Or, Joni Mitchell Rebel With A Clue.
An over view of the release HEJIRA,
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| Joni Mitchell, the cool jazz siren circa 1976 source |
Sex has always been Joni Mitchell’s favorite subject. That may not be on first inspection obvious
because she always coils it so tightly with romantic love. A bond so tight that
they cannot be separated. Like a true
romantic, even a disillusioned one, sex seen in isolation is just too barren a
field to explore. There has to be more.
Of all
of the singer songwriters in American music, few have dissected their love life
so vigorously as Mitchell. With the eye
of a surgeon and the heart of a poet, she relentlessly examines the wins and
losses of love as if to make sense of them as much as she expresses them.
Hers is an art form that is ultimately about
expression and communication with as few concessions to anyone’s expectations
except her own. It was clear early in
her career that she was at the helm and would tireless work to ensure that her
vision was the dominate one.
Even at her most lofty, and Hejira
is one of those moments, there is always the faint feeling that she is trying to learn something
from her own past, even if only how to record it. There is the sense that she is trying to
figure out what she is doing and why so as not to repeat the same mistake
twice.
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| The only woman to play at the Band's Last Waltz. Then again, she was always one of the boys. |
Court
and Spark witnessed her at her most romantic and high spirited. She was
creating songs that were about anxiety while expressing it all with music that
was anything but uncertain. It was a sure footed meeting of jazz, rock and roll
and the standard pop song that she reworked in a way that was a hybrid of all
forms but losing none of the flavor of any of them. Even in this release, she was still a
romantic even at her most apprehensive about the outcome of love.
It is just that type of merger of
the romantic with the sexual explorer that makes Hejira one of her masterpieces,
albeit a very dark one. After the
musical explorations and experiments of the Hissing of Summer Lawns, Mitchell
scaled back her sound to almost minimalist dimensions so as to turn inward.
Hejira is not a return to her folk
past, but it certainly recalls it. It
also shares with Bob Dylan the idea of a song extending far beyond three minutes with lyrics that are far
denser than what most popular songs dare to do.
Even today, few songs attempt the sprawling lyric expansiveness of
Hejira.
The back story of the album was
that Mitchell was making a cross country drive from Maine back to
California. During the journey, her
experiences became the material for Hejira.
It is an album about the road, but it is more than just a collection of
road songs.
When taken as a whole, Hejira
tackles the subject of love, romance, wanderlust, creative freedom, choice and
the drive to make art. It is ambitious
material. Like the visual artist she
has always been, the song are jam packed with symbolism: of the visual kind. The highway becomes a metaphor for life,
birds are symbols of freedom and coyotes represent appealing, but fleeting
lovers.
If there is one song that
encompasses the theme of the recording, Amelia is it. Likening herself to another woman who dared
to explore in a world dominated by men,
Mitchell compares her journey to that of the lost aviatrix Amelia
Earhart. She also brings in Ikarus, the
Greek who sailed too close to the sun and fell to earth used here as a symbol
of love so ambitious and over reaching that it falters under its own mammoth ambitions.
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| At one time a model in her native Canada, she still fascinates in her 70's | . |
The inference is that if you chose
a life of adventure and embrace brave new creative terrain openly, the risk can
be your own destruction. Superficially,
the song is about love lost. On a much
deeper plain it is so grand and so profoundly sorrowful that she makes a compelling case that romantic failures are
worth the pain if for nothing else the inspiration they provide.
Mitchell has frequently painted
love, even marriage, as things to be desired, but always leery. Love, even for one’s craft, is a double edged
sword that cuts harshly both ways. For
her, a woman who selects marriage and domesticity risks the loss of her muse,
new love, adventure and the draw of the road.
To be connected to a soul mate
means the abandonment of the mournful siren who suffers for her craft. Whatever path chosen, the romantic power of
dangerous liaisons with dashing men is just too strong for an artist dependent
on them for inspiration to reject. Even
in this portrait of love, sex is the magic fuel that ignites passions and
romantic longings.
Mitchell may question her
decisions, but she never goes so far as to regret them. When love ends, it
ends.
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| Detroit's hot folk couple. In the end, Joni would take her husband's name and build her own career. |
Ultimately, she selects the promise
of the road. There is never any question
about the path she has chosen. When she
sang, “Its always come for me,” she knew damn well that she was destined to be
the singer songwriter that was going to emotionally suffer for the sake of art. Even if the rewards are great, happiness may
very well be the cost.
If many of her follower’s mimic the
intimate nature of her music, few manage to make the jump to self-revelation
that becomes artistic expression.
Mitchell never simply recounts an experience, she lends them a majesty
that make the smallest human moment an epic theatrical event. It is not an easy task to accomplish without
looking foolish.
