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You are here: Home / Music / It Got Dusty In Here All Of A Sudden

It Got Dusty In Here All Of A Sudden

by | 67 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Just found this (yes, the hellsite that may yet cost Musk a bundle has its uses) and had to stop everything else to listen and look:

 

ETA: This just turned up w. an email alert. It’s a piece about Mitchell’s set at the Newport Folk Festival yesterday, with videos of a number of other songs. Enjoy!

Joni Mitchell released the Clouds album–her second–in 1969.  I was eleven (and that was a very tough year in our house for other reasons) so I don’t think I came across it for a couple or three more years.  But one of my older sibs picked it up, and one afternoon I grabbed it and took it to our basement kinder-pen…and the whole record just kicked my ass.

It Got Dusty In Here All Of A Sudden

The song “Clouds” itself was fun, though not my favorite. At 14, I was sure I would do things so much better than the character in the song had…surely I would never let a love or a life go by with such regrets…

Well–I’m lucky as hell in so many ways (and seriously unlucky in others; see that tough 1969…) but in my mid sixties I gotta say the song has a different edge than it did half a century ago.

And watching Joni sing, with all the obvious limitations and struggle she has just with sound production…and yet, OMG, how she manages to inhabit the song? Well, I’m just going to say that hers is a performance that I found very powerful indeed.

Damn. It’s getting dusty again…

We all have soundtracks of our lives. They kick in when we don’t expect, in ways that we could not have anticipated.

That’s my afternoon. How’s yours?

Anyway–a mid-afternoon* break for y’all. Talk about whatever.

Image: J. W. M. Turner, Hannibal Crossing the Alps, 1810-1812.

Reader Interactions

67Comments

  1. 1.

    Honus

    I wonder how Cole’s doing.  With that thing that happens the day you after the prep.

  2. 2.

    Scout211

    OMG! Thank you so much for posting this. Both Wynonna and Brandi Carlisle were crying. I’m not crying, you’re crying.  *goes looking for tissues

  3. 3.

    NotMax

    Joni Mitchell albums?

    Court and Spark.

    ’nuff said. Aside from the wonderful music, the nuts and bolts of audio engineering on that one is exquisite.

  4. 4.

    Miss Bianca

    Funnily enough, I’ve been getting a lot of very early Joni in my Youtube feeds lately, and so I’ve been listening to a lot of her live performances from the mid-late 60s.

    Gotta say, now I’ve looked at both sides of Joni’s career…I think she’s still got it. Her voice remains an amazing instrument.

  6. 6.

    HinTN

    That and The Circle Game! Amazing…

    Joni was the soundscape to my awakening to the wider world. Blue, of course, but I came to that through her jazz inflected work like Hejira and Hissing of Summer Lawns. Those hit me like a ton of bricks.

  7. 7.

    geg6

    I ❤️ Joni Mitchell.  Always have and this made me love her that much more when I saw it earlier today.  She’s an amazing spirit.

    Hmmm, you were 11 in 1969.  I turned 11 in 1969.  I thought I was older than you by a few years.  Apparently not.  Did you graduate high school in ‘76 or ‘77?

  9. 9.

    thruppence

    I’m crying. My mom passed away last night, the day after her 92nd birthday. She had a good life and a fairly merciful end, but I’ll be listening to a lot of sad music for the next few days. She was a big opera fan; I’ll try to dig into some of her favorites. Joni Mitchell too.

  10. 10.

    frosty fred

    I have been alternately grinning like a monkey and wiping away tears–like the performers on stage with Joni.

  15. 15.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @thruppence:

    What a good long life, never long enough. You have my sympathy in your grief. Opera, Joni Mitchell — whatever brings a measure of comfort, I hope you have it in abundance.

  18. 18.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    That was amazing. Thank you for sharing it. I saw Joni in concert once*, must have been late 90s, and she had such a gentle yet commanding presence on stage. Even now, with the obvious changes to her voice and body, that still comes through.

