[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> "Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger
> Can set up trembling in my bones"
>
> Joni's writing has quite a few references to strangers; unlike the Doors' "People
>Are Strange", which casts the narrator/singer as the stranger, Joni almost always
>casts others as the stranger in her songs.
Interesting post, Bob! I have a feeling I'm about to disagree with you on a couple of
things.
The lines from Hejira are my favorite, especially combined with the line you left out:
But you know I'm so glad to be on my own
Still sometimes the slightest touch of a stranger
Can set up trembling in my bones
I always thought of that as trembling with desire, sudden and surprising desire
considering she's happy being on her own and untouched for the time being. The last
time I heard those lyrics in my head was at the Richard Thompson concert in April, in
the very crowded lobby while waiting for Alison to suss out the beer situation, and
all of a sudden I felt a man behind me with his right hand on my shoulder and left
hand on my waist, and I
turned my head around and then we were almost nose to nose and he asked if I was all
right and I wanted to say, "well, no, I'm all hot and bothered now and who are you
anyway? And why are you touching me like that? And... I like it." And then as if I
wasn't aware enough about how I felt, I heard Joni singing those lines. But I just
said "yes" and he smiled and then he was gone.
Much different reaction than brushing against someone briefly and then saying sorry
(for invading your space) and far from causing a chill.
> The above reference, from Hejira, is almost identical to her description in "Down to
>You":
>
> "In the morning there are lovers in the street
> They look so high
> You brush against a stranger
> And you both apologize"
>
> Where the intervention of a stranger, representing the unknown, interrupts an
>isolation but still registers an emotion. In the former, the stranger's touch chills
>the bones and in the second the brush elicits a spoken response, albeit a spontaneous
>reaction ("Sorry") as opposed to a trembling in the bones. Perhaps Joni is saying
>that our reaction to strangers is based on our openness to the experience?
I'd agree with that, as in openness to feeling connected, even if it's only briefly.
Or maybe it's based only on our needs at the time, which aren't always known until
they (literally) get rubbed up against. In Hejira, seems to me Joni wants to connect
in an honest way rather than the possessive way in which she had been connected, so
feeling momentary desire is very honest, and fleeting, and not at all possessive.
That's much different than the feeling in Down to You, where the person isn't able to
connect at all, even when being physically intimate. There are other "stranger"
mentions in that song:
Constant stranger
You're a kind person
You're a cold person too
and
Constant stranger
You're a brute--you're an angel
You can crawl--you can fly too
Ooohh, chilly! That person's a stranger even to herself. The crawl and fly line makes
me think it's Joni singing about herself (snake and eagle), which I'd never considered
before. It's easier to accept the harshness of the song if I think she's describing
someone else. Somehow being able to look at herself that unblinkingly is a little
scary, like it's a challenge for me to do the same and I'm not sure I want to do that.
I can't think of strangers without also hearing the classic Tennessee Williams line
about relying on the "kindness of strangers", which doesn't seem to fit into this
discussion at all, but it wants to be mentioned anyway.
Hmmm, that's it for my scattered thoughts at the moment about strangers....
Debra Shea
P.S. Bob, now that I've mentioned my man Richard Thompson, did you see him in May?
And, if so, what did you think?