For an artist who never seemed
particularly worried about what anyone thought, she created her music her own
way and managed to surround herself with talented players who “got” what she
was saying. If the session players of
L.A. considered her chords, odd hybrids, she found sanctuary with jazz
musicians.
The late Jaco Pasotrious brings his
fretless bass to the front of the line here and is a strong presence even where
he is absent. It is almost as if
Pastorious and Mitchell were a duet on Hejira with both parts intertwined. The
interplay between the two create a sound that is unique and sensual. While
Hejira doesn’t sound like a pure jazz album, it certainly takes a great
deal of inspiration from the idiom.
Hejira could be conceived as an extended
poetry reading. The singing fits the
mood of the compositions, and in many ways carry much of the melody. Sounding partly sung and partly spoken, there
is a remote quality here that actually is put to great effect. There is even a sense of humor found between
the lines.
One of the post poignant and
simultaneously cynical is the character study that makes up “Furry Sings The
Blues.” Her visit to the aging musician
Furry Lewis is granted because of the gifts she brings, cigarettes and
liquor. He is fully aware he is only
being sought for what he represents and Mitchell is fully aware of the contrast
between a successful musician and one facing obscurity in reduced
circumstances.
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| A visual artist derailed by circumstance, she managed to bring the lofty world of fine art to music |
In a much earlier song, “For Free,”
Mitchell explored the contrasts between herself and a street musician. This time around, she has brought details, a
character portrait. She paints the scene
of a once thriving Black community reduced to rumble and commercialization. She
also makes a connection between the ill Lewis and the community around him both
facing bleak times.
The song also operates as a not too
veiled premonition that Mitchell herself could end up alone with smoke and
drink facing the inevitable conclusion of a life of wanderlust. Mitchell certainly sees aspects of herself in
the aging musician with the implicit understanding that they may share a
similar fate: aging.
Hejira quietly puts forth the
dilemma of women in music. When success and
fame hit, they bring comprise, fears and the potential for
self-destruction. For a woman, the
price may be any kind of family life. While
Mitchell is hailed as the great chronicler of female experience, she is not
alone.
Aretha Franklin, the titanic talent
that can confidently handle nearly anything thrown at her, is often under rated
as an articulate sage. Jazz, blues,
soul, gospel, rock and roll even opera, she is the force of musical power that
confidently spells out the real trouble women have. If Mitchell is the cool lady of sorrows,
Franklin is the vocal power of emancipation, fear, need and expression. Both are doing similar things, but in wildly
different ways.
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| She may have been the quintessential California Blonde, but she felt a kinship with Black men. |
If Franklin states her case
directly, Mitchell is the very restrained English woman who depends on veiled
language to get the point across. While
she is not armed with a voice that can shake the rafters or the anguish of a
Roy Orbison, Mitchell uses her cool voice, well-chosen words and idiosyncratic musical
approach to become effective and powerful. Hejira will never be a party album,
but it packs a powerful punch when heard.
The big contrast with Mitchell is
that she is feminine externally but in attitude very much like a strong willed man marking his path and
taking lovers as the situations dictate.
In a song like Coyote, she is not the wounded woman but the sexual
conqueror who reflects with no regrets.
She is only pissed off when her current man has a wondering eye in her
presence.
Mitchell knows the ways of men and eventually
laughs it all off as just part of the party.
She maybe stung by lost love, but never so wounded that she can’t keep
going. She is much stronger than she
looks and very much an artist who overrides gender entirely. In no way has she ever been a traditional
woman in song.
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| Far too important and relevant to ever become an oldies act. A fate that many would find. |
Hejira unlike the wordiness of some
rockers, is the achievement of an artist at a high point. Mitchell’s ultimate achievement maybe her
ability to build music every bit as quirky as her poetic sensibility that come
together in a fascinating way. No
matter how you size it up, the genre she has more or less created puts her in a
class all her own. Many have taken from
her, but few can match what she does the way she does it. As tightly woven as she has been in the music
world, she has followed her own sound independent of trends or fashion.
When I hear music from different
places in time, Court and Spark, The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Hejira and Don
Juan’s Reckless Daughter sound as if taken from another time. They have aged
well which is a testament to how well they were crafted.
Hejira is a unique recording, and
it fits in with the developments that drew her to creating her first all out
jazz recoding, Mingus, a collaboration with the last bassist Charles Minugs.
The 70’s were a creative time for
Mitchell. Even in later years, she has
managed to keep the spirit going for so much longer than her many peers. Rather than fall into repeating herself or
becoming an artist content with her past achievements, she has been able to
expand and continue for a long time in a music industry not given to providing
platforms for creative mavericks.
Her
legacy may very well rest on her status as a loner. It is the ultimate “cool” and the only path to authenticity.
By Kurt von Behrmann
Mr. von Behrmann is an artist who writes. Currently living and working in Phoenix, Arizona, he is working an new pieces for an art exhibition about bipolar disorder.
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