Boston Wins Pennants, Records, and Hearts
Essay by Matthew Webber
Pennants
Long before Manny, Big Papi, and Varitek, Boston won it all with a lineup of these guys: Delp. Scholz. Hashian. Sheehan. And finally, The Axe Man, Barry Goudreau, whose velvety blazers were as red as his stirrups. (Further, when Barry “was wearing the collar,” he really was wearing the collar, ya heard? Next to the guys from, say, Kansas or Chicago, Barry stood out with his sharp sense of style. Next to the guys from Boston, he’s shiny.) They formed, like Voltron, to vanquish their foes, actually inspiring that 1980s icon. (Citation needed.) Red Sox Nation embraced them as brothers, and so did a nation starving for heroes, especially those with otherworldly powers – or at least those heroes with spaceship iconography. (Fact: Single-word rock bands were really into aliens.)
And heroes they were, these native sons of Boston! In the year of our lord 1976, the two-hundredth year of America’s independence, these players, these warriors, were re-writing history, reeling off hit after hit after hit, as seen by men in sold-out stadiums and heard by boys on portable radios and cheered by women – and little girls, too – in awe of their mustaches and Hashian’s Afro. (Look at his picture! The thing was magnificent!!) For the first time in decades, since the great Babe Ruth was traded, the standings in the paper showed Boston in first – the city humming like rookies of the year, the nation spinning along with their records – ahead of all other cities, states, and city-states.
Success was like Foreplay; it had been a Long Time. But Boston’s domination gave their fans some Peace of Mind. And Boston was all like, there’s Something About You, so let me Hitch a Ride and enjoy it for awhile. The shared adoration was More Than a Feeling. The players said, “Let Me Take You Home Tonight.” The fans said, “A'ight. It's key party time!” Just another band out of Boston? Ha! The Rock & Roll Band called Boston was Smokin’!
If you don’t believe me, listen to the record!
Or better yet, look: Those spaceships are guitars!
Records
Boston’s Boston is one of those albums: scorned by critics, hipsters, and babies; beloved by disc jockeys, older brothers, and triceratops; and memorized by you without your even knowing it, thanks to its ubiquity at summertime activities, car rides to nowhere with all the windows down, and countdowns with names like the Labor Day 500.
If you’re younger than thirty, it’s always been everywhere, like Red Sox fans in your local (non-Boston) sports bar, or YouTube videos of Red Sox players dancing. If you frequent establishments with jukeboxes, you’ve heard it. If you live in the Midwest, you awkwardly got conceived to it. It’s massive, it’s a juggernaut, it’s a giant leap for rock blocks.
But don’t take my word for it, listen to the record!
I know I’ve heard six of its songs on the radio; I truly believe I’ve heard all eight. To date, it’s been purchased more than seventeen million times, as fans exchange their eight-tracks for microchips and holograms. It remains, where it might remain for all time, as the number-one best-selling debut album ever, millions ahead of your favorite band’s debut. (Fact: Its closest competitor, Rowling & West’s Harry Potter and the Hogwarts Dropout, is millions of fictional album sales behind it.)
Seventeen million?! Listen to the record!
It’s a classic by weight of its sheer popularity, as well as for the grandiose statements it makes. On the back of the record, beneath the obligatory publicity shot of the five grizzled band dudes (well, four plus the nattily attired B. Goudreau) looking all stoic and bad-ass and stuff, is an origin story worthy of a comic book, or the spoken-word intro to a concept album by Rush. What begins as a biography of the band – but really of songwriter, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, founder, leader, and obvious control freak Tom Scholz – quickly degenerates into a don’t-believe-the-hype diatribe, straight from the Rock & Roll 101 textbook, equating virtuosity with virtues like Truth. Like, how the band started doesn’t really matter, where the members come from doesn’t really matter, and who they are as people? Well, that matters even less, ‘cause the only thing that matters is the music, man. The music! These guys – er, this one guy – can really, truly play. With recording equipment he built himself! So disregard everything you’ve previously heard, and “listen to the record!” Now. Posthaste!
This phrase, this command, gets repeated like a chorus, one, two, three, four overwrought times. It’s fun to imagine a kids’ choir singing it: “Listen to the record! Listen to the record!” Or maybe a robot who sounds like Brad Delp. (R.I.P.) Or maybe these things are only fun to me. But what about a chorus of little kid robots?
But anyway, whatever. Listen to the record!
Here’s one sentence from the back of the record, describing Boston’s music to those who haven’t heard it:
“What distinguishes Boston’s music is although it’s by definition heavy rock & roll, it evidences a greater concern for melodic and harmonic flow than practically any band you can think of working the same general territory.”
Is this how bands gained fans before MySpace? Is this how critics padded their reviews? The italics are mine, because really, WTF? Were Scholz and his P.R. staff the Kanyes of their day? And what do they mean by “territory”? New England? “Melodic and harmonic flow?” Um-kay. And where’s the empirical evidence for this?
