I've always loved Tea Leaf Prophecy. It is one of three songs from CMIARS
that I like. I enjoy Joni's 'layered' songs. The chants like: 'study war no
more', 'lay down your arms', 'lay 'em down, lay 'em down, now' are
beautiful, and affects me on an emotional level. (True enough it's brought
tears to my eyes even though I am two generations removed from WWII. I think
she brings a real sense of what it was like for young women and men then. I
especially love the line: "Look at this town, there's no men left. Just
frail old boys and babies, talking to teacher in the treble clef." Must have
been nice to hear that young flight sergeant talking in the bass clef for a
change. ('Sit up late, watch the Johnny Carson show' - they watched Johnny?)
Another 'layered' song is 'The Windfall' or 'Everything for Nothing'
(whichever you please) with the same background chant thing going on. 'Come
in From the Cold' is another as well. I think it adds so much more to the
song, and really makes you listen to all the respective layers and how they
fit into the piece overall. Great stuff.
Ethiopia always chilled me. Brought me straight back to the 80s with this
one. (But then WTRF and DED do this to me anyway) I remember as a child in
the 80s seeing those World Vision-type programs about starvation and derth
in Ethiopia and El Salvador and such, and being scared half to death. The
lyric 'A TV star with a PR smile calls your baby 'it' while strolling
through your tragic trial' gets a vigorous nod from me. There's also
something about that background wail of children that makes the listener
very uncomfortable, and rightfully so. DED was the second Joni album I
purchased, and I love the whole thing.
If there are and Sade fans out there, you've probably thought about
parallels with the song about the woman in Somalia. (I think its called
'Pearls') I get the same chills from that one, too. 'There is a woman in
Somalia, scraping for pearls by the roadside, there's a force stronger than
nature keeps her will alive. This is how she's dying, she's dying to
survive. Don't know what she's made of, I would like to be that brave/Long
as afternoon shadows, it's gonna take her to get home, each grain carefully
wrapped up, pearls for her little girl'. How absolutely haunting.
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