GBlog

Wiederentdeckt: Ein einmaliges Album, unbedingt unter all time greatest zu listen. Mit einer unglaublichen Besetzung - allen voran Jaco Pastorius, über dessen fließenden, z.T. mehrfach gedubbten Basslinien filigran-transparent treibende Gitarren und Joni Mitchells Gesang schweben: Hören sie mal, wie sie I didn't know I drank such a lot Till I pissed a tequila anaconda The full length of the parking lot! singt! ... (ich kann Musik nicht so gut in Worte fassen*). The musical compositions are beautiful, incorporating jazz and world beat sounds from some of the travels about which she sings. The lyrics are tight and equally poignant now as they were then...

Zum Beispiel mein Lieblingslied von der Doppel-LP:


Talk To Me

There was a moon and a street lamp
I didn't know I drank such a lot
Till I pissed a tequila anaconda
The full length of the parking lot!
Oh I talk too loose
Again I talk too open and free
I pay a high price for my open talking
Like you do for your silent mystery

Come and talk to me
Please talk to me
Talk to me talk to me
Mr. Mystery

We could talk about Martha
We could talk about landscapes
I'm not above gossip
But I'll sit on a secret where honor is at stake
Or we could talk about power
About Jesus and Hitler and Howard Hughes
Or Charlie Chaplin's movies
Or Bergman's nordic blues
Please just talk to me
Any old theme you choose
Just come and talk to me
Mr. Mystery talk to me

You could talk like a fool I'd listen
You could talk like a sage
Anyway the best of my mind
All goes down on the strings and the page
That mind picks up all these pictures
It still gets my feet up to dance
Even though it's covered with keyloids
From the "slings and arrows of outrageous romance"
I stole that from Willy the Shake
You know - "Neither a borrower nor a lender be"
Romeo Romeo talk to me

Is your silence that golden?
Are you comfortable in it?
Is it the key to your freedom
Or is it the bars on your prison?
Are you gagged by your ribbons?
Are you really exclusive or just miserly?
You spend every sentence as if it was marked currency
Come and spend some on me
Shut me up and talk to me
I'm always talking
Chicken squawking
Please talk to me
© 1976; Crazy Crow Music

Wiki says: Most experimental of all is "Paprika Plains," a 16-minute song played on improvised piano and arranged with a full orchestra; it takes up all of Side 2. In it, Mitchell narrates a first-person description of a late-night gathering in a bar frequented by American Indians, touching on themes of hopelessness and alcoholism. At one point in the narrative, the narrator leaves the setting and enters into a dreamstate, and the lyrics become a mixture of references to innocent childhood memories, a nuclear explosion and an expressionless tribe gazing upon the dreamer. In speaking to Anthony Fawcett about working on "Paprika Plains," Mitchell said:

• "The Improvisational, the spontaneous aspect of this creative process - still as a poet - is to set words to the music, which is a hammer and chisel process. Sometimes it flows, but a lot of times it's blocked by concept. And if you're writing free consciousness - which I do once in a while just to remind myself that I can, you know, because I'm fitting little pieces of this puzzle together - the end result must flow as if it was spoken for the first time."

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* Musik in Worte gefasst: Pat Blashill: Wie ich als Rockkritiker lernte, die Klassik zu lieben - und zu fürchten.