Ah, right. Their record sales. Q.E.D.
Boston’s Boston is the greatest! My bad.
Hearts
Boston’s Boston is also one of these: an album of songs I seldom need to listen to, because of how often I’ve heard them in the past, over and over on classic-rock radio, which plays the same songs by the very same bands, before I was born, till after I’m dead, or often enough to strip them of feeling, turning old anthems to standards, to backgrounds, making me forget how they used to mean the world, not just to millions – but also to me.
Knowing, as I do, their every well-placed beat and pitch-perfect scream and overdubbed strum, these songs can’t possibly surprise me anymore, much less excite me or stop my constant searching. Especially these songs, as processed as they are, without human error, or maybe human touch. Math rock, science rock, computer rock, space rock. Full of sound, lacking in fury, they signify nothing much.
And yet, and yet, when I take the band’s advice, when I actually put this record on and listen, as if I’m listening for the very first time, long before DJs ran this ship aground, I’m reminded, as I often am, of how much, yes, I love this: not just this album, and not just this band – which, believe me, is far from my favorite – but all the most played-out classic rock in general, all the most un-hip, un-ironic songs, all the stuff that got me through high school and beyond, in between grunge – whose players chose suicide – and golden-age hip-hop – whose players chose murder – and other fads and genres I fancied for a spell.
But this stuff, the old stuff, the corny stuff, whatever, sounds like my high school weekends and summers, driving from work to the house of my girlfriend, the first girl to like me for more than a month, the girl who, despite our post-Boston ages, listed this album, the decades-old Boston, the one with the spaceships and “More Than a Feeling,” as her all-time, number-one, most-favored favorite, ahead of Van Halen or Journey’s Greatest Hits, some of whose songs she could play on piano, ‘cause Boston was it, boy, The One, the platinum standard.
She was the cutest Boston fan ever.
I liked her so much, I maybe even loved her, even more so for this heartfelt confession, which never seemed silly until I got older, until I read magazines and tried to be a critic – a synonym for “skeptic,” “cynic,” and “jerk store” – ‘cause back in the day, such feelings were simpler, and choices like these weren’t choices at all, and I could just love things because I, like, loved them, just as she loved Boston’s Boston, and I loved things like Aerosmith’s Big Ones. I just loved; I didn’t think. I just loved; I didn’t doubt. I just loved; I was just a kid. I just loved. And that was enough. That was all I had to do.
I loved it all to pieces.
It’s hard for me, now, with actual people, but easy for me with albums and songs, even though music can never love you back, or otherwise get messy, entangled, or real. Music is life, man. It never breaks your heart.
It also never warms you up.
As always, it’s hard to know what I mean.
But even old records I didn’t use to love, even old records I’d previously dismissed, remind me of a time when I wasn’t scared to love, when even old music seemed new to me, and magical, before these old songs seemed tired and ancient, before I seemed ancient to even myself, alone in my apartment playing records and reviewing them, alone in my apartment, alone in my apartment...
And sometimes a song you haven’t played in years, a song you skip when it comes on the radio, a song whose lifeblood you thought you’d sucked dry – a song like this can take you back in time – and maybe, in a spaceship, to a different, radder world – especially one like “More Than a Feeling” – its beautiful intro, its fist-pumping chorus, its lyrics of sunshine and music itself – and seven other songs that, yes, sound the same – which isn’t a knock, ‘cause they all sound so good, technically proficient and climate-controlled – and all you can do is tip-tap this gibberish – em-dash run-on tangent delete (?) – or sit there in silence imagining the girl, until the song ends and you type the word “essay,” something undefinable to everyone but you, someone whose memory surely isn’t right, and then you start typing as fast as you can, to get it all down and discover the truth:
It isn’t really Boston. It’s more. It’s a feeling. It’s comfort rock, like comfort food. It’s youth. It’s love. It’s life. You know?
The shortest thing I’ve written yet. The simplest thing I’ve meant to say.
It’s hard to be objective, when artwork never is.
But Boston’s Boston is fucking amazing.
That’s what I feel when I listen to the record. That’s what I know, or just what I remember, or possibly just what I think might be happening.
And that, I know, is worth recording here, in the year of our lord 2007, eight years into my independent twenties, when Boston players are dancing jigs, when St. Louis boys are listening and writing, thinking of girls they used to know, closing their eyes and slipping away.
This is my history I’m trying to write. This is my soundtrack I’m trying to share. A thousand words are never sufficient. Eighty minutes are never enough.
This could be me or the aliens talking.
November 11, 2007
Goodwill Hunting: Joni Mitchell
The Big Yellow Circle Game
(Ostensibly, a Joni Mitchell Review)
Essay by Matthew Webber
1. The Prologue, The Apology, or
Getting What You Give
Joni Mitchell hates modern music – except for that one New Radicals hit.
