What I said back then:
Several of these memories will turn out to be more than one memory stitched together, especially this one. Let's see: I remember...
Second year drama with Mr. Dunbar - "I'm going to play you some Joni Mitchell; I don't think you're ready for her yet, but this is Big Yellow Taxi. We're going to do some movement to it..."
Airyhall Library introduced a record borrowing service: 'let's see, I know something about Joni Mitchell, maybe I'll try this live album (Shadows and Light). I fall hopelessly in love...
Doing homework to Ladies of the Canyon
Edinburgh - Wild Things Run Free.. - Chinese Café still haunts me, and I still have not heard a better version of Unchained Melody
The first time I heard Court and Spark, in a flat in Edinburgh
The first time I really listened to Hejira
Yonge St in Toronto - at last, the full length version of Shadows and Light on CD - buying it there seemed so appropriate, like coming home...
Graeme going to see her live in 1983 (or '84) - it's OK, I thought, I'll see her next time. I'm still waiting.
In so many ways, Joni has been the soundtrack to times in my life which didn't seem important at the time, but which turn out to be critical moments in retrospect - I was listening to Dog eat Dog in Inverness at the time when I was trying to decide about whether I should go for a job which required me to move to Perth, I was listening to Mingus on a weekend alone, as I started to properly get to grips with the depression. And there's always the clarinet solo in For Free.
What I think now:
Sobering to realise that Joni is 68 now. I covered a lot of the bases there, although I hadn’t yet had the experience of listening to Hejira on a proper North American road trip; the kind where you might pass a ‘farmhouse burning down, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night’ – it does change the way you think about the music. I also omitted the fact that, even after I worked out the tunings, I never could quite get my guitar to sound like hers – even Big Yellow Taxi, which is quite straightforward once you know how to tune for it, doesn’t sound quite like it should…
Also, I love the fact that this, for all its Californian gloss, is Canadian music. She’s a fellow BC resident these days, and listening to the most recent album, Shine, I can’t help trying to feel the BC influences…
Since then:
Joni Mitchell CDs occupy one section of the little rack I have by my desk – reserved for the things I’m likely to reach for when I need something comforting and familiar (of course, these days, I just fire up iTunes, but the symbolism is important, I think). Allan Dunbar was wrong all those years ago; my boys have known and loved ‘Taxi’ for years, and if I’m passing music on to them, I’m happy that hers is a name they’ll recognise and not dismiss as the old man’s crazy obsession.
At least, I hope they will…