> i'm sort of dismayed by the way this list of men looks,
> by what it assumes and presumes to do. is it really
> meaningful to reduce the albums to which man she was with
> at the time? what does this kind of simplified biographical
> shorthand reveal?
>
> i'm not trying to be disingenuous...i'm confused. what's
> interesting to you about viewing her work in this way?
>
>
Well, this topic has reared its head on the list before, and I still
have to defend the notion of knowing all we can about Joni during the
time each of her albums came out. It makes it all the more meaningful
to me to understand that Joni was with JT during FTR or Blue or
whatever, and to make inferences about how autobiographical certain
songs may be, etc. Now I know Joni has said before that she *isn't*
autobiographical, but I just have to say bullshit to that. Look at
"Love Puts on a New Face" and "Happiness is the Best Facelift" -- both
are about her life and her relationship with Don Freed. Look at
Cherokee Louise... or Song for Sharon... or Little Green... or
whatever. Personally, I find it fascinating to know who Joni was with
when she was writing, and no, I do not think that this ends up
stereotyping her as being dominated by her relationship with whatever
man she was with at the time. Rather, I think it makes it all the more
interesting, because it gets us into speculating about what their
relationship was like, what Joni's life was like at the time, her frame
of mind, etc. An example would be something like "ACOY" and being
"prepared to bleed", and contrasting that relationship (ok, SUPPOSED
relationship that she was in at the time, assuming the song is
autobiographical) with WTRF songs and her relationship with Klein. I
don't find that this is belittling Joni at all -- rather, I find it
fascinating in light of the ways in which we can relate her life to her
work. But anyway, I'm rambling.
Evian
np: Kid A -- just bought it today, and am really digging it thus far!
Thanks listers (although for the life of me, I'll never quite figure out
the beauty of "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" -- that one makes me want to
get in the ole pickup with a bottle of Jim Beam and burn myself with a
lit cigarette over and over -- lol, in other words, it depresses the
hell outta me.