I wish I could cite the source of this outrageousness in order to let you look it up yourself, or at least to prove I’m not insane. The problem is, I read it once – at least, I’m pretty sure I did – so now it’s a fact I drop in conversation, along with other awesome facts like who co-wrote “Rump Shaker” (The Neptunes’ Pharrell Williams!), which Smiths song does T.A.T.U. cover (“How Soon Is Now?”!!), and what’s “The Lemon Song” actually about (not lemons!!!)? For these three facts, I own the proofs: a tape, a CD, and a forehead-slapping duh. Few things in life are known with such certainty. Sadly, friends’ birthdays are not among these things.
But Joni’s screed? I’m sure, but I’m not. Doesn’t it seem like something she’d say, something that should be true, if it isn’t? If nothing else, she likes the New Radicals, putting their song on some “Favorites” kind of mixtape, something I’ve seen at Target, I believe, or some other place with crap you don’t need. Whatever it was, wherever it was, I obviously didn’t purchase the thing, choosing instead some more recent works, possibly something by Avril Lavigne, an artist Joni wishes dead. (Hint: I sometimes dabble in fiction, but also a bit of autobiography.)
From the little I’ve read about Joni through the years, I’ve gathered she’s proud of her work, which she should be, even if she gets kinda prickly about it, and disses other artists who aren’t named Bob Dylan. Her work is “dense” and “rich” and “obtuse,” and other short adjectives that show you I don’t get it. She’s one of those artists whose brilliance I recognize, whose towering influence is something I acknowledge, whose timeless contributions to the arts are unassailable. She’s all that and a bag of fat-free chips.
And yet, I don’t really like her music. Although I certainly appreciate it on an intellectual level, I seldom actually want to play it. I seldom choose to listen to Joni. Even now, as I’m typing this essay, respecting the hell out of everything she’s done, I’m choosing to listen to newer, lesser artists, just like I pretty much do every day. I mean, sure, A Fine Frenzy, whom I’ve seen in concert twice, can write a pretty song – but will they last for forty years? Will Feist outlast her iPod commercial? Who, besides me, even likes Tanya Donelly? Is Jewel even writing songs anymore? Has anyone heard of Charlotte Martin? None of these artists has a trace of Joni’s genius, but yet, they’re all artists whose work I prefer.
So, yes, just to clarify, yes, you’re right, yes, I am absolutely telling you that I’d rather listen to Belly (both albums), Jewel (her first two albums), and an artist (or two) whom you probably haven’t heard of than the great Joni Mitchell. And yes, this makes me a horrible person, and probably an even worse critic to boot.
This is something I can’t defend, but something that, yes, is a part of who I am. Tangents? Cheap shots? Crappy, unworkable metaphors? All of them, too, are who I am, in part – a hack, no doubt, whom Joni would hate. I even write songs that Joni would excoriate. Wouldn’t it be funny if the two of us had beef?
Really, what I am is sorry. I mean that. Sorry for being so, I don’t know, glib. For actually liking a cover tune better – namely, The Counting Crows and Vanessa Carlton version of “Big Yellow Taxi,” which is funkier, poppier, and all-around catchier to my ears – than the Joni original. (Note: According to everyone else I’ve ever met, the cover tune is way more craptacular.) As always, Vanessa’s cooing is sexy, and Duritz and Co. don’t fuck it up too badly. (Note: According to everyone else, they actually do.) I think, again, it’s less obtuse. Sorry, again, for being so terrrible.
To Joni and her fans, I’m sorry. I am. Don’t blame her for inspiring this, even though she truly did. Like, that’s how awesome Joni really is, if she can even inspire me, when I really don't even like her that much! Please continue to listen to Joni – if I’m not doing it, someone has to!
But surely, there’s an artist you also don’t get, someone whose praise you’re tired of hearing, someone whose fans you’re tired of debating, someone you know you’re supposed to adore, even though you’ve tried, and nope, you still don’t, someone like The Beatles, The Clash, or Wesley Willis, someone whose cult you’ve tried to understand, someone whose blah blah greatest band blah. I wouldn’t get too angry if you mocked Tori Amos, probably ‘cause your mockery would finally break my heart. “Tori? Not Joni?” you’d ask as I lay dying. “You know she’s like the originator, right?”
And isn’t that the thing about our All-Time Favorite Artists? We can’t understand why the whole world’s smoking crack. “What do you mean you don’t like My Band? Haven’t you heard Their Life-Changing Album? Doesn’t That Song, The One That Really Speaks To Me, likewise tell you The Truth About The World?”
Me, you, Joni, everyone – perhaps we can all agree on this: The New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” is one of those timeless songs, despite or because of its happy generalities. (Also, the dude wore this huge floppy hat.) Joni and I completely agree. That is something I know to be true. Except for the whole hating-modern-music thing.
And finally, do you remember the ending, when the Floppy-Hatted Guy dissed all those other artists, some of whom he probably liked? (You do remember this song, though, right? "You Get What You Give"? The New Radicals? No?) Well, maybe you’ll remember me for dissing Joni Mitchell, even though I respect her very, very much, ‘cause that’s just me attracting publicity. That's just me being clever and stuff. If nothing else, I’m just being honest. Because hey, if I thought it could make me superfamous, I’d even be willing to diss my favorite artists. That’s why Ben Folds is dead to me now. And also Jeff Buckley. What? Too soon?
