hejira

Joni Mitchell stepped out of her comfort zone with the haunting jazz poetry of this reflective travelogue. The title comes from the Arabic word for journey. Mitchell says: "To me, the whole 'Hejira' album was really inspired. I feel a lot of people could have written 'Chelsea Morning', but I don't think anyone else could have written the songs on 'Hejira'. I wrote the album while traveling cross-country by myself and there is this restless feeling throughout it. . . . The sweet loneliness of solitary travel. What happened was I had driven across the country with a couple of friends, starting in California when they showed up at my door. One was an old boyfriend from Australia who had a 20-day visa and wanted to go to Maine to kidnap his daughter from this grandmother. You could have made a whole movie about that trip. 'Refugee of the Roads' grew out of that experience. On the way back, I went down the coast to Florida and then followed the Gulf of Mexico across the country, staying in old '50s motels and eating at health food stores."

The band includes luminaries like Larry Carlton on guitar and Jaco Pastorious on bass, helping to flesh out the extended musical sketches with grace and subtlety. The romantic character studies deal with the transience of life, commitment and freedom, loneliness and individuality, and the transformative healing power of nature. 'Hejira' peaked at number thirteen on the US album chart and went gold; but it marked the beginning of a more difficult period for Mitchell, commerically and artistically.







http://jonimitchell.com/

'Coyote'

"I looked a Coyote right in the face

On the road to Baljennie near my old home town

He went running through the whisker wheat

Chasing some prize down

And a hawk was playing with him

Coyote was jumping straight up and making passes

He had those same eyes - just like yours

Under your dark glasses

Privately probing the public rooms

And peeking through keyholes in numbered doors

Where the players lick their wounds

And take their temporary lovers

And their pills and powders to get them through this passion play"

'Amelia'

"I was thinking of Amelia Earhart and addressing it from one solo pilot to another... sort of reflecting on the cost of being a woman and having something you must do."

"People will tell you where they've gone

They'll tell you where to go

But till you get there yourself you never really know

Where some have found their paradise

Others just come to harm

Oh Amelia, it was just a false alarm"

'Hejira'

"I'm traveling in some vehicle

I'm sitting in some cafe

A defector from the petty wars

That shell shock love away

There's comfort in melancholy

When there's no need to explain

It's just as natural as the weather

In this moody sky today

In our possessive coupling

So much could not be expressed

So now I'm returning to myself

These things that you and I suppressed

I see something of myself in everyone

Just at this moment of the world

As snow gathers like bolts of lace

Waltzing on a ballroom girl"

'Black Crow'

"In search of love and music

My whole life has been

Illumination

Corruption

And diving, diving, diving, diving.

Diving down to pick up on every shiny thing

Just like that black crow flying

In a blue sky"

'Refuge of the Roads'

"I pulled off into a forest

Crickets clicking in the ferns

Like a wheel of fortune

I heard my fate turn, turn turn

And I went running down a white sand road

I was running like a white-assed deer

Running to lose the blues

To the innocence in here

These are the clouds of Michelangelo

Muscular with gods and sungold

Shine on your witness in the refuge of the roads"

'Hejira'
full album:




All tracks written by Joni Mitchell. 

Side one
1. "Coyote"   5:01
2. "Amelia"   6:01
3. "Furry Sings the Blues"   5:07
4. "A Strange Boy"   4:15
5. "Hejira"   6:42
Side two
6. "Song for Sharon"   8:40
7. "Black Crow"   4:22
8. "Blue Motel Room"   5:04
9. "Refuge of the Roads"   6:42