The boyfriend had an appointment with a doctor (or an attorney or a dentist or an accountant – I don’t really remember). What I do remember is deep snow everywhere, and as a southern boy, I felt quite a bit out of my element. So I dropped him at his appointment and headed for shelter. And my idea of shelter is always some place where they sell music.
The nearest music retail was a local Barnes & Noble or Borders or something like that. Book, coffee bar, music … you know the place. I skipped the books (I’m sure that I had some Faulkner with me anyway), I skipped the coffee (these folks wouldn’t make the brew Louisiana-strong to my taste), I headed directly to the music section.
I found the Joni Mitchell recordings. I sure that they had Court and Spark, For the Roses, or Mingus (most music retail during that time, 10 years ago, stocked those), but I grabbed Ladies of the Canyon. I at least knew a couple of songs on the disc. I purchased it and headed back to my boyfriend’s vehicle to relax and wait on his call to retrieve him.
As soon as I plugged the CD into the player, I knew that I had made the right choice.
The recording begins with a gently-picked guitar and Joni’s easy soprano singing the first verse. Throughout that first stanza, it is just the guitar and her clear voice, describing a small town scene at morning time. At the first occurrence of the chorus, a piano joins in, stepping into the spotlight with individual notes. Joni’s voice rises higher on the chorus, and then the piano fades at the beginning of the second verse … leaving the simple plucked guitar and Joni’s voice to again take over. “Morning Morgantown” repeats this pattern until its end, and it matched the sleepy snow-covered western Connecticut village perfectly. I probably listened to the song twice before moving on to the next one.
“For Free,” a song where Joni contrasts a street clarinetist with herself, starts with a solo piano (always pleasing to me). The song is a simple story with a spare arrangement with the piano, a solo violin, an acoustic bass, and eventually, a clarinet solo at the end. This song too fit the winter mood brilliantly.
After the quiet and unhurried first two songs, “Conversation” picks up the tempo just a bit. Still with just a straightforward strummed guitar, and a great little story about an infatuation with a married man. Joni performs some vocal acrobatics at the end of the song with the arrangement swelling to include her own background vocals (sounding a bit like the “colored-girls” on Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wide Side”).
I certain that the boyfriend must have called at this point, because of all the songs on the disc, these three still have the biggest impact. Now, I know that there are other great songs on the disc: “Willy” is a wonderfully sweet love song, where Joni’s voice is only supported by piano. Her version of “Woodstock” is here and beautiful: this song that she wrote with perfect imagery about the music festival from only hearing about the experiences of her friends, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – who eventually recorded the tune. “The Arrangement,” the sad recount of an unconventional relationship hit a little too close to home for me regarding my current circumstances with the Connecticut boyfriend. “Rainy Night House” is a magnificent song that really should be listened to on a rainy night with a candle burning. The title song is rather pretty, a love song to Joni’s women friends in Laurel Canyon, with a charming melody and a sugary chorus. “The Priest” presents itself as an archetypal minor-key folk song, even if the lyrics are somewhat avant-garde.
The majority of the recording is fairly somber, as you may have picked up from my descriptions of some of the songs so far. But remember, this CD is the one that introduced us to a couple of Joni classics: the charming “The Circle Game,” (which has been covered by artists like Harry Belafonte, Tom Rush and Buffy Sainte-Marie) and the joyous environmentally-challenged break-up song “Big Yellow Taxi” (brought back to the charts most famously by Counting Crows – up to #5 on the Adult Top 40)
The Joni version of “Big Yellow Taxi” is absolutely supreme, with its driving guitar strums, pulsing island rhythms, comic lyrics and 60’s-style girl-group background vocals. But I don’t have to tell you that, if you have heard the recording. Nobody does this song like Joni, including the seemingly-forced cackle at the end that dissolves into giggles.
The Connecticut boyfriend and I ended the relationship shortly after I bought this recording. It ended with my receiving a box of everything that I had ever given him along with a note that said “Auf Wiedersehen … Better Luck Next Time” I really didn’t mind. I think I threw everything in the trash. But I certainly still have that copy of Ladies of the Canyon that I purchased in New England.
I have the album on my iPod, of course. I still can’t listen to it while The Man is in the truck with me…
Joni and I will win him over yet.
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