It worked for ol’ Floppy Hat, so why not for me?
Responses to music are never objective. This, I know for a fact.
Hence, I circle, around and around, dancing, while seated, to a dusty old record.
2. The Unread Epic, The Rhyming Interlude, or
If a Tree Gets Killed to Print This Page, Does That Mean Someone’s Actually Reading It?
Sadness is an epigraph, read and forgotten,
Fading to yellow, discarded, unwanted,
Signature ghostly, book cover haunted.
Sadness is an epigraph, read and forgotten.
– “The Unread Epic”
No, that’s not a Joni Mitchell lyric, although Ladies of the Canyon is full of such wisdom, words worth savoring, saving, then sharing – and memorable melodies for the Counting Crows to cover. (“Big Yellow Taxi” appears on the album.) That’s actually a poem I wrote this very day, to share with the people who visit this page, to maybe remember and secret away, ‘cause I write reviews like Pinter writes plays. Joni’s work deserves much better; sorry for writing this, what? This letter? Whatever you think I’m saying, I mean, ‘cause nothing lasts forever, even unrecycled reams. Hey, f’reals, you should read this album, ‘cause Joni’s poems are better than this pathetic pablum. And if there are problems? Yo, I’ll solve ‘em. Check out a book while this record revolves ‘em.
Hate the reviewer, love the reviewed? The point is, her insights are really, really shrewd. And yes, my skills are kind of crude. Thus, you’re going, “Really, dude? Joni Mitchell to ‘Ice Ice Baby’? What’s next? A riff on Britney’s ‘Crazy’? That songs sucks. And so do you. She’s a pro; you’re just a tool.”
You’ve probably forgotten my epigraph already. Even though I wrote it, I’ve forgotten it myself. And even though caffeine makes my hands unsteady, I’ve no one to blame for this game but myself. Before I slide her on the shelf, I better write what I wanted already, especially since I’m repeating myself:
Sadness is an epilogue no one will read.
Rhyme time’s finished. I’ll proceed.
3. The Essay Proper, The Unloved Inscription, or
This Is the Sound of One Hand Scribbling
They break my heart as few things do, those loving inscriptions from parents or lovers, those names and dates on the insides of books, closed for years and given away, to sit on sagging thrift-store shelves, to wait for some cheapskate to find them and read them and take them home for a dollar or less and place them with love on his own sagging shelves. (The aforementioned cheapskate is me, of course.) He can’t understand his fortune and luck, paperback gifts to himself, for a buck? (I have to get my heartbreak from somewhere, right? [Also, I have to bust a rhyme.])
I fear that the books I’ve given as gifts have met with similar, dust-covered fates, maybe read once, if even at all, and put in a box in some dust-covered place – closets, attics, garages, trunks – and finally in the place where they often end up, the place where maybe they’ve always belonged, the place marked “Donations” or “This Is Not Trash,” smelling like memories, mothballs, and mold, next to limp boxes of souvenir cups and screen-printed T-shirts for now-defunct clubs.
You know the place; it's behind your local supermarket. Sometimes it's a big red mailbox-looking thing. Other times, it's just a Dumpster.
In other words, I worry that you've tossed away my gifts, instead of cherishing them forever and ever.
Thus, I don’t write inscriptions anymore. I’d hate for some stranger to read what I’ve written and know the end of my story already. Worse, I’d hate to read it myself, my very own words in my very own scrawl, and know that it’s not just the book that’s been pitched. That is one bargain I never want to find, not in a thrift store or any other place, especially not on the new boyfriend’s shelf, a thing that’s actually happened to me, but only if “actually” really means “never,” which naturally means that it’s possible, right? That is a fiction I never want to live.
I’d much rather find some stranger’s inscription – it’s like a free gift for buying the book! – and squint to decipher the hard-to-read letters and answer the questions the words seem to pose. It’s easy to do if the reason is mentioned: a birthday, graduation, First Communion, just because... It’s harder to do, and more fun, if it isn’t, if I’m left to my guesses for why the book was given – or why this particular copy of Ladies of the Canyon that I now have in my possession features handwritten annotations like “strange but alright,” “bought it for this,” and “don’t care for much” next to every song.
This is a riddle I’ll have to write myself.
Who would write such things, and why?
4. The Complete Annotated Tracklist, or
Joni Mitchell’s Two-Star Review
Here's the back of Ladies of the Canyon, saved from a Goodwill store in Waukesha, Wisconsin, with the previous owner’s comments in italics. (They’re actually written in blue ink.)
