In a message dated 7/16/02 12:02:57 AM, Erica wrote: << hey all, I just got DJRD and NRH....I wish to receive any and all comments, advice, warnings, and joyus remarks about listening to one or both of these. I know I know, it's a long time coming to add these 2 to the ol' collection, that's just the way it goes. Thanks for your knowledge! Erica >>
Hi, Erica, Those are two of my favorite albums. I remember when I got together with my first long-term main squeeze in '78, DJRD was still her "current" album and I still couldn't plkay enough of it. He frowned the first time he heard the beginning of Overture/Cotton Avenue and said "Sheesh. Sounds like Italian science fiction movie music." I had to laugh. But it's still one of my favorites -- interesting sounds, mixes her unique guitar "travelling music" sound of Hejira with the jazzy experimentation of HOSL and (later to come) Mingus. At the time, it was a double LP: Side one had the first three cuts, ending with my all-timer favorite Joni song, Jericho (although i think i like the live version on MOA better); side two was Paprika Plains; side three had Otis & Marlena, then Tenth World blending into Dreamland (which is one of the few songs from that album that Joni still tends to perform; it's all right, but i think there are better from the album); and the fourth side had DJRD, which seems a lot like a companion song to Coyote to me (both songs talk about duality, but in DJ the duality is within one person), Off-Night Backstreet, one of the best jealousy songs I've ever heard by *anyone*, I love how it *seethes*, and the lovely Silky Veils of Ardor (I love "We'll have to row a little harder..."). I also love NRH. My then lover and I used to drive frequently from San Francisco to Reno, where i had friends we would stay with; we'd take turns picking CDs to play, and I remember Cocteau Twins' Heaven Or Las Vegas was one of my choices (Chris would crack me up trying to force logical lyrics into the Twins' stream-of-consciousness phrases), and another was NRH. Chris particularly loved Come In From the Cold, The Only Joy in Town, and Two Grey Rooms. Chris never caught on to the melancholia of the words to Two Grey Rooms (I think since the first few words were "Tomorrow is Sunday..." he thought the song was about happy anticipation) and sometimes when I'm playing TGR, I have to stop -- Chris died of "the usual" just a few months after our last trip to Reno together, for his 30th birthday, in June, 1991. My current partner, Robert, is a definite Joniphile, but of the Ladies-through-Hejira variety -- he was unfamiliar with anything after Mingus until he met me. The first time i managed to get through TGR without too much stumbling, he said "What *is* that song? It's so *sad*!" and i burst into tears. He patted me on the back, not understanding why I was crying, saying, "Oh, but you *played* it so well." Then I was both laughing and crying (what the hell, it was the same relief), and I explained all the mixed emotions I have over that song. And only more recently did I learn the whole story of the song, how the tune came to Joni during the Wild Things Run Fast era, but that she couldn't come up with lyrics that "felt" right to her partly because she somehow synesthetically felt that the words should have a "French" sound to them to fit into the musical phrasing; finally, I guess around 1990, someone [someone, I'm sure, can fill in the blanks of my memory here -- I can't remember the author, and whether it was a short story or a memoire] turned Joni on to a story about a man who longs after a boy, and then discovers years later than the same guy, now an old man, discovers that the same object of his affections, now a man himself, jogs the same route every day -- so he rents those two grey rooms for the *sole* purpose of watching the younger man jog pass every day -- 'cept not on weekends. Up until recently, I thought the song was another along the lines of "Come In...", "Nothing Can Be Done", "Only Joy" and "Ray's Dad's Cadillac", all of which touch or dwell on the theme of lost youth. In spite of this recurring theme, I still think the album has a happy feel to it, which Chris related to viscerally -- if he could force words in to Cocteau Twins songs, he could force happy ones into Joni songs. :-) Ooops, I've rambled again. But Erica, DJ and NRH really are two of my favorites, and i hope you enjoy them as much as I have! Best, Walt
