<<Does "just ice" mean a raw power play that government allows? >> First off, nice post Jim! I think that Joni's breaking up of "justice" into "just ice" implies that the controlling powers are cold-hearted in terms of making sure that what is right & fair gets carried out, and the disenfranchised suffer as a result. <<If so, what does "the strong doing what they will" have to do with millions of people dying from a monkey virus?>> Well, if memory serves correctly, when the virus broke out, the "strong" (the ones in power both in government & business) withheld information, research funding, and other resources to attempt to curb it. This is the strong doing what they will (or WON'T in this instance), and it caused delays in investigations into treatments and drugs. I think there's more of a connection there than you admit. Lyrically, the song IS difficult because it is so disjointed, at least at first glance. It is similar to "No Apologies" in that respect. I think Mark was pretty accurate when he said that it was just Joni's statement that the world can be pretty fucked up and that "the balance is undone". Maybe the song wasn't written to give us answers but rather to give us questions, perhaps even to question ourselves and our behaviors and attitudes about the effects of our lust and greed. And I love the version of "Sex Kills" at the '95 Jazz & Heritage Festival in Paz-ville. She sets the VG8 to fuzz tone and plays a distorted angry guitar backing. I'm not sure it was intentional as it was the first time she played the VG8 in public, but it was effective as hell, I thought. Bob, wondering why a discussion of Joni's lyric is marked "NJC"... NP: Blues Traveler, "Hook"