“Morning Morgantown”: nice“For Free”: good“Conversation”: OK
“Ladies of the Canyon”: tune OK“Willy”: don’t care for much
“The Arrangement”: strange but alright
“Rainy Night House,” “The Priest,” and “Blue Boy”: strangish
“Big Yellow Taxi”: good“Woodstock”: quite good“The Circle Game”: * bought it for this *
These words in blue ink are what inspired mine. That's what inspired whatever this is.
5. The Essay Continued, Completed, and Capped, or
This Is a Girl, and This Is Me
I picture a girl who’s about to turn thirteen, asking her parents to buy her this record, even though they’ve banned all records from their house, fearing, old-fashionedly, they’ll inspire sex and drugs. It’s 1970, the record is new, and people are amazingly walking on the moon. The future is full of rockets and boyfriends, and all this girl wants is a record of her own, made by an artist who speaks both to and for her, as well as to her friends, whom she’s worried have outgrown her. Her two best friends can loan her this album, but owning it is almost as vital as hearing it. It’s something to touch whenever she wants, something to look at, something to play. It’s something to keep as a secret in her room. Joni understands what her parents never will, trapped as they are in their paved-over paradise, looking out windows only when they're closing them – it’s curtains for them; for them, it’s always twilight. Joni understands there’s more to life than this: clear-cut forests, freshly planted saplings, and brand-new subdivisions ironically named for trees.
Anyway, the girl, whose name is something seasonal, wishes on every shooting star, as well as the ones that merely, feebly twinkle, for Big Ideas like Truth and Love, Understanding and Independence, Becoming a Woman and Seeing the World. She maybe wishes her parents were dead. She closes her eyes to wish and dream; at all other times, she keeps them open wide.
She’s turning thirteen, and this is what she wants. Far from all canyons, she wants to be a lady. What she wants most is to find her perfect self, whoever that is, whatever her soundtrack.
Anyway, of course, her parents disappoint her. Her birthday arrives; her gift does not. Instead, they get her something for them. A book, perhaps; it doesn’t matter. It’s something she won’t remember in a year.
Defiantly, she takes her money (at least they had the foresight and the kindness for that), and buys this record, her first, for herself.
To commemorate this first small transgression of hers, this act of doing something forbidden, she scribbles her thoughts on the back of the record, the first time she'll substitute music for a diary.
The record doesn’t disagree. Joni sings, but she also listens. The girl, our heroine, listens back. Her favorite songs are conversations, revealing her heart and most of its mysteries. (Some will remain for the rest of her life.)
So, she answers. So, she writes. Describing these songs, she’s describing herself – just as I’m doing, right here, right now. Long before blogs or Amazon reviews, I'm giving this girl an outlet for self-expression. I'm substituting Joni for Tori or Belly, as well as fiction for autobiography, while totally projecting myself onto the girl. That’s what all the great writers do. That’s a technique I’m trying to copy.
The problem is, the girl is real. Or rather, someone scribbled those notes. The scribbler is not a fictional character. And here I am, projecting away, and probably getting it totally wrong. I'm probably nowhere near the truth. (The cryptic words could just be graffiti.) Still, it seems we shared the same impulse, to define ourselves through the music we love, or at least to write words for no one but ourselves.
For just one dollar, I got to sneak a peek. For free, I'm giving the world the same chance.
But back to the scribbler, the real-life girl. She wrote those wonderful words for herself: "bought it for this" and "good" and "quite good." What did she mean? She’s the only one who knows.
I read her handwriting, whoever she is, and I hear her talking, now, to me. I hear her voice, and I answer back. More than the album on which they’re written, this lonely girl’s pen strokes inspired me to type. They saddened me, too, like Joni does for others. I think I'm starting to get the appeal. Some of her best songs wrap you up like blankets. Once discovered, now discarded; once a treasure, now a bargain – it’s up to me to save them, reclaim them: the songs, the girl, and maybe myself.
This is not about Joni at all.
Spending our time in music stores and libraries, is anyone reading this grasping for our dreams? We haven’t thrown them away yet, have we? I mean, we’re still writing our lives, are we not? On record sleeves, in unread blogs, we’re still conversing – we’re still alive?
Or else, have all of us – to quote the great New Radicals – "cured the dreamer’s disease" already? Forget Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson – has life come around and kicked our ass in?
I know I spend way too much time in the bargain bins. I know I should make some music of my own. That would be nice, and even OK. That could be quite good.
A final thought, which I'm not making up: They recently paved my apartment building’s parking lot. Across the street, they cut down some trees, in order to put up a similar building. How soon will it be before it blocks the creek? Now, it already does, I think. Not that I actually look out my window. Instead, I sit and type in the dark. Instead, my blinds are tightly closed. The record stopped, but I kept on typing, and all I hear now is the rush of traffic. It kind of sounds like the rush of water – and yet I know it’s not. It’s gone. But don’t it always seem to go?
Yes, it’s strangish. Don’t care for much.
Paradise, for me, is more than one reader.
(Ostensibly, a Joni Mitchell Review)
Essay by Matthew Webber
1. The Prologue, The Apology, or
Getting What You Give
Joni Mitchell hates modern music – except for that one New Radicals hit.