    (*It was a shared billing with Bob Dylan and Van Morrison. She was incredible, Dylan was terrific, Morrison was a huge disappointment. The only song he played that anyone recognized was “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You” which, bleh. The rest of the time, it was this weird jazz/lounge music, with him wandering around the stage with sunglasses on, and even disappearing for long stretches while his son took over. I was sitting there like PLAY SOME MOONDANCE SHIT ALREADY DAMN IT.)

  19. 19.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Powerful is the word. Reminds me of Johnny Cash singing Hurt late in life, but that much more powerful because this is Joni’s own song. A song about growing older and wiser and a little sadder, that she wrote when she was thirty-ish, now singing it after fifty years down a road that wasn’t always easy.

  22. 22.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @thruppence: Very sorry for your loss. My father’s favorite piece was the duet from the Pearl Divers. It brings him back to me every time it comes up in my playlist

  24. 24.

    RedDirtGirl

    Y’all got me thinking JM had just died! Didn’t realize it was just recorded!

  26. 26.

    trollhattan

    “Reckless Daughter” by David Yaffe I recommend highly for Joni fans. She lives quite a life, far more adventurous and far taller obstacles than I had any notion of.

    Both she and Neil Young suffered long bouts of polio as kids. Does their songwriting introspection in part stem from that long period of isolation?

  29. 29.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I’m reading a book that I think animal-loving jackals would like: WEST WITH GIRAFFES by Lynda Rutledge. It’s a novel set in the 30’s based on real events that originated with a giant hurricane on the east coast. Two giraffes were on a ship during the hurricane, meant for the San Diego zoo, which had taken them because trappers had abandoned them. It chronicles the cross country trip. The narrator is a kid from the Texas panhandle whose whole family is dead. He’s struck dumb by the wonder of the giraffes. He talks about how they worked their “giraffe magic” on him without him realizing it.

  31. 31.

    Scout211

    @Scout211:

    For some reason, I couldn’t edit my comment.

    If you have 8 minutes, this CBS News story  is all about Joni Mitchell’s surprise emotional appearance at the Newport Festival, complete with some of her history, health issues and a great interview with her after her appearance at the festival.

  35. 35.

    geg6

    @Tom Levenson:

    Heh.  I was ‘77.  Hopewell Area High School.  GO VIKINGS!  Pro-Football Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett graduated in 1973.  I was friends with his sister and brother.

  36. 36.

    brendancalling

    It’s been a rough day and kind of a sad weekend.

    The School District of Philadelphia, where I’m teaching English this year, and getting an emergency certification to work w/special Ed kids as as push-in—that is, someone who provides support in different lead teacher’s class—gave me some really bad misinformation during a Zoom about said emergency cert. Specifically, they said I needed to enroll in a 4 year university to get a degree in special ed: 6 credits this year, then 9 each additional year. If not, I lose cert and possibly employment at the district. Then they said it’s all on my dime—no reimbursement. I balled at that and they told me to leave the call so I could decide what I wanted to do. Right after I emailed the principals at the school that hired me, I got an email from the meeting host, who said “another applicant on the call sent me a link, and apparently we DO reimburse.” How the HELL does a person work for that department and NOT know teachers are reimbursed?? So that set me back a week, and orientation starts on August 8. Total pain in the ass, and It’s been like this since the get-go. Honestly, the district didn’t respond to my applications until I read one too many articles in the Philly Inquirer in which the district whined about how they were down about 1000 teachers, and wouldn’t have enough to start the year, and I wrote a scathing letter. Then, and only then, did someone reach out.

    Saturday, I learned a guitar player I knew from the old RI hardcore scene died. Cirrhosis of the liver, 53 years old. Alcoholism kills.

    Today I woke up, checked FB for the first time in a week, and pretty much everyone I know lost a loved one this weekend. Everyone died Sunday night and Monday morning.

    THEN, and this is the last of it, one of the kids in my summer program revealed during our morning meeting (where we talk about what we did over the weekend/the day before) that he drove to Maine wit his dad to pick up a car, but there was no room in the vehicle, so he and another boy (this kid is 13? Maybe?) rode IN THE TRUNK.

    So now, as a mandated reporter, I have to call DCF.

    SO. It’s been a day. OTOH, I played a great rock show Saturday night—that was really fun.

