"chelsea morning" and "the house for unwed mothers"

[mia ortlieb]

I was listening to Joni's Second Fret Sets (which I graciously received from a particular SC Joniguy), and after Joni finishes performing "Come To The Sunshine", she tells her audience about the inspiration behind "Chelsea Morning" which is next on the play list. I don't know if it has ever been mentioned here before, but I decided to transcribe it anyway for those who have never heard it:

"Well, that's one morning, sunshine, love, and rainbow song. And I have another. It was written much later, and in a different place. You see, a long time ago I purchased some stained-glass windows that were about to be demolished because they were wrecking the house for unwed mothers that they were in - the unwed mothers were without, ofcourse - and I rescued them for five dollars each. And took them back to a very peaceful place and set them up in my windows. And every morning when the sun came up, the rainbow came in. Then one day, I moved to New York City, which is a very different place - very different for writing under, because it's noisy all the time. So I put my stained-glass windows up. And I covered out all of the sky which was about that much in one corner, above the church, a postage stamp piece of sky. And I wrote a very different morning, rainbow, sunshine, and love song - noisy as New York City."

It sounds as if the house Joni had stayed in was demolished soon after her pregnancy. Also, is the "pretty baby" lyric from "chelsea morning" in reference to her little green? I know that Mags had written awhile back that she felt many of Joni's early works had references to Kilauren. This story just seems to reinforce it.

Mia





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