paprika PlainsExample 8:"Once I was blessed; I
was awaited like the rain, like eyes for the blind, like feet for the
lame.Kings heard my words, and they sought out my company.  But now the
janitors of Shadowland flick their brooms at me."  -- The Sire of Sorrow
(Job's Sad Song)  Example 9:"Sophia says, 'it's hard to catch and harder still
to ride.  The time to watch the beast the best is when it's purring at your
side.'  Accolades and honors.  One false move and you're a goner.  I'm so
sick of this game.  It's hip, it's hot.  Life's too short, the whole thing's
gotten boring.  The old man is snoring and I'm taming the tiger." -- Taming
The Tiger
<Are these songs written in the third person (beside Job's)?  Did I miss some
punctuation?  Is all her experience out of body?  Is all the self observation
rhetorical?  I have to believe that the second part of that answer was given
in a temporal context, that she was describing herself and her head space at
16 when she wrote the poem.  I'm not sure I buy the first part of the answer.
Joni certainly knows about fame and its perils, to claim otherwise is
disingenuous.>
A: The two [songs] that stand out that people just hated were Ethiopia and
Moon at the Window. I still can't see what is so eccentric about those pieces.
I think that work was closer to jazz than I have ever gone but I was working
harmonically outside the laws of jazz.
<New Q:  Who are "PEOPLE" just hated?  The magazine?  Jazz establishment?  I
think the list here could give Joni a more objective list of songs that people
hate via our friends and relatives, if she wants one.>
A: You know I did an interview with a CBC commentator. I exorcised the house
after this guy left. I smudged it and opened all the windows. Now it comes out
that he has been fired from CBC. People kept saying, "What a great
interviewer." I didn't think so. After about the 20th one, I said, "What did
you think was great about it?" That he couldn't knock me over? They would look
stunned when I said that. To me, his behaviour was overtly hostile.
<Well, you could have fooled me.  The atmosphere on the video seemed quite
convivial, at least initially.  Maybe she was warning this Canadian Press
interviewer?  I don't think I've read her response to her own interviews
without getting defensive except for twoTavis Smiley and Cameron Crowe.>
Q: Your song Two Grey Rooms was another ahead-of-its-time song. Was there
pushback from the record company recording a song about one man falling in
love with another?
A: They always pushed me back but I take as much liberty as I can get away
with. That's why I'm not a feminist. When I heard, "You can't do that, you're
a girl," I went ahead and did it anyway.
<If you can tell by listening that the song is written to describe a
relationship between two men, you must be clairvoyant.  It's language is
profoundly humanistic and the use of pronouns completely neutral, regardless
of the story that she said inspired it.  I dislike and would disagree with any
attempt to hijack the song on behalf of any sex or sexuality.  I seriously
doubt anyone at Geffen Records would have raised any such objection.  The
question is asinine.>
CC

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End of JMDL Digest V2014 #1448
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