<< Still, I wouldn't have thought Joni would pick Woodstock as her signature
song.
I would expect maybe Hejira, or Refuge of the Roads, or DJRD, or... to get
away
from a song about herself, Judgment of the Moon and Stars, which I hear as a
call to all of us to do our best.
>>
I'm not sure that I would call "Woodstock" her signature song, but it's
certainly one of them...BSN would have to be a candidate as well, after all
she re-recorded it, named her latest record & tour after it, and basically
all the songs on BSN lead up to her reinterpretation of it.
While I think that Hejira is the best song ever written, the sad truth is
that not many John Q. Publics are even familiar with it. BUT it does have a
lot of significance for *her* as she has continued to perform it on every
tour since she wrote it.
Getting back to BSN...Leslie asks in a subsequent post about what draws so
many to record it. And coincidentally, I'm listening to a similar song, The
Beatles' "Yesterday"...the popularity of these songs are many-fold:
- It's simply a good song, a memorable melodic line, and an understandable
yet far fram banal lyric;
- Back in the late 60's, as music was going through so many changes, a lot of
performers wanted to align themselves with the younger generation, so they
recorded a lot of these songs; BSN, Yesterday, Something, etc.
-By now these songs have become standards, passed on from generation to
generation. BSN is still being recorded today (thankfully not at the same
pace it was 30 years ago), and mostly reinterpreted as jazz (John Hart Trio,
Ken Watters), or a straight-up rock and roll song (Parasites, Jason Falkner).
-Plus, Judy Collins had a MONSTER hit with it...I would imagine that a lot of
folks are $imply trying to ride the coattail$ of that! ;~)
Bob
