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July 14, 2006
I've just bought some CD's of Joni Mitchell---'Court and Spark', 'The Hissing of Summer Lawns' and and 'Hejira'. I'd already bought 'Blue.' I'd always thought that Mitchell was, and continues to be misunderstood and undervalued in terms of her music. Is that because the songs are sung by a woman, played with spare accompaniment, and are largely about love and pain? A woman singer in a then male-dominated rock music industry?
This music is conventionally seen as performed by the solo artist, the vulnerable singer-songwriter, Joni Mitchell: the confessional music poet: signature “Joni Mitchell” is one of a confessor of pain, a ruminator about life and love, a romantic poet with a sad helpless brilliance.
Doesn't 'The Hissing of Summer Lawns' rupture that persona and interpretation of her music? Gone is personal confession to be replaced by social commentary; Joni Mitchell is no longer the folk singer as her music is experimenting with jazz.
Gender is one way that politics and music intersect.
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Go ahead and get the next one in the chronology, Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. Don't know what the Moooslims is all about, but the Jaco Pastorius collaborates again (if you liked Hejira).