From: les@jmdl.com (onlyJMDL Digest) To: onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org Subject: onlyJMDL Digest V2000 #325 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: les@jmdl.com Errors-To: les@jmdl.com Precedence: bulk Archives: http://www.smoe.org/lists/onlyjoni Websites: http://www.jmdl.com http://www.jonimitchell.com Unsubscribe: mailto:onlyjoni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe onlyJMDL Digest Wednesday, August 9 2000 Volume 2000 : Number 325 The 'Official' Joni Mitchell Homepage, created by Wally Breese, can be found at http://www.jonimitchell.com. It contains the latest news, a detailed bio, Original Interviews, essays, lyrics and much much more. --- The JMDL website can be found at http://www.jmdl.com and contains interviews, articles, the member gallery, archives, and much more. --- Ashara has set up a "Wally Breese Memorial Fund" with all donations going directly towards the upkeep of the website. Wally kept the website going with his own funds. it is now up to US to help Jim continue. If you would like to donate to this fund, please make all checks payable to: Jim Johanson and send them to: Ashara Stansfield P.O. Box 215 Topsfield, MA. 01983 USA ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Re: your contribution... tanx! :~) [SCJoniGuy@aol.com] Remember when? ["Jim L'Hommedieu" ] RE: JMDL artists ["Wally Kairuz" ] Re: Marcel reviews DED Part 1. (long and treacherous content) ["Jim L'Ho] broadside accident ["Wally Kairuz" ] "Good Friends" was Re: broadside accident ["Jim L'Hommedieu" > Wow, Pat...them's some mighty powerful words...I'm happy to use what resources I have, as you do with sharing your recollections of Joni's early club days - stories I would never have imagined I could be privvy to! So my sharing is just a response to *your* sharing ; after all, when you're gone from this life you can only be measured in terms of what you've given away! :~) Thanks for the good words about Flotsam & Jetsam! Steve and I put in a lot of effort on it! Bob NP: "You've Changed", Wallingford, CT 05/27/00 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 00:25:28 -0400 From: "Jim L'Hommedieu" Subject: Remember when? Remember when we argued for weeks (months?) about whether or not hitting the "Reply" button should create a message aimed at the List? :) Wow, was that the most boring thread in history or what? :) I wuv JMDL, Jim L'Hommedieu near Cincinnati ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 02:22:38 -0300 From: "Wally Kairuz" Subject: RE: JMDL artists sherelle, how precious!!!! that's your hard disk!!!! and where have you been hiding, my a cappella hero?!?!?!?!? i still get goosebumps when i listen to your dreamland on a tape of you. love, wallyK > Sherelle > (Who is learning how to download files, and what the heck is a "C" drive?) > ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 01:42:04 -0400 From: "Jim L'Hommedieu" Subject: Re: Marcel reviews DED Part 1. (long and treacherous content) Okay Marcel, now let's get down to cases. In this installment, I'll rebut SIDE ONE- Tracks 1-5. TRACK ONE: GOOD FRIENDS Joni said, 1No nerves of steel 2No hearts of gold 3No blame for what we can and can't control 4Good friends you and me You wrote some very funny (and sacriligous) stuff about the lyrics on this album but I have to take exception with you here. I think she's actually ON to something. She normally writes about male/female flawed relationships. Here she's writing about friends and she may be saying that good friends are _comfortable_ because there's no pressure. 1 The author doesn't have her back up about any issues. 2 She isn't desperately seeking perfect, infinite adoration. 3 She isn't fighting at all. 4 So this is nice. That said, I totally agree that the quoted lines about change coming at you like a broadside accident is just so many lines that she 'dropped in'. On the other hand, I like the synchronized like magic line WHEN it applies to the nightclub. Think of the JMDL evenings. Don't they seem correographed? Synchronized? Like magic? (It just works for me, that's all.) This brings up one of the things that is so unnerving for me- I have a total love/hate relationship with this album. TRACK TWO: FICTION This is an excellent example of what I find so darn tough to describe. Even while I'm tapping my foot to the drum track, I'm thinking, "GOD, DO I HATE DRUM MACHINES!?!" (?) Now how in the name of our Lord is that possible? :) Arrggrh! Pffft! Your post made me pull out the lyric sheet. Guess what? This is where the best part of the track lies! One could even simply recite this lyric and it would