My favorite Joni Mitchell song is "A Case Of You".\u00c2\u00a0 Only a Canadian could come up with such perfect imagery.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll know if you’ve ventured to the Great White North.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re driving down the boulevard and you see a cinder block structure, with the words "Beer Store" above the plate glass window.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no euphemism.\u00c2\u00a0 This is where you go to escape life.\u00c2\u00a0 It starts out as a good time, but then it turns maudlin.\u00c2\u00a0 It always turns maudlin.\u00c2\u00a0 Just after you profess love for everybody in the room.<\/p>\n
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".\u00c2\u00a0 But the lyrics of this song from "Hejira" are as great as any ever written.\u00c2\u00a0 They match Jackson Browne’s "The Late Show" for quotability in my life.\u00c2\u00a0 We all live so close to that line and so far from satisfaction.\u00c2\u00a0 Get older and you know someone who’s committed suicide.\u00c2\u00a0 If they only knew the trauma they put their survivors through they might hold back.\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe if they heard this song they might know somebody is on their wavelength.<\/p>\n
Probably number three is "Woman Of Heart And Mind".\u00c2\u00a0 "For The Roses" came out in the deep fall.\u00c2\u00a0 To listen to this in the heart of Vermont was to feel as if the walls themselves were speaking.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s so human.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 But you’d never forget her.\u00c2\u00a0 You’d never forget her story.<\/p>\n
On Saturday I spoke at some conference at USC.\u00c2\u00a0 Afterward a blond-haired woman approached me with her CD.\u00c2\u00a0 She said she was a singer\/songwriter.\u00c2\u00a0 In the style of Sarah McLachlan.\u00c2\u00a0 She’d never listened to Joni Mitchell.\u00c2\u00a0 I implored her to buy "Blue".\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Someone with a pure voice.\u00c2\u00a0 Who spoke from the bottom of her heart.\u00c2\u00a0 About herself.\u00c2\u00a0 And her story…it was our story.\u00c2\u00a0 The one we owned when we were home alone as opposed to the one we tried on for size out in public.<\/p>\n
You start with "Blue".\u00c2\u00a0 I believe everybody knows that now.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though "Court and Spark" was the big seller.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, that album was great, it’s just that it sounded as if Joni was wearing makeup.\u00c2\u00a0 "Blue" was made sans paint.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s why we adore it.<\/p>\n
And before "Blue" came "Ladies Of The Canyon".\u00c2\u00a0 When Joni was still establishing her reputation.\u00c2\u00a0 When people were discovering her.\u00c2\u00a0 Before the hype.<\/p>\n
"Ladies Of The Canyon" starts off inviting, with "Morning Morgantown".\u00c2\u00a0 But it turns dark.\u00c2\u00a0 You hear "Conversation".\u00c2\u00a0 And "The Arrangement".\u00c2\u00a0 Then comes "Rainy Night House".<\/p>\n
Funny that the last track came up on my iPod serendipitously the night of the first big rainstorm of the season.\u00c2\u00a0 It was almost creepy.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the recording sounds like a rainy night.\u00c2\u00a0 When you’re inside, with only your thoughts.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s got a piano and a bit of strings and Joni.\u00c2\u00a0 Telling her story.<\/p>\n
It was a rainy night I’ve always thought if I had a gun in the house, I’d be dead now.\u00c2\u00a0 During one of those existential moments I’m sure I would have reached into the drawer and blown myself away.\u00c2\u00a0 I envy those who are even-tempered.\u00c2\u00a0 As I’ve gotten older, I’ve retreated from the precipice, but you never forget that feeling.\u00c2\u00a0 Of pain.\u00c2\u00a0 Misunderstanding.\u00c2\u00a0 Live long enough and you know it always gets better.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, in a society full of winners it’s depressing to be a loser.\u00c2\u00a0 No one cares about you, or so you think.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s easier to slink off.\u00c2\u00a0 To end it.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s tougher to have hope than just clicking your heels together and believing.<\/p>\n The depression is always about feeling alone.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about bodies surrounding you, it’s about understanding.\u00c2\u00a0 Feeling someone’s on your wavelength.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, this requires owning your wavelength.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is more difficult in the U.S.A. than ever before.\u00c2\u00a0 In a culture that equates money with success.\u00c2\u00a0 Where WHO you are is secondary to WHAT you are.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s the main concept of "Rainy Night House".\u00c2\u00a0 Who you are.<\/p>\n You are a refugee Self-discovery.\u00c2\u00a0 First it requires ownership.\u00c2\u00a0 And then exploration.\u00c2\u00a0 It takes a lot to buck the system, to find out who you want to be, not who everybody says you SHOULD be.<\/p>\n I’m still struggling.\u00c2\u00a0 With who I should be and who I am.\u00c2\u00a0 My father was thrilled that I became a lawyer.\u00c2\u00a0 He could never understand that it didn’t thrill me.\u00c2\u00a0 He would have loved to be a member of the Bar.<\/p>\n My mother doesn’t understand why I chose such a hard life.\u00c2\u00a0 It would be easier to play the game.\u00c2\u00a0 To pursue my interests as a hobby, in my off time.\u00c2\u00a0 But I couldn’t do this.\u00c2\u00a0 I was touched by her push to experience everything.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 To join every club in college, to take advantage of all the cultural opportunities.\u00c2\u00a0 She was the one who bought us our first 45s.\u00c2\u00a0 Once bitten, you can’t recoil.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to follow the path.\u00c2\u00a0 The one delineated in the music.<\/p>\n I’m self-educated.\u00c2\u00a0 I learned almost nothing at my elite college.\u00c2\u00a0 Not in class anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 All the knowledge I gained was listening to these records.\u00c2\u00a0 There was a wisdom in these records.\u00c2\u00a0 A wisdom I still reflect upon, that still rings true today.<\/p>\n I only wish more of today’s kids could spend time in that rainy night house.\u00c2\u00a0 And investigate who they are instead of following the dream outlined by their parents, who mean well, but who miss the point.\u00c2\u00a0 You only get one life.\u00c2\u00a0 There are no do-overs.\u00c2\u00a0 Regrets are the most expensive purchases of your life.\u00c2\u00a0 The music taught us to follow our own path.\u00c2\u00a0 I have.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My favorite Joni Mitchell song is "A Case Of You".\u00c2\u00a0 Only a Canadian could come up with such perfect imagery.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll know if you’ve ventured to the Great White North.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re driving down the boulevard and you see a cinder block structure, with the words "Beer Store" above the plate glass window.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no euphemism.\u00c2\u00a0 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We took a taxi to your mother’s home
She went to Florida and left you
With your father’s gun, alone<\/em><\/p>\n
From a wealthy family
You gave up all the golden factories
To see, who in the world you might be<\/em><\/p>\n