Nice post, Mark - you wrote:
> This is one of my favorite Joni songs from one of my favorite albums.
> Part of the reason I love it is that I've never been able to
> completely figure out what she's trying to say. There seems to be a
> more than average amount of ambiguity about this one that makes it all
> the more fascinating to me. Unless I'm completely missing something
> here which is entirely possible.
I feel the same way - it is like quicksilver and it seems like no matter how
many times you pore over it, one's grasp on some kind of interpretation
slips away again.
> I agree with Bob that the choice of Exxon Blue and radiation rose is not
random or without meaning. Both could be seen as >references to
environmental issues. I think this song was written some time but not a
long time after the Exxon Valdez >debacle.
Yes, the Exxon Valdez went down around late '87 or early '88 and the
subsequent trial (and news coverage of it) was reaching full speed in the
early 90s. My NRH songbook has a copyright of 1991 for the song. I can't
pin down what Exxon Blue means exactly but here's another stab - the massive
Valdez oil spill darkened the "blue" sea not only in actual color but also
in destroying sea life. The natural sea was once true blue before it was
mutated by man to Exxon Blue.
> Kind of fits in with the image of a sickened planet that she presents
later in 'Slouching Toward Bethlehem' where
> she talks about the beast of the Apocalypse and hopes that the spirit of
this world will 'heal and rise'.
I think the two songs are definitely meant to be connected.
> But to me the line that is the most telling and in some ways the most
> cryptic is 'Who you gonna get to do the dirty work when all the slaves
> are free?'
In the songbook Passion Play is subtitled "When all the slaves are free" so
the theme is integral to her.
> On the other hand, maybe she's playing devil's advocate. Maybe she's
asking Jesus how he expects a world so completely >at odds with his
philosophy to function if his teachings are truly followed. If you look at
nature, the prime directive of it's >myriad creations is survival. And the
law of evolution is survival of the fittest. The teachings of Christ would
seem to be >incongruous with this. The concerns of survival, whether it be
of an individual or a species, would seem to leave no room for >compassion
for those that are less than fit. Doesn't survival mean looking out for
number one? Where is there provision for >helping the sick or the infirm
to survive in a dog eat dog world?
But isn't it the crux of Christianity that the sometimes barbarous true
nature of man is overcome through the grace of God/Jesus and by following
the teachings of love thy neighbor as thyself, doing good to others, being
charitable, that we are a part of God and therefore higher than mere
animals?
>If you take apart the system of oppressor and oppressed - the whole pecking
order of
> have and have-not, the food chain of modern civilization - the world will
surely grind to a halt and everything will crumble >into dust.... Kind of
like 'Atlas Shrugged'. You may be right, Kakki! There may be some Ayn Rand
in there!
Maybe in a complicated way that, again, is difficult to quite figure out.
Most people in the world are slaves in some way, whether it be to their
jobs, their obligations, their government, their particular lot in life,
etc. If they all decided to "shrug" it off tomorrow the world would indeed
grind to a halt and devolve back to the primitive age. Galt's Gulch will
always be an imaginary destination only.
Joni has spoken often in interviews about how terrible the decade of the 80s
was for her personally with the protracted lawsuits, medical issues, a
dentist who "butchered" her, career problems and, from what I understand,
the start of problems with Klein toward the end of the decade. Her
sometimes apocalyptic (Slouching), biblical (Passion Play and Sire of
Sorrow), bitter (Windfall and Nothing Can Be Done) and despairing (Last
Chance Lost) writing all seems to have come right off that decade. She was
beset by troubles on all sides and it seems somewhat evident that she must
have turned to her faith in her darkest hours like so many do.
Kakki, wondering about "slaves" again and how much leave time they got back
in Jesus' day ;-)
