All respects payed here to Joni please!!! Listening to the Hissing of Summer Lawns right now- fantastic, and not even her best

"Paprika Plains" from Don Juan's Reckless Daughter -- Mmmm Mmm!

Blue is one of my favorite albums of all time. This one and Plastic Ono Band are two of the most honest albums I have ever heard.

Don't Interrupt The Sorrow is my fave off this disc...the imagery is very Joseph Campbell...

My old man
He's a singer in the park
He's a walker in the rain
He's a dancer in the dark
We don't need no piece of paper
From the city hall
Keeping us tied and true
No, my old man
Keeping away my lonesome blues

from "My Old Man" from BLUE

One of the most beautiful albums ever made!

Come in from the Cold

Back in 1957
We had to dance a foot apart
And they hawk-eyed us from the sidelines
Holding their rulers without a heart
And so with just a touch of our fingers
I could make our circuitry explode
All we ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold

Come in
Come in from the cold
(we were so young)
Oh come in
Come in from the cold

We really thought we had a purpose
We were so anxious to achieve
We had hope
The world held promise
For a slave to liberty
Freely I slaved away for something better
And I was bought and sold
And all I ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold

Come in
Come in from the cold
(we were so sure)
Oh come in
Come in from the cold

I feel your leg under the table
Leaning into mine
I feel renewed
I feel disabled
By these bonfires in my spine
I don't know who the arsonist was
Which incendiary soul
But all I ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold

Come in
Come in from the cold
(you were so warm)
Oh come in
Come in from the cold

I am not some stone commission
Like a statue in a park
I am flesh and blood and vision
I am howling in the dark
Long blue shadows of the jackals
Are falling on a pay phone by the road
Oh all they ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold

Come in
Come in from the cold
(I was so low)
Oh come in
Come in from the cold

Is this just vulgar electricity
Is this the edifying fire
(it was so pure)
Does your smile's covert complicity
Debase as it admires
(just a flu with a temperature)
Are you just checking out your mojo
(oohoo)
Or am I just fighting off growing old
(just a high fever)
All I ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold

Come in
Come in from the cold
(it was so pure)
Oh come in
Come in from the cold

I know we never will be perfect
Never entirely clear
(when the moon shines)
We get hurt and we just panic
And we strike out
Out of fear
(you were only being kind)
I fear the sentence of this solitude
200 years on hold
(for my loving crime)
Oh and all we ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold

Come in
Come in from the cold
(when the moon shines)
Oh come in
Come in from the cold

When I thought life had some purpose
Then I thought I had some choice
(I was running blind)
And I made some value judgments
In a self-important voice
(I was outa line)
But then absurdity came over me
And I longed to lose control
(into no mind)
Oh all I ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold

Come in
Come in from the cold
(you were so kind)
Please come in
(so kind)
Come in from the cold
Come in come in
Come in from the cold

by Joni.

I LOVE Joni.

One of the most honest, poetic singer-songwriters there's ever been. Some of her many albums are of variable quality, but the top ones - Clouds, Hissing, Blue etc - are just SO good, so emotional.

Paprika Plains
by Joni Mitchell
---
It fell from midnight skies
It drummed on the galvanized
In the washroom women tracked the rain
Up to the make-up mirror
Liquid soap and grass
And Jungle Gardenia crash
On Pine-Sol and beer
It's stifling in here
I've got to get some air
I'm going outside to get some air

Back in my hometown
They would have cleared the floor
Just to watch the rain come down
They're such sky oriented people
Geared to changing weather
I'm floating off in time
I'm floating off
I'm floating off in time

When I was three feet tall
And wide eyed open to it all
With their tasseled teams they came
To McGee's General Store
All in their beaded leathers
I would tie on colored feathers
And I'd beat the drum like war
I would beat the drum like war
I'd beat the drum
I'd beat the drum like war

But when the church got through
They traded their beads for bottles
Smashed on Railway Avenue
And they cut off their braids
And lost some link with nature
I'm floating into dreams
I'm floating off
I'm floating into my dreams

I dream paprika plains
Vast and bleak and God forsaken
Paprika plains
And a turquoise river snaking

(Where crows gaze vigilant on wires
Where cattle graze the grasses
Far from the digits of business hours
The moon clock wanes and waxes
But here all time is stripped away
Nowhere on these plains
Is a sprout or an egg in evidence
To measure loss or gain
Only a little Indian band
Come down from some windy mesa
No women to make them food and child
No expressions on their faces
I'm low in a helicopter
And the wind from whirling blades
Flaps their woven blankets
And flags their raven braids
How came they to this emptiness?
How came they to this dream?
How came I to this view
From a flying machine
Of earth and air and water
And a band of Indian men
Without herds or flocks or crops
Or families or fires to tend?
Like a phoenix up from ashes now
A blanket figure springs
With a fist raised up to turquoise skies
Like liberty
And at the point of vanishing
Where the sky and the earth meet
A bomb blooms
Deadly mushroom
White
Gold
Heat
Like a phoenix up from ashes
Up from violent mysteries
And growing 'till the giant blast
Is to it like a golfer's tee
there comes a child's beach ball
And memory takes me back
to the beach to toss it up
to the garage to get it patched
A pink and yellow beach ball
Rolling
Grand
Detached
Turning the blues and greens of earth
From space probe photographs
I float out of the hovercraft
Naked as infancy
And weightless
And drifting
Horizontally
Like a filing to a magnet
Like the long descent of rain
I am drawn
I fall against the ball
And lose paprika plains
I suckle at my mother's breast
I embrace my mother earth
I remember perforated blinds
Over the crib of my birth
And just as Eve succumbed
To reckless curiosity
I take my sharpest fingernail
And slash the globe to see
Below me
Vast Paprika plains
And the snake the river traces
And a little band of Indian men
With no expressions on their faces)

The rain retreats
Like troops to fall on other fields and streets
Meanwhile they're sweet talking and name calling
And brawling on the fringes of the floor
I spot you through the smoke
With your eyes on fire
From J&B and coke
As I'm coming through the door
I'm coming back
I'm coming back for more!
The band plugs in again
You see that mirrored ball begin to sputter lights
And spin
Dizzy on the dancers
Geared to changing rhythms
No matter what you do
I'm floating back
I'm floating back to you!

---
Copyright © 1976; Crazy Crow Music

VANITYSprisonBYTCH said:

Now that is my fave Joni tune EVER.
Serious!

PURRR

sermwanderer said:

hmmm. hissing IS my fav joni album...

How many studio albums has she done? And have any of them been remastered?

Jasziah said:

16 minutes + of pure bliss.

Tom said:

It is fantastic isn't it? An artist with integrity and soul. Joni would NEVER sell out

i dreamed of 747s over geometric farms, dreams Amelia...dreams and false alarms.

Joni is queen of my music library. "Sweet Bird" and "Don't Interrupt the Sorrow" are my faves from HISSING.

VANITYSprisonBYTCH said:

agreed!

PhilG said:

Not trying to start anything,but some of the stuff was Joni was doing during the Blue period,was inspired by

As much respect as her old albums get [they are my favs too]
she did make some pretty amazing and strong compositions in
her later career.

The Magdalene Laundries being one of them.

I remember I'd just seen a long documentary [not the film]
about those Magdalene houses with interviews by some of
the surviving women and it was shocking, to say the least.

A few days later I heard that song for the first time and
it just completely knocked me off my feet.

I just sat there, listening, and cried like a child, made
no sound, didn't breath, just had a sourcer full of tears
streaming slowly down my face.

That's honest music, the kind of music that touches some
central nerve inside of you. Timeless and real.

Joni Mitchell never lies...