I wish I could cite the source of this outrageousness in order to let you look it up yourself, or at least to prove I’m not insane. The problem is, I read it once – at least, I’m pretty sure I did – so now it’s a fact I drop in conversation, along with other awesome facts like who co-wrote “Rump Shaker” (The Neptunes’ Pharrell Williams!), which Smiths song does T.A.T.U. cover (“How Soon Is Now?”!!), and what’s “The Lemon Song” actually about (not lemons!!!)? For these three facts, I own the proofs: a tape, a CD, and a forehead-slapping duh. Few things in life are known with such certainty. Sadly, friends’ birthdays are not among these things.
But Joni’s screed? I’m sure, but I’m not. Doesn’t it seem like something she’d say, something that should be true, if it isn’t? If nothing else, she likes the New Radicals, putting their song on some “Favorites” kind of mixtape, something I’ve seen at Target, I believe, or some other place with crap you don’t need. Whatever it was, wherever it was, I obviously didn’t purchase the thing, choosing instead some more recent works, possibly something by Avril Lavigne, an artist Joni wishes dead. (Hint: I sometimes dabble in fiction, but also a bit of autobiography.)
From the little I’ve read about Joni through the years, I’ve gathered she’s proud of her work, which she should be, even if she gets kinda prickly about it, and disses other artists who aren’t named Bob Dylan. Her work is “dense” and “rich” and “obtuse,” and other short adjectives that show you I don’t get it. She’s one of those artists whose brilliance I recognize, whose towering influence is something I acknowledge, whose timeless contributions to the arts are unassailable. She’s all that and a bag of fat-free chips.
And yet, I don’t really like her music. Although I certainly appreciate it on an intellectual level, I seldom actually want to play it. I seldom choose to listen to Joni. Even now, as I’m typing this essay, respecting the hell out of everything she’s done, I’m choosing to listen to newer, lesser artists, just like I pretty much do every day. I mean, sure, A Fine Frenzy, whom I’ve seen in concert twice, can write a pretty song – but will they last for forty years? Will Feist outlast her iPod commercial? Who, besides me, even likes Tanya Donelly? Is Jewel even writing songs anymore? Has anyone heard of Charlotte Martin? None of these artists has a trace of Joni’s genius, but yet, they’re all artists whose work I prefer.
So, yes, just to clarify, yes, you’re right, yes, I am absolutely telling you that I’d rather listen to Belly (both albums), Jewel (her first two albums), and an artist (or two) whom you probably haven’t heard of than the great Joni Mitchell. And yes, this makes me a horrible person, and probably an even worse critic to boot.
This is something I can’t defend, but something that, yes, is a part of who I am. Tangents? Cheap shots? Crappy, unworkable metaphors? All of them, too, are who I am, in part – a hack, no doubt, whom Joni would hate. I even write songs that Joni would excoriate. Wouldn’t it be funny if the two of us had beef?
Really, what I am is sorry. I mean that. Sorry for being so, I don’t know, glib. For actually liking a cover tune better – namely, The Counting Crows and Vanessa Carlton version of “Big Yellow Taxi,” which is funkier, poppier, and all-around catchier to my ears – than the Joni original. (Note: According to everyone else I’ve ever met, the cover tune is way more craptacular.) As always, Vanessa’s cooing is sexy, and Duritz and Co. don’t fuck it up too badly. (Note: According to everyone else, they actually do.) I think, again, it’s less obtuse. Sorry, again, for being so terrrible.
To Joni and her fans, I’m sorry. I am. Don’t blame her for inspiring this, even though she truly did. Like, that’s how awesome Joni really is, if she can even inspire me, when I really don't even like her that much! Please continue to listen to Joni – if I’m not doing it, someone has to!
But surely, there’s an artist you also don’t get, someone whose praise you’re tired of hearing, someone whose fans you’re tired of debating, someone you know you’re supposed to adore, even though you’ve tried, and nope, you still don’t, someone like The Beatles, The Clash, or Wesley Willis, someone whose cult you’ve tried to understand, someone whose blah blah greatest band blah. I wouldn’t get too angry if you mocked Tori Amos, probably ‘cause your mockery would finally break my heart. “Tori? Not Joni?” you’d ask as I lay dying. “You know she’s like the originator, right?”
And isn’t that the thing about our All-Time Favorite Artists? We can’t understand why the whole world’s smoking crack. “What do you mean you don’t like My Band? Haven’t you heard Their Life-Changing Album? Doesn’t That Song, The One That Really Speaks To Me, likewise tell you The Truth About The World?”
Me, you, Joni, everyone – perhaps we can all agree on this: The New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” is one of those timeless songs, despite or because of its happy generalities. (Also, the dude wore this huge floppy hat.) Joni and I completely agree. That is something I know to be true. Except for the whole hating-modern-music thing.
