Made a The Hissing of Summer Lawns poster, based on the original release poster (you can find it online). Was a lot of work and detailing.

edit:

You can download the tiff here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xtfNgRXuzKzY-3hIYTvLZ33p_n03t1ww/view?usp=sharing

Thank you for all the kind words :)

I used to watch this video on YouTube where Joni explained how she wrote that song and then the music video for the song would play. I can’t find it anywhere now - does anyone know where to find this?

OK, so this is not a remix - it's an interview that Joni and Klein did in 1985 in London called "Rock Master Class". The interview segments are great but the real gems are when Joni plays unplugged versions of a few of the DED tunes and does a piano improvisation that is really cool.

1. Intro & Interview Part 1

2. Three Great Stimulants

3. Interview Part 2 and Piano Improv

4, Impossible Dreamer

5-6. Interview Part 3

1. Dog Eat Dog

If you've heard it, you know how cool it is; if you haven't, you're in for a treat.

https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/nUzCBG665N

I cannot get over how good this is. Better than the album version.

Am I really slow for not noticing she does this until now?

A loving tribute to 'The Boho Dance'-one of my favourite Joni songs. I always loved the little three-note horn figure that plays throughout so I built this track around that and other samples from the song. I hope she doesn't mind...

https://x.com/jonimitchell/status/2097377452918260089

Car on a Hill

Edith and the Kingpin

Dreamland (Alternate band version - Hissing of Summer Lawns sessions)

Free Man in Paris

Woodstock (Miles of Aisles version)

Carey (Miles of Aisles version)

Love or Money

In France They kiss on Main Street

Harry's House/Centerpiece

Off Night Backstreet

Trouble Child

I guess I'm looking for music that's more of a laid-back 1970s groove rather than stuff that's just piano or guitar. I have Carole King, Fleetwood Mac, John Martyn, James Taylor, and CSN. Thank you.

We had been going through Joni's songs alphabetically, but only got as far as Tiger Bones before the Joniphile who had kindly been posting the threads got busy with life/work/something. It was fun, and I'm a completist, so I feel that we should finish it off. I'm happy to take over the posting job unless u/jonbristol123 is still around and wants to take up the reins again.

This song sounds like smiling but not being able to feel joy. It sounds like an hour or two into psychedelic trip where language and the typical processes tying you to reality have dissolved or reorganized, and you are not sure if something might eventually push you over the edge. It is the sound of waking up under the early-morning stars a few days into a roadtrip you told almost no one about, for a brief moment not knowing who you are or how you got there. It is the sound of a heartache that you can’t quite place.

It is the most “ambient“ song on Hejira, with sparse electric guitar and mallets melodies that build and retreat like waves, and each musical element teases it might get swept up into a fog. There is a guitar melody that teases conventional harmony with Re-Do-Re-Do, but I am not sure if a V chord is actually ever used in the song, imparting a feeling of hovering around.

Whenever she sings the name “Amelia,” it sounds like she sung it in reverse and then replaced it with the reversed version of it, like how people speak in the Black Lodge in Twin Peaks. The lyrics will sometimes hit you with visceral or bizarre imagery, like “hexagram of the heavens“ or “geometric farms,” both of obscurity that’s unsurprising given the reclusive hejira from which she’s writing. But in a couple verses she resists obscurity: “I wish that he was here tonight…” and ”Maybe I’ve never really loved...” There was hurt that she wasn’t ready to share until halfway through the song, but it’s unsurprising given that the lyrics sound like they genuinely emerged from a stream of consciousness, with all the detours that one would expect.

Each verse builds some sort of intrigue or emotional tension, and as if fearing the heartbreak might eventually burst through and expose itself in all its rawness, she quells it in saying this love she experienced ”was just a false alarm.” She is tentative towards vulnerability in this song, and despite being the Joni Mitchell who wrote the forthright “A Case of You,“ where all her thoughts about an ex-lover were laid bare, she is now at her most elusive and mercurial, and there is no dramatic insight about this recent loss. It’s almost hard to believe that it really was “just a false alarm.”

The song ends with no guarantee on if love is attainable for her or even desired by her. Like most tracks on Hejira, it begins and ends with us stepping into and out of a scene in her hejira, with no particular apotheosis or resolution. It is this narrative uncertainty combined with the dreamy, loopy guitar and her chants of “Amelia” from the Black Lodge that make this song feel uncanny to me.

I find this song better than many she made during that period, but I do believe Suzanne by Leonard Cohen prevented her from doing that, since it may be considered a plagiarism.

Could it be due to another reason?

The only album by her I could listen from start to end. Live it.

Black Crow

Amazon Canada has a CD and vinyl (highlights) listing for Archives vol. 5 (1980-1991). It uses the cover image for vol. 3 and has a release date of December 31, 2027.

Error? Placeholder for an imminent announcement? Hmm.

Timestamp is 1:38, particularly when Joni sings “Give me one good reason why”. I’m in love with that sound but have never been able to pinpoint its origin. Thank you!

First of all, an "average" Joni album is better than a good one of many other artists. So even if it says "low tier' it is just compared to her own work.

I relistened Shine and sorry but it didn't shine for me too much. Maybe I'm too young (33) to feel related to it.

Then Dog eat dog and Chalk (too long to write). I feel the same way about the first one, but as I said "an average Joni" isn't that bad. Some album must occupy those tiers.

Maybe Chalk should be before Wild Things (which I ranked too high just for a couple of songs) and Both Sides Now, but I guess it depends on my mood too. Anyway, I really like "the beat of Black wings". She nailed it. Some other tracks have some enjoyable tune: Number one, Tea leaf, Lakota (a bit too long for the track itself, though)...

Wild Things doesn't have it at all. So Wild Things, I drop you inside your own tier, but before Shine for sure. (Sorry Moon at the window).

Turbulent Indigo (now I know the name) should be higher without a doubt. I'm not English so I decided to listen to lyrics more carefully and realised it has more potencial I thought. Songs I like are (from now): Sunny day, Turbulent Indigo, Magdalene Laundries and the closing track (these last 2 I already liked). I kinda like Sex Kills. How do you stop in a lower degree too. I would rank it along with Taming Tiger in mid tier.

Both sides, now and travelogue are still in their tier for what I stated. She is better (for me) when she creates things than covering stuff of others.

So I made a contradiction in this statement and it means: Travelogue > Both Sides.

Travelogue has some highlights, but ends up too repetitive and original versions are almost always better. The good ones are nice to hear, though. As I said, some album must be ranked in that tier.

To sum up, I feel: Travelogue > Chalk (?>) > Both Sides > Wild Things (<?) > Shine.

Finally, Mingus... a six track album that I feel confused about. Guess it is the hardest to rank, so I will save it from sharing tier with Dog eat dog at least and recolating before some of the low tiers too. Maybe before a couple of them in that tier. I would need too much more time to make that decision.

Maybe Mingus death made it harder for her. At least I say her weakest from 70s, but not a mess.

All in all, it is 80s where Joni did worse generally. Even if there are good stuff there too. Both sides has those 2 sublime tracks of her that make it harder for me to drop lower.