In Love With Joni

I watched the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Canada. They were pretty impressive. But its been a really long time since

I was moved as I was when I watched the aerialist dancing to Joni Mitchell's 2000 re-recording of her hit Both Sides Now. The dance and productions values of the the performance itself were amazing but for me it was more about the virtual flood of memories that were born of my first great musical love (not, of course, counting the Beatles): Joni Mitchell.

My direction and life have taken me places that have all but left Joni in the dust. I have cds of hers that haven't been listened to in years. But hearing that song shot me back to 1972 and into a pursuit of every chord she spilled into my soul during my teen and early adult life.

I must have gotten my love of folk music from my mom. But while she loved the sounds of Peter, Paul and Mary and Pete Seeger (...where have all the flowers gone...) those simple lyrics and melodies left me flat. Enter Joni with complex poetic stories, harmonies, chording, and melodies that kept surprising you. First lofty and pretty melodies which grew over the years to be more bluesy, more jazz - a hole that you could happily fall into. You didn't know where she was going - it was new and deeeeeeep. And I mean more than generally profound. I mean it reached me as something that was true to my own wiring. Whether or not I could relate to the cautious optimism or the flat out disillusion that was the common thread to her songs, the poetry and the music itself resonated with me in a very personal way. And so, it "took me places". Places that I cannot articulate other than to say I soar and I "realize myself". (Very un-Valri things to say. In fact, if I were reading your blog and I read this, I'd stop. Because it all sounds very studied and mechanically deep and falsely "precious". And I hate "precious".)

But lyrics of missing your spouse (...the bed's too big; the frying pan too wide...) or helpless, hopeless, unhappy love (...I could drink a case of you and still be on my feet...) or loss (...I wish I had a river I could skate away on...) or the idiotic joy of new love (...won't you stay? we'll put on the day and we'll wear it till the night comes...) or the realization that with the passage of time, you still can't grasp what you really wish you could (... its life illusions I recall, I really don't know life at all...) - all of these words, I do get. And the music gives it color and life. More than if they were put in another way. Because, I guess, I must think in pictures.

It is the same "musical picture painting" that has always drawn me to Stephen Sondheim. His work does the same thing for me.

So I have been boring the pants off my daughters - trying to introduce them to Joni - and they are polite about it but they do not get it. And while I wish they could soar there with me, in a way it is good that they don't because it will continue to be uniquely, intrinsically, special to me. And I can go it solo - I don't mind.

In "Case of You", she sings "I remember that you once told me: 'love is touching souls'; surely you've touched mine. I love Joni Mitchell.

Sorry for the preciousness of this.