Posted on 09/25/2007 7:24:04 AM PDT by NYer
Joni Mitchell is back after nine years, and she’s on the attack. In the title track to her new album, “Shine,” Mitchell takes a nice swipe at the Catholic Church by name.
“Shine on the Catholic Church/And the prisons that it owns,” she sings. “Shine on all the Churches/that love less and less.”
Mitchell was never one to mince words, but in her triumphant return on Starbucks’ Hear Records, she doesn’t give an inch.
In “Shine,” she continues: “Shine on lousy leadership/Licensed to kill/Shine on dying soldiers/In patriotic pain/Shine on mass destruction/In some God's name!”
Mitchell’s album will be something of a revelation to young people who might buy it at Starbucks when it’s released Tuesday if they listen to it and read the lyrics.
Mitchell, the original singer-songwriter, presents herself in stark contrast to the dodo-brained warblers of this generation. She’s cynical and doesn’t mind expressing it.
In my favorite song, “Bad Dreams,” she begins by painting a happy picture: “The cats are in the flower bed/A red hawk rides the sky/I guess I should be happy/Just to be alive...”
But then the other foot falls, and it’s a doozy. When I first heard the next line, I actually laughed out loud. All I could think was, You tell ‘em, Joni:
“But we have poisoned everything/And oblivious to it all/The cell phone zombies babble/Through the shopping malls…”
And that’s just for starters. She observes: “You cannot be trusted/Do you even know you're lying/It's dangerous to kid yourself/You go deaf and dumb and blind.”
Mitchell plays nearly all the instruments on the album herself, and does all the singing. And while the lyrics are harsh indictments of modern culture, Mitchell serves them up with grace and style.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Shine on the Catholic Church/And the prisons that it owns
Sed Chesterton respondet:
And if we took the third chance instance, it would be the same; the view that priests darken and embitter the world. I look at the world and simply discover that they don't. Those countries in Europe which are still influenced by priests, are exactly the countries where there is still singing and dancing and coloured dresses and art in the open-air. Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground. Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased.
206-447-1575
and got the usual bureaucractic run around and double-speak:
"We don't censor the music that we sponsor or sell."
ME: "Would you admit that 'Shine on the Catholic Church and the prisons it owns' is anti-Catholic?"
"Well . . . "
ME: "So then Starbucks sponsors and sells anti-Catholic music?"
"I didn't say that . . . "
Then she hung up.
If you have a few moments and you want to have some fun (and like Rush says, you can leave half your brain tied behind your back during this call, folks), call the rocket-scientists out at Starbucks and make them earn this week's paycheck.
Of course, right after that I called the Catholic League in New York - and they are on the case!
Or the grandparent who tells you the same story over and over ...
“But we have poisoned everything/And oblivious to it all/The cell phone zombies babble/Through the shopping malls…”
“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
Remarkably similar thoughts - only 35 years apart! As someone who loved her records back then, all I can say is that she is stuck in a time warp. There’s nothing more pathetic than an aging hippie who can’t seem to find anything better to do than protest “something.” It’s just that same old Viet Nam protest attitude being re-hashed. It was tiresome then, and it’s tiresome now.
“When I was young, we used to go out and protest the War. By golly, I’ve still got it, I can still protest the War! ... What War are we protesting, anyhow?”
So do some FReepers.
Just another lesbian against Christ.
‘70s easy-listening folk singer/songwriter. Didn’t get asked out in high school, never got over it, takes it out on the world through song.
Actually, she has cut a couple of good tracks over the years — but it’s been thirty years or so since the last one.
Indeed - the idea is similarly vapid in both songs.
But the tune of "Big Yellow Taxi" is infectious and upbeat - it has fun with itself. Her later music has become both less experimental and less fun, while becoming more self-conscious and ponderous.
And the lyrics of "Big Yellow Taxi" are more, well, lyrical. They scan nicely and are alliterative. She was a better writer at the age of 27 than she is now at the age of 64.
Her first "grown-up" album of pop songs has yet to sell gold, two years after its release.
I think you’re thinking of another of her songs - unless you think the writing in “Big Yellow Taxi” was vapid and lyrical at the same time. (Late last night she heard the screen door slam and a “Big Yellow Taxi” took away her “old man.” Now “don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone - they pave paradise and put up a parking lot. Doo wah wah wah wah.” Also included in the song is the line about “putting all the trees in a tree museum and charging a dollar and a half just to see ‘em.”) It does have a catchy tune, though.
Heh, I’m not sure who I like less . . . old hippies or Starbucks. I think it’s Starbucks; I’ve always been fond of locally owned coffee shops with good pastries and late hours. Starbucks is killing them.
Good for you for passing this on to an anti-defamation league. I want to see her explain the “prisons” comment and I want to see Starbucks face 70 million insulted Catholics who might forgoe an overpriced latte and discover the pleasure of a coffee combined with a Napoleon or good pastry and more interesting shops (with real live shop owners that you can get to know).
Starbucks Records. That’s like Dan Rather going to INHD.
Indeed I do.
The primary purpose of a lyric is that it fits the music and that it rhymes and scans. If it also contains a memorable turn of phrase or an interesting verbal pattern like alliteration - "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot" - (5 p's in 12 syllables) then it's a bonus.
The lyrics for Jim Morrison's "Love Me Two Times" or T. Rex's "Mambo Sun" aren't deep, but they are lyrical.
She was never pretty.
I guess the Catholic Church is such an easy target for such people.
Pity... I used to like Joni Mitchell's music.
OK. Moot point now, anyway, since I tired of her music 30 years ago.
What took her so long?
Petey,
Don’t be sweatin’ Joni none.
She’s been an irrelevant weeney for most of my adult life.
Let’s get Pope Bill Donahue on the case! (You have to have seen the Southpark Easter Special to know why I call him Pope Bill Donahue).
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