After a short sabbatical from email due to a minor surgery that will
hopefully open up my sinuses (contrary to any rumors you may have
heard, I did *not* have a nose job - my proboscis is still as
preposterous as it ever was), I have just today finally caught up with
the list. And what a tumultuous 9 or so days you all have had! My,
my, my, as Kakki would say. Religion, politics, sex, turds.....you've
done it all! Of course I know how much you all missed me! (Mark who?
Was he gone? Isn't he that crazy queen who pretends to live in
Seattle that raves on about Billie Holiday all the time? Is he a
lurker? What exactly *is* his damage anyway?!)
Anyway since I missed out on the Jungle Line/HOSL thread I wanted to
jump in on this one as it's still fairly untouched.
This was a great post Bob! Remember when I was on that bent of trying
to figure out thematic threads in Joni's albums? You challenged me to
do DJRD. I declined. The record seemed too much all over the place.
Yet as time as gone on and after many listenings, it seems to me that
it somehow hangs together as a cohesive whole in some kind of way.
Part of it seems to tell the story of a relationship. And then
there's that Third World interlude. Hmmm.....
> Side One:
> 1. Cotton Avenue - She starts in the country, but is drawn by the
city lights and the excitement, the people.
Given the time of this release I always felt that Cotton Avenue was
probably a discotheque. But the name and the style of the music,
which to me is very jazzy with a hint of blues in it, harks back to
the jazz clubs of 1930s Harlem for me, the name referring specifically
to the Cotton Club. 'To hear the shiny, shiny music/see all the shiny
people dancing to it.' You bring jazz into the mix and you also
bring, as Ken Burns is teaching us so eloquently, Africa and the
Carribean into it. Maybe a stretch but it may point to Joni's
assertion about the Third World theme of DJRD.
>
> 2. Talk To Me - Is this addressed to someone she just has met on
Cotton Ave, or to an established relationship? It's always seemed to
me to be about the latter. In either regard, from this conflict
comes...
I go back & forth on this. To me it sounds like she's trying to draw
somebody out that she's just met.
>
> 3. Jericho - The end of the first side and the resolution of the
first "movement" as she declares her honest sense of love and all it
entails with the person in "Talk to Me"
Jericho is another reason why I think she's just met this person.
She's contemplating a new love and trying to fix the right path in her
mind to making it a meaningful and positive relationship. She is at
the beginning of this romance & is promising to 'keep myself open up
to you.' That's what I think, anyway.
>
> Side 2:
> Paprika Plains - She begins, possibly back in the Cotton Avenue
location, some public place to be sure, steps outside to 'get some
air', and begins to reflect on the country, open plains of her
homeland, and the North American Indians. She segues into a
flashback/fantasy/dream sequence, and then returns to her companion in
the club with the 'mirrored ball'.
> This is the song that Joni uses to introduce her ultimate theme as
she expresses it above.
I think Paprika Plains eventually ties in with the title track. She's
talking about the indigenous people of North & South America. I've
never read the Casteneda books about Don Juan the shaman but I believe
they deal with the religious & spiritual beliefs of one or some of
those cultures.
>
> Side 3.
> 1. Otis & Marlena - Perhaps she is totally OUT of this portrait, or
perhaps she is superimposing the relationship she's been discussing
with this couple who escape & observe the superficial decadence of
this hotel setting.
This is where she shifts out of the story she began on side one and
I've never been able to pin down the transition. However, I think
Otis & Marlena is her departure point for the rest of this side. If
she's travelling to the Carribean or South America, chances are she'd
be going through Miami. Her observations are of a decayed, decadent,
consumer driven, yet complacent place that is oblivious to what is
going on elsewhere in the world or in the country for that matter.
The Third World may be banging at the doors of Washington and
physically not that far from Miami, but Otis is watching cartoons &
reruns while Marlena suns herself on the balcony.
>
> 2. Tenth World - a segue from the "dream on" chant of O&M, and a
segue from that very consumable commercial world to the African
'Dreamland'. From the tenth world to the third world...
>
> 3. Dreamland - "It's a long long way from Canada"...is Good Time
Mary & The Fortune Hunter the alterego or the antithesis of Otis &
Marlena? The song is loaded with contrasts and is clearly the heart of
Joni's theme of entering the third world and turning your back on the
kind of world she descibes in O&M. Completes the song cycle of side 3.