work better than it does here. (I tried it. It does.) And what about that lyric? Well, I may be too emotional but it may be the most revealing set of words (as you pointed out) that she has written about middle age. Or IN middle age. As a middle-aged cynic myself, I identify with them: "Elusive dreams and vague desires fueled to fiery needs by golden boys in ad empires." This is NOT NO STINKING THROW-AWAY LYRIC, GRINGOS! [[Yes, Pat, it's a double negative, used sparingly here for effect! :) ]] Who else but our Joan would rhyme "desires" with "ad empires"???? Do you LOVE this girl or what?? I am so proud of her! She goes right after big concepts and entities like ad empires, + big business. Does JT do this? Does Dylan? When the track comes around on the CD player, the confusion that she's writing about - ie the MESSAGE, is totally lost (for me). As a self-described 'words' guy it grates my bicuspids that the music trashes the lyric. The music is supposed to be a compliment! Sheesh! (I guess they can't all be "Sweet Bird", ahhhhh.) TRACK THREE: THE THREE GREAT STIMULANTS From a sublime lyric to a minor one. For me, this one is simply about what makes an interesting news article: The 3 great stimulants. I'm just cynical enough to think that these same 3 stimulants made the "Joni Reunites With Daughter" story irresistable to the Public. Musically, I like the string-like sounds. But then, there are still the drum machines to put up with. An interesting exercise. After all this is Joni we're talking about!. Too bad that David Geffen forced Thomas Dolby on her instead of Vince Mendoza! Now that would have been wierd! A Joni/Vince/Larry collaboration on all-new material! Cool! Hmmmmmm...... TRACK FOUR: TAX FREE Yeah Joni, evangelists are wierd. I discovered this when I was about 10 and saw Oral Roberts in black and white in his tv-friendly costume. And I rediscovered it when Jim and Tammy Faye were on. So suddenly Falwell has your panties in a bunch? Where's the news? TRACK FIVE: EMPTY, TRY ANOTHER I use' 'ta hate it. Now I love the guitar part. I always thought it was Larry on bass, but no. Children, when "Dog Eat Dog" was released, it was before CDs where widely available. Empty, Try Another closed side one on the vinyl Long-Playing record. (LP) All the best, Jim L'Hommedieu near Cincinnati ps- Is putting words in someone's mouth also giving them food for thought? I didn't think so. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 03:00:12 -0300 From: "Wally Kairuz" Subject: broadside accident but she had just had an accident!!!!! remember? the original lyrics were something like ''sometimes change comes at you like a broadside accident, you get minor cuts and bruises, you can hammer out the dents''. now i consider the new lyrics a significant improvement. incidentally: marcel, you're such a marvel that you're almost scary... wallyk, uncomfortable in the presence of dangerously intelligent libras. someone [i think jim] wrote: > That said, I totally agree that the quoted lines about change coming at you > like a broadside accident is just so many lines that she 'dropped in'. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 02:36:04 -0400 From: "Jim L'Hommedieu" Subject: "Good Friends" was Re: broadside accident Okay Wally, I'll give you that she had an accident but it doesn't further the "Good Friends" text. Neither does it usefully juxtapose the Good Friends text. Maybe the accident happened on the way to seeing the good friends, but if so, the song doesn't connect them in that way. The accident is "random change (that) you can't prevent" Right? But when you read the lyric or listen to the song, the tissue doesn't connect to the skeleton of "Good Friends". Lemme give you an example of what another songwriter did with 'random change', in this case the death of the author's mother: "Every day another miracle Not even death could keep us apart To sacrifice a life for yours I'd be the blood of the Lazarus heart Birds on the roof of my mother's house. I've no stones that chase them away. Birds on the roof of my mother's house, will sit on my roof someday. They fly at the window, they fly at the door. Where does she get the strength to fight them anymore? She counts all her children as a shield against the pain. Lifts her eyes to the sky like a flower to the rain." Gordon Sumner But I'm not saying that she should always give us profound stuff- God how exhausting! Volley in your court. Lamadoo (no longer in digest mode. Ha!) ------------------------------ End of onlyJMDL Digest V2000 #325 ********************************* ------- Post messages to the list at ------- Siquomb, isn't she?