And finally, do you remember the ending, when the Floppy-Hatted Guy dissed all those other artists, some of whom he probably liked? (You do remember this song, though, right? "You Get What You Give"? The New Radicals? No?) Well, maybe you’ll remember me for dissing Joni Mitchell, even though I respect her very, very much, ‘cause that’s just me attracting publicity. That's just me being clever and stuff. If nothing else, I’m just being honest. Because hey, if I thought it could make me superfamous, I’d even be willing to diss my favorite artists. That’s why Ben Folds is dead to me now. And also Jeff Buckley. What? Too soon?
It worked for ol’ Floppy Hat, so why not for me?
Responses to music are never objective. This, I know for a fact.
Hence, I circle, around and around, dancing, while seated, to a dusty old record.
2. The Unread Epic, The Rhyming Interlude, or
If a Tree Gets Killed to Print This Page, Does That Mean Someone’s Actually Reading It?
Sadness is an epigraph, read and forgotten,
Fading to yellow, discarded, unwanted,
Signature ghostly, book cover haunted.
Sadness is an epigraph, read and forgotten.
– “The Unread Epic”
No, that’s not a Joni Mitchell lyric, although Ladies of the Canyon is full of such wisdom, words worth savoring, saving, then sharing – and memorable melodies for the Counting Crows to cover. (“Big Yellow Taxi” appears on the album.) That’s actually a poem I wrote this very day, to share with the people who visit this page, to maybe remember and secret away, ‘cause I write reviews like Pinter writes plays. Joni’s work deserves much better; sorry for writing this, what? This letter? Whatever you think I’m saying, I mean, ‘cause nothing lasts forever, even unrecycled reams. Hey, f’reals, you should read this album, ‘cause Joni’s poems are better than this pathetic pablum. And if there are problems? Yo, I’ll solve ‘em. Check out a book while this record revolves ‘em.
Hate the reviewer, love the reviewed? The point is, her insights are really, really shrewd. And yes, my skills are kind of crude. Thus, you’re going, “Really, dude? Joni Mitchell to ‘Ice Ice Baby’? What’s next? A riff on Britney’s ‘Crazy’? That songs sucks. And so do you. She’s a pro; you’re just a tool.”
You’ve probably forgotten my epigraph already. Even though I wrote it, I’ve forgotten it myself. And even though caffeine makes my hands unsteady, I’ve no one to blame for this game but myself. Before I slide her on the shelf, I better write what I wanted already, especially since I’m repeating myself:
Sadness is an epilogue no one will read.
Rhyme time’s finished. I’ll proceed.
3. The Essay Proper, The Unloved Inscription, or
This Is the Sound of One Hand Scribbling
They break my heart as few things do, those loving inscriptions from parents or lovers, those names and dates on the insides of books, closed for years and given away, to sit on sagging thrift-store shelves, to wait for some cheapskate to find them and read them and take them home for a dollar or less and place them with love on his own sagging shelves. (The aforementioned cheapskate is me, of course.) He can’t understand his fortune and luck, paperback gifts to himself, for a buck? (I have to get my heartbreak from somewhere, right? [Also, I have to bust a rhyme.])
I fear that the books I’ve given as gifts have met with similar, dust-covered fates, maybe read once, if even at all, and put in a box in some dust-covered place – closets, attics, garages, trunks – and finally in the place where they often end up, the place where maybe they’ve always belonged, the place marked “Donations” or “This Is Not Trash,” smelling like memories, mothballs, and mold, next to limp boxes of souvenir cups and screen-printed T-shirts for now-defunct clubs.
You know the place; it's behind your local supermarket. Sometimes it's a big red mailbox-looking thing. Other times, it's just a Dumpster.
In other words, I worry that you've tossed away my gifts, instead of cherishing them forever and ever.
Thus, I don’t write inscriptions anymore. I’d hate for some stranger to read what I’ve written and know the end of my story already. Worse, I’d hate to read it myself, my very own words in my very own scrawl, and know that it’s not just the book that’s been pitched. That is one bargain I never want to find, not in a thrift store or any other place, especially not on the new boyfriend’s shelf, a thing that’s actually happened to me, but only if “actually” really means “never,” which naturally means that it’s possible, right? That is a fiction I never want to live.
I’d much rather find some stranger’s inscription – it’s like a free gift for buying the book! – and squint to decipher the hard-to-read letters and answer the questions the words seem to pose. It’s easy to do if the reason is mentioned: a birthday, graduation, First Communion, just because... It’s harder to do, and more fun, if it isn’t, if I’m left to my guesses for why the book was given – or why this particular copy of Ladies of the Canyon that I now have in my possession features handwritten annotations like “strange but alright,” “bought it for this,” and “don’t care for much” next to every song.
This is a riddle I’ll have to write myself.
Who would write such things, and why?
4. The Complete Annotated Tracklist, or
Joni Mitchell’s Two-Star Review
Here's the back of Ladies of the Canyon, saved from a Goodwill store in Waukesha, Wisconsin, with the previous owner’s comments in italics. (They’re actually written in blue ink.)