Ah the South Seas, the South Seas! Where I found peace, contentment
and many tropical fruits I had not known before!
But I digress.
She's stepped into the Third World here but her observations of it in
this song seem to deal mostly with its corruption and exploitation by
European & American imperialism and consumerism. It seems to have
followed her, in spite of her attempt to escape from it. I think Good
Time Mary & the Fortune Hunter are thoughtless tourists, out pursuing
their own agendas, pleasure for the one, gain through snagging a rich
man for the other. (You're acting like a bunch of tourists, man!)
>
> Side 4.
> 1. Don Juan's Reckless Daughter - This song is a continuance of
Joni's dealing with her "country" side and her "city" side...missing
her fresh white linen...the battle between the eagle (the standard
that others (Myrtle?) hold her to) and the serpent (the temptations
and muses she is drawn to). "Restless for streets & honky tonks,
restless for home & routine".
>
> 2. Off Night Backstreet - The flipside of Jericho, she introduces
the song by wondering if she hasn't been kidding herself, and the
confidence & extra time she's asked of her partner have NOT been
exchanged. She realizes that she's relegated to the role of the woman
who is there when she's needed and that's it.
>
> 3. Silky Veils of Ardor - Now she withdraws herself from the
relationship altogether, but just like in "Amelia", she longs to crash
back into the arms of love. She realizes that only in her dreams can
she return to the way things used to be, whether it's her life in the
country and that attitude, or the romance that once was a flame and is
now a cinder.
>
> I don't really see her returning to her theme on the final side,
perhaps she centers it to represent it as the "core" of the record,
and "frames" it with a love story.
I believe the title track draws its imagery of the eagle & the serpent
from Native American culture (somebody correct me if I'm wrong, I
really don't know much of anything about this aside from what other
people have posted on the subject in the past) so that would still be
in keeping with her theme. The song is so dense, lyrically. It kind
of sprawls all over from male/female relationships to society in
general. It's probably the most extensive exploration of her
recurrent theme of duality that she's ever done. Streets &
honkytonks/home & routine, the eyes of clarity/the beads of guile,
some wisdom & a lot of jive, home of the brave & the free/hoplessly
opressed cowards, scales to feathers, man to woman, eagles in the
sky/snakes in the grass, crawling/flying, oh-oh you & I, you & I, you
& I.....
As a side note & to get in one remark about the Jungle Line/HOSL
thread, I've always thought the snake on the cover represented a lot
of things. Danger, drugs (there's a poppy snake in the dressing
room), a shaking off of inhibitions and abandonment to primitive
urges. Or maybe by taking up that serpent the people on the cover are
merely looking very deeply into themselves at the deepest, darkest
part of their souls. A risky proposition to be sure but possibly
rewarding as well. As Joni later said in DJRD 'there is danger and
education in living out such a reckless lifestyle.' I believe the
snake is used as a symbol in many different cultures and has many
meanings.
I agree that the final two songs of the album don't seem to have much
to do with turning to the Third World (didn't Sting say 'One world is
enough for all of us?' The term Third World actually kind of bothers
me if the truth be known. It seems kind of vague and implies an
'othering' concept to me.)
Just one more thing in reply to the other post about The Silky Veils
of Ardor. (I'm sorry, I don't remember for sure who posted it.) To
me the last verse is about how difficult the reality of relationships
is and how it is only in fantasy & dreams that they are easy.
Unfortunately, it's only in our dreams that we can fly above the
adversities of everyday life & relating. The reality is that we are
constantly down in the turbulent water in our tiny boats, constantly
rowing against the current of that raging river and if we want things
to work out, we sometimes have to row a little harder. And of all the
songs on this record, this one probably has the least to do with the
so-called Third World as much of it is borrowed & woven from bits of
traditional British/American folk songs.
> I don't know...I'm just thinking out loud here. Whatever, DJRD is a
VERY dense work, musically but especially lyrically.
>
> I'd be anxious to hear what you guys think...and perhaps in the
midst of some general thoughts, we can address some specific questions
as well.
Probably more than you bargained for, eh Bob? He's ba-ack! Thanks
for the great post!
Mark in Seattle
