And maybe "Free Man In Paris", though I never really paid attention to who sang it...
And I knew about Judy Collins singing "Both Sides Now", not knowing that Joni Mitchell had written it.
In the late 90s, I came into a couple of greatest hits albums with Joni Mitchell's music on it. I really got into it and enjoyed a lot of songs I missed when they were more timely. Since I am a big James Taylor fan, it's crazy that I wouldn't listen to music from his ex. On her awesome album Blue, he contributed a lot of guitar.
Sadly, as Joni got older, her voice changed. She was (and probably still is) a chain smoker. I remember seeing a video of her painting-- besides being a writer, singer, composer, and guitar player, she can also paint... and the whole time, she was chain smoking like a chimney. She's also pretty old now. Her voice is much lower than it was in the 70s...
"The Magdalene Laundries" is a very poignant song about unwed pregnant teens who were forced to work in a laundry in Ireland... I think this song is amazing, even if it is depressing, but Joni's voice is very different here than it was before.
And no song captures how different her voice is now like her 2006 rendition of "The Man I Love".
It's been awhile since I lasted listened to Joni Mitchell. I might have to put her on this weekend and revisit some of my favorite songs by her.
I like Judy Collins. but I'm partial to Joni Mitchel's "Both Sides Now," all the more since it was originally hers. Did Joni Mitchell also write "The circle Game>? That song was sung a tennis camp when I was a kid, and it hasn't left me wih good feelings event though it's probably not a bad song.
ReplyDeleteI saw an Internet video of Mary Travers' memorial service hosted by Paul and Peter, and Judy Collins was featured. She;s aged very gracefully. The cohesiveness and seeming lack of competition among the folk music community was heart-warming. I was disappointed that Gordon Lightfoot wasn't present for the event, but he doesn't seem to appear for many of those sorts of thigs.
I think I prefer Judy Collins' version more because I kind of got into her when I was in college. I bought her "Colors of the Day" album on cassette and used to listen to it all the time. I like Joni Mitchell's version, too, but it's just so much slower and less peppy. Natalie Cole also covered "Both Sides Now" and I don't like what she did with it.
ReplyDelete"The Circle Game" is indeed a Mitchell creation. The first time I heard it, I was in Peace Corps training and my trainer suggested it as a good song to use to teach kids English. Another song she suggested was "Lemon Tree", which I think was a Peter, Paul, and Mary song, but don't quote me! I like "Circle Game", though Joni's done others that I much prefer.
Claudine Longet did a cover of "Both Sides Now" that can only kindly be called anything as good as Godawful.
ReplyDeletePeter, Paul, and Mary did have the biggest (or only) hit with "lemon Tree." I don't know if one of them or someone else authored it, or if it was a true anonymous folk song. My mom has probably every p, P, & m lP ever recorded, and also has many of their CDs now.
Stories of those Magdalene laundries (and others like them in other countries including the US, although maybe none were as brutal as those in Ireland) are positively chilling. Exactly ho did women end up there? Did their families send them?Did the court systems sentencing them to the places? Did some go willingly , thinking they wren't s bad s they were and believing they had no other options?
My two years in Catholic schools id little to endear me to nuns, but the behavior of thsee witches was beyond anything of which I'd ever heard. How could they consider themselves women of God or Brides of Christ while doing the work of the devil? Did they even have consciences? If anyone ever deserved to be burned at the stake, it was those horrific nuns.
Sadly, I had never heard of the Magdalene Laundries until I heard Joni Mitchell's song. It's so sad how people mistreat each other in the name of religion.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big Joni Mitchell fan. Much overlooked singer-songwriter. She was incorrect in one sense. The Magdalene Laundries operated until the 1990s. They weren't just for 'fallen women', children of any age and both sexes where sent there, you just had to be poor and unable to cope. Nell McCafferty, an Irish feminist writer described Ireland as an open concentration camp for women. Only in the last few weeks have the incarcerated women begun to get some kind of closure when our sniveling prime minister was forced to make an apology when his initial statement fell short.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/19/ireland-apologises-slave-labour-magdalene-laundries
Thanks for the link, Paul. I will have to read about that. I want to visit Ireland sometime. My husband is Irish by heritage. But I know it has its blights like every other country in the world.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, don't let the shit bags put you off visiting.
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