Joni...
After the rush when you come back down
You're always disappointed
Nothing seems to keep you high
Drive your bargains
Push your papers
Win your medals
Fuck your strangers
Don't it leave you on the empty side
[...]
You criticize and you flatterI've heard those same words... in various forms and permutations... from the women who meant the most to me in Former Happy Days. I suppose these words do nothing other than tell us to just be ourselves, and that's the BEST way to be. I sure do love me some Joni.
You imitate the best
And the rest you memorize
You know the times you impress me most
Are the times when you don't try
When you don't even try
Good choice for Happy Hour, Buck. Loves me some Joni. Spent many a lonely (drunken) hour on Okinawa listening to my tape of "The Hissing of Summer Lawns". (Off duty, of course.) 'Twas a low point in my life and Joni helped ease the pain.
ReplyDeleteAh... a Fellow Traveler. I've been a fan of Joni's since about 1970 or so. Joni got me through the best and the worst o' times, and she's a woman I STILL turn to for both solace and inspiration.
DeleteJoni, Joni, Joni...AND Carley...AND Carole King...AND Joan Baez..ALL of "our" generation, Buck. .AND ( to go a decade younger) throw in Janis Ian, Phoebe Snow, Cher and Debbi Harry...AND/OR throw in a born-a-decade-earlier the likes of, say, a Dusty Springfield and one could say the 70s were a helluva time for female "balladeers" (I refuse to think about Streisand. Roberta Flack deserves to be incl but never exactly to my taste)
ReplyDelete(I guess I could have also thrown in rockers like Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Stevie Nicks, etc., but then do I add the likes of Grace Slick and a Tammy Wynette? Or even straying into Shirley Bassey, Aretha, Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle territory? All heavy duty 70s types, but hardly of the same genre as the first group..)
Every woman you mention has a place... some larger (Snow), some smaller (Nicks)... in my record/CD collection, except for Streisand (is THAT eerie or what?). Even Tammy Wynette, believe it or don't.
DeleteLOL, Brothers from a different Mother, Buck, brothers from a different Mother..
DeletePS: (I guess one could classify Debbie Harry and Dusty Springfield as "tweener" utility types who could go both the harder rock route--or country-rock in the case of Dusty "Silver Threads & Golden Needles" being my fave--and the softer "ballad-like" song route..)
ReplyDelete