At 06:13 PM 7/9/01 EDT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey is one of my very favorite
>compositions, though I'm not sure who or
>what it's about. JMDLR's--can you offer any clues?
Hi Ken,
With many apologies to old-timers (yes I know this is the *third* time I
have posted the following) but this long-ish yarn will give you a good
picture of how "The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey" came to pass.....
This is from an interview Joni gave to "Musician" in 1983 and takes a while
but
will eventually work back to "The Wolf That Lives in Lindsey."
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Joni Mitchell: "There's a song called "The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey." It
was a live duet between Don Alias and myself; it's a strange piece of
music, in that it's an example of a song that has a structure that I had
completely ignored. I dropped beats, I added beats, there's bars of 3/4
that are in there, and there's all kinds of abbreviated signatures. Don was
thrown into a highly
alert position as a drummer, to be able to follow this thing, which was not
maintaining a groove, just bursts of rhythmic passages. It was very
spontaneous. And, when the thing was over, we figured that magic had, in
fact, occurred. As raw as it was, and as technically peculiar as it was,
you couldn't beat it for spirit. And I turned to Henry and said, "You know
what we need on this now? We need wolves and water gongs." And, that was on
a Wednesday night. So he was going to make it a project over the weekend to
look through the A&M library of sound effects, and we were going to get
some wolves."
"So, anyway, that weekend I had company coming from Texas, and I had
company coming from Canada at the same time. And simultaneously I was
supposed to be at the Bread & Roses Festival. When my guests arrived,
coming already from long distances, I had to tell them, "We're moving now!"
And we all went to this festival in San Francisco. Things kinda got screwed
up and there were some vibes around the whole situation which I won't go
into, that made me very introspective. And I noticed at dinner that night,
that my introspection was also making the table introspective. So, I
thought, "I don't want to be here in this mood with these people, I'm
influencing their mood," and so I excused myself. I had told a friend of
mine, Tim Hardin, that I was gonna meet him back at the hotel. So I get to
the hotel desk, and I say to a very uptight desk clerk, you know, "Would
you please give me Mr. Hardin's room?" And he replied, "Can't you see I'm
busy?" He was really uptight. The lobby of the hotel was gigantic, and
suddenly, across the hall there came a drunk, singing "Why Do Fools Fall In
Love?," stumbling across the lobby, snapping his fingers, right? I had
nothing but time on my hands, so I perked up, because suddenly there was
externally something interesting (laughs), and I was drawn across the hall,
and I linked up with him, and we came back across the hall, singing "Why Do
Fools Fall In Love?" We ended up standing by the desk, with this uptight
guy in the background, and the next thing I knew, we had drawn in two more
singers who turned out to be the Persuasions. Well, when we stopped
singing, everybody was in great spirits, we all laughed, you know, we
patted each other on the back, and we shook hands. "So now," I say to the
guy, "Would you give me Mr. Hardin's room," and somebody in the crowd
yells, "Oh, Hardin's in the bar." So I go into the bar, there's a kind of
loungey jazz band playing, and Hardin is pissed out of his mind, and he
comes dancing towards me through this crowded room here, singing to the
band, "Hello, Joni," and doing improvisational lyrics. So I start dancing
towards him, singing "Hello, Timmy! So good to see you!" The bartender
says, "What would you like?" And I sing to him, "One white wine," and the
bartender raises his hand in the air, and sings back, "One white wine." And
the next thing, the whole room was engaged in this spontaneous Broadway
show. Anyway, the story hasn't come to an end yet. Now, we're all in very
high spirits. We discover that there's a party on the third floor. We go up to
this room, and all the way up the hallwayyou know, Timmy and I are hamming
it up, just being goofy. We get into the room, and suddenly, the same guy
that was drunk in the lobby singing "Why Do Fools Fall In Love?" comes up
to me and says, "I have a tape of some wolves." And I say to him, not even
realizing how profound it is, "Oh, I'm looking for a tape of some wolves.
I'll write down my address and you send it to me." He said, "No, I mean,
I've got it
on me." So I said, "Okay," and he produced this box of tapes, all homemade
with labels on them, and we thumbed through it. It was all African animal
sound effects. Well, the very last entry was wolves. So he loaned me his
tape recorder, I put the tape on, and it was a cycle of a wolf-it starts
off with the lead wolf, and then you hear yipping of pups and female
voices, you know? And then he goes, "Aaaooo-aaooh-abh." Like, the same
yelp, but one note up higher in the scale. And then the yipping of the
pups, and the females. And the thing was looped about four times. Well, the
first time I did "The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey," I just hit the button
right at the beginning, picked up the guitar, and uncannily, it was the
perfect key. The way the loop was designed, if you started it at the top of
the tape and went all the way to
the end, it fit the structure perfectly. So anyway, the next night when I
went to the concert, my friend Joel Bernstein hooked the tape up and for an
encore, I came out and we did this song and we blasted the wolves, mixed
them in with the song, and the audience when I was finished singing, some
clapped, but most of them howled me back on for another encore. So you see,
there's still ways to get spontaneity into a show."
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