Joni Mitchell Shine
n my favorite song, “Bad Dreams,” she begins by painting a happy picture: “The cats are in the flower bed/A red hawk rides the sky/I guess I should be happy/Just to be alive...”
But then the other foot falls, and it’s a doozy. When I first heard the next line, I actually laughed out loud. All I could think was, You tell ‘em, Joni:
“But we have poisoned everything/And oblivious to it all/The cell phone zombies babble/Through the shopping malls…”
And that’s just for starters. She observes: “You cannot be trusted/Do you even know you're lying/It's dangerous to kid yourself/You go deaf and dumb and blind.”
Mitchell plays nearly all the instruments on the album herself, and does all the singing. And while the lyrics are harsh indictments of modern culture, Mitchell serves them up with grace and style. Her jazz renderings and melodies are gorgeous, and she even manages to weave in hooks and choruses as she delivers the bad news. This takes the bite out of what could have been stridency. A couple of listens, and songs like “Hana” and the clever “If I Had a Heart, I’d Cry” are hard to forget.
Labels: Goddess, Joni Michell, Shine
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home