“Morning Morgantown”: nice“For Free”: good“Conversation”: OK
“Ladies of the Canyon”: tune OK“Willy”: don’t care for much
“The Arrangement”: strange but alright
“Rainy Night House,” “The Priest,” and “Blue Boy”: strangish
“Big Yellow Taxi”: good“Woodstock”: quite good“The Circle Game”: * bought it for this *
These words in blue ink are what inspired mine. That's what inspired whatever this is.
5. The Essay Continued, Completed, and Capped, or
This Is a Girl, and This Is Me
I picture a girl who’s about to turn thirteen, asking her parents to buy her this record, even though they’ve banned all records from their house, fearing, old-fashionedly, they’ll inspire sex and drugs. It’s 1970, the record is new, and people are amazingly walking on the moon. The future is full of rockets and boyfriends, and all this girl wants is a record of her own, made by an artist who speaks both to and for her, as well as to her friends, whom she’s worried have outgrown her. Her two best friends can loan her this album, but owning it is almost as vital as hearing it. It’s something to touch whenever she wants, something to look at, something to play. It’s something to keep as a secret in her room. Joni understands what her parents never will, trapped as they are in their paved-over paradise, looking out windows only when they're closing them – it’s curtains for them; for them, it’s always twilight. Joni understands there’s more to life than this: clear-cut forests, freshly planted saplings, and brand-new subdivisions ironically named for trees.
Anyway, the girl, whose name is something seasonal, wishes on every shooting star, as well as the ones that merely, feebly twinkle, for Big Ideas like Truth and Love, Understanding and Independence, Becoming a Woman and Seeing the World. She maybe wishes her parents were dead. She closes her eyes to wish and dream; at all other times, she keeps them open wide.
She’s turning thirteen, and this is what she wants. Far from all canyons, she wants to be a lady. What she wants most is to find her perfect self, whoever that is, whatever her soundtrack.
Anyway, of course, her parents disappoint her. Her birthday arrives; her gift does not. Instead, they get her something for them. A book, perhaps; it doesn’t matter. It’s something she won’t remember in a year.
Defiantly, she takes her money (at least they had the foresight and the kindness for that), and buys this record, her first, for herself.
To commemorate this first small transgression of hers, this act of doing something forbidden, she scribbles her thoughts on the back of the record, the first time she'll substitute music for a diary.
The record doesn’t disagree. Joni sings, but she also listens. The girl, our heroine, listens back. Her favorite songs are conversations, revealing her heart and most of its mysteries. (Some will remain for the rest of her life.)
So, she answers. So, she writes. Describing these songs, she’s describing herself – just as I’m doing, right here, right now. Long before blogs or Amazon reviews, I'm giving this girl an outlet for self-expression. I'm substituting Joni for Tori or Belly, as well as fiction for autobiography, while totally projecting myself onto the girl. That’s what all the great writers do. That’s a technique I’m trying to copy.
The problem is, the girl is real. Or rather, someone scribbled those notes. The scribbler is not a fictional character. And here I am, projecting away, and probably getting it totally wrong. I'm probably nowhere near the truth. (The cryptic words could just be graffiti.) Still, it seems we shared the same impulse, to define ourselves through the music we love, or at least to write words for no one but ourselves.
For just one dollar, I got to sneak a peek. For free, I'm giving the world the same chance.
But back to the scribbler, the real-life girl. She wrote those wonderful words for herself: "bought it for this" and "good" and "quite good." What did she mean? She’s the only one who knows.
I read her handwriting, whoever she is, and I hear her talking, now, to me. I hear her voice, and I answer back. More than the album on which they’re written, this lonely girl’s pen strokes inspired me to type. They saddened me, too, like Joni does for others. I think I'm starting to get the appeal. Some of her best songs wrap you up like blankets. Once discovered, now discarded; once a treasure, now a bargain – it’s up to me to save them, reclaim them: the songs, the girl, and maybe myself.
This is not about Joni at all.
Spending our time in music stores and libraries, is anyone reading this grasping for our dreams? We haven’t thrown them away yet, have we? I mean, we’re still writing our lives, are we not? On record sleeves, in unread blogs, we’re still conversing – we’re still alive?
Or else, have all of us – to quote the great New Radicals – "cured the dreamer’s disease" already? Forget Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson – has life come around and kicked our ass in?
I know I spend way too much time in the bargain bins. I know I should make some music of my own. That would be nice, and even OK. That could be quite good.
A final thought, which I'm not making up: They recently paved my apartment building’s parking lot. Across the street, they cut down some trees, in order to put up a similar building. How soon will it be before it blocks the creek? Now, it already does, I think. Not that I actually look out my window. Instead, I sit and type in the dark. Instead, my blinds are tightly closed. The record stopped, but I kept on typing, and all I hear now is the rush of traffic. It kind of sounds like the rush of water – and yet I know it’s not. It’s gone. But don’t it always seem to go?
Yes, it’s strangish. Don’t care for much.
Paradise, for me, is more than one reader.
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