My favorite Joni Mitchell song is "A Case Of You".  Only a Canadian could come up with such perfect imagery.  You’ll know if you’ve ventured to the Great White North.  You’re driving down the boulevard and you see a cinder block structure, with the words "Beer Store" above the plate glass window.  There’s no euphemism.  This is where you go to escape life.  It starts out as a good time, but then it turns maudlin.  It always turns maudlin.  Just after you profess love for everybody in the room.

I’d like to say I love "Song For Sharon" as much, but if I only get to pick one, it’s got to be "A Case Of You".  But the lyrics of this song from "Hejira" are as great as any ever written.  They match Jackson Browne’s "The Late Show" for quotability in my life.  We all live so close to that line and so far from satisfaction.  Get older and you know someone who’s committed suicide.  If they only knew the trauma they put their survivors through they might hold back.  Or maybe if they heard this song they might know somebody is on their wavelength.

Probably number three is "Woman Of Heart And Mind".  "For The Roses" came out in the deep fall.  To listen to this in the heart of Vermont was to feel as if the walls themselves were speaking.  It’s so human.  As if that girl from down the street, the one you played football with, suddenly showed up as a twentysomething and testified from the bottom of her soul.  And listening you wouldn’t know if you’d met your soulmate or your new best friend or whether this would be the last contact you’d ever have with her.  But you’d never forget her.  You’d never forget her story.

On Saturday I spoke at some conference at USC.  Afterward a blond-haired woman approached me with her CD.  She said she was a singer/songwriter.  In the style of Sarah McLachlan.  She’d never listened to Joni Mitchell.  I implored her to buy "Blue".  Stunned that she would be enraptured by the thirtysomething chanteuse from above the border with the crystalline voice and the mediocre lyrics when pure genius was sitting there in the record rack, available for discovery.  Someone with a pure voice.  Who spoke from the bottom of her heart.  About herself.  And her story…it was our story.  The one we owned when we were home alone as opposed to the one we tried on for size out in public.

You start with "Blue".  I believe everybody knows that now.  Even though "Court and Spark" was the big seller.  Oh, that album was great, it’s just that it sounded as if Joni was wearing makeup.  "Blue" was made sans paint.  And that’s why we adore it.

And before "Blue" came "Ladies Of The Canyon".  When Joni was still establishing her reputation.  When people were discovering her.  Before the hype.

"Ladies Of The Canyon" starts off inviting, with "Morning Morgantown".  But it turns dark.  You hear "Conversation".  And "The Arrangement".  Then comes "Rainy Night House".

Funny that the last track came up on my iPod serendipitously the night of the first big rainstorm of the season.  It was almost creepy.  Because the recording sounds like a rainy night.  When you’re inside, with only your thoughts.  It’s got a piano and a bit of strings and Joni.  Telling her story.

It was a rainy night
We took a taxi to your mother’s home
She went to Florida and left you
With your father’s gun, alone

I’ve always thought if I had a gun in the house, I’d be dead now.  During one of those existential moments I’m sure I would have reached into the drawer and blown myself away.  I envy those who are even-tempered.  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve retreated from the precipice, but you never forget that feeling.  Of pain.  Misunderstanding.  Live long enough and you know it always gets better.  Then again, in a society full of winners it’s depressing to be a loser.  No one cares about you, or so you think.  It’s easier to slink off.  To end it.  It’s tougher to have hope than just clicking your heels together and believing.

The depression is always about feeling alone.  It’s not about bodies surrounding you, it’s about understanding.  Feeling someone’s on your wavelength.  Then again, this requires owning your wavelength.  Which is more difficult in the U.S.A. than ever before.  In a culture that equates money with success.  Where WHO you are is secondary to WHAT you are.  And that’s the main concept of "Rainy Night House".  Who you are.

You are a refugee
From a wealthy family
You gave up all the golden factories
To see, who in the world you might be

Self-discovery.  First it requires ownership.  And then exploration.  It takes a lot to buck the system, to find out who you want to be, not who everybody says you SHOULD be.

I’m still struggling.  With who I should be and who I am.  My father was thrilled that I became a lawyer.  He could never understand that it didn’t thrill me.  He would have loved to be a member of the Bar.

My mother doesn’t understand why I chose such a hard life.  It would be easier to play the game.  To pursue my interests as a hobby, in my off time.  But I couldn’t do this.  I was touched by her push to experience everything.   To join every club in college, to take advantage of all the cultural opportunities.  She was the one who bought us our first 45s.  Once bitten, you can’t recoil.  You’ve got to follow the path.  The one delineated in the music.

I’m self-educated.  I learned almost nothing at my elite college.  Not in class anyway.  All the knowledge I gained was listening to these records.  There was a wisdom in these records.  A wisdom I still reflect upon, that still rings true today.

I only wish more of today’s kids could spend time in that rainy night house.  And investigate who they are instead of following the dream outlined by their parents, who mean well, but who miss the point.  You only get one life.  There are no do-overs.  Regrets are the most expensive purchases of your life.  The music taught us to follow our own path.  I have.