  40. 40.

    tam1MI

    We all have soundtracks of our lives. They kick in when we don’t expect, in ways that we could not have anticipated.

     

    On that note, for some reason I have been listening to a lot of stuff by the Cars lately.  (Fun Fact: Cars bass guitarist and vocalist Ben Orr recorded songs with Joni Mitchell at one point). I had never been more than a casual fan, at best, of the group, but it seemed like last week songs by them got stuck in my head and just wouldn’t go away. It was amazing how many of their songs I remembered (there were a bunch I didn’t realize I remembered until I played them!), and how many brought back happy memories of my younger days. The song that emotionally hit me hardest was DRIVE, I had liked it well enough back in the day, but now that I am older and have experienced loss, it just gets me straight in the gut.

    The soundtracks of our lives…

  41. 41.

    Tom Levenson

    @brendancalling: Yikes. I’m so sorry.

    Re school districts and qualifications: my brother retired last year and wanted to do some substitute teaching in his town’s HS, which he can do under the state regs. Weeks of IT and bureaucratic nonsense to help fill a huge need for teachers in the district (and state). Just infuriating. So, twice removed, I feel your pain.

    The rest of it is just hard.  I’m sorry.

  47. 47.

    narya

    @geg6: @Tom Levenson: 1976 here too! It was a weird time to be that age (1969 I mean): old enough to realize a lot was going on, and not quite old enough to join in much, especially in my small working-class town.

    Virtual hugs and kindness to all the jackals who are having a terrible week . . .

  51. 51.

    Anastasio Beaverhausen

    In a similar vein, watch Aretha Franklin sing “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” for Carole King and the Obamas at the Kennedy Center Honors.  You will need a box of Kleenex.

  52. 52.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @UncleEbeneezer: For anyone interested: Short was in meetings with Trump, Pence, Eastman, Giuliani etc. during the efforts to discuss and pressure Pence to accept Eastman’s False Electors scheme.  See sections L and N in this article.  This Grand Jury is getting awfully close to Trump…

  54. 54.

    Shana

    @trollhattan: Interesting observation. From a different era, but Stuart Murdoch of Belle & Sebastian had a year-long bout of ME (or chronic fatigue syndrome) around the age of 20 and I suspect he would admit it effected his writing too.

  56. 56.

    becca

    Had to break commenting silence to say I wore Ladies of the Canyon out. I wanted to live in that album. Then Blue came out. No words. Court and Spark … thank you, thank you, thank you!
    So many memories associated with her music, getting me thru heartache and housework. Bittersweet.

  58. 58.

    artem1s

    Court and Spark was one of the first albums I acquired when I got my first CD player. There were a number of classics that I had to have with me always on my iPhone when I first got one. Joni was right up there. Every track could have been top of the charts.

    Even as frail as she first appears, she still has such stage presence.

    thanks for posting that.

  60. 60.

    J R in WV

    @thruppence:

    92 is a pretty good score in the game of life. So sorry for your loss anyway…

    My mom smoked Pall Malls, and they did her in way earlier that your mom. Calling Phillip Morris, your execution is ready!!

  61. 61.

    Honus

    @thruppence: my mom was 92 when she left.  I still had my five siblings snd had raised my own family but it was tough to become an orphan as an old man, and to lose someone who had  been with me my whole life.

  62. 62.

    MomSense

    I was watching Wynonna Judd cry behind her and thinking how this must have affected her after just losing her mom the way she did.

    Honestly that performance of clouds hit me harder than ever. Joni sang it with all the life she has lived.

  64. 64.

    MomSense

    @brendancalling:

    I’m so sorry AND so glad you have your music to help you through the tough times.  There’s a scene in the Keith Richards documentary on Netflix.  He’s hanging out with Buddy Guy playing pool and Buddy Guy says that the blues are about the good and bad times in life and if you haven’t had a bad time yet, just keep living.  I’m hoping for more good times for you.

  65. 65.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    Let me add condolences and best wishes. Music  is a big  part of my life, I hope it will help you too.

    Oh, and, Twisted!

  66. 66.

    Felanius Kootea

    I can never listen to this without crying. I can’t get over the fact that she wrote it in her thirties – it takes on a new meaning with age and time.

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