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 ...
Joni looks a little shop worn.
Indeed, the face of Starbucks.
I haven't seen the inside of one of those places in years, and the palpable "Joni Mitchell" ethos of the places are as much a part of the reason as is my reluctance to stand in line for their overpriced coffee, served by some cretin with a nostril ring.
Joni Mitchell typifies the phony piety of rich leftists.
Huh? Catholic church "Licensed to kill?" Catholic church "And the prisons that it owns?" "Shine on dying soldiers..."
WTF? Can someone here please explain to me WTF she is talking about? I don't get it. "Mass destruction?"
Me too! They swing back and forth between "butterfly and rainbow world" and "rage and ignorance world" very quickly.
100 years from now the Catholic Church will still be standing, and Joni, like most anti-Catholic bigots, will be long forgotten.
Roger Friedman is a publicist’s dream; the ultimate celebrity ass-kisser.
Joni Mitchell will fade away into deep obscurity again soon.
In a related topic, why does this new Garth song suck?
Starbucks pushed the Dixie Chicks like crazy also. I’m sure that in Seattle where they’re enamored of the smell of their own farts, the progressives buy the hell out of this crap.
Good insight.
I guess I will show my age here but I never heard of her.
Count your blessings.
That's unfortunate because it means I don't have any of her records to ceremonially smash....:-)
You mean the same Carol King that sang "You've Got a Friend" for Fidel Castro?
In the late 1960s - when hard rock and protest music were all the rage - she wrote very quiet, introspective and personal songs, and her "conscious" lyrics were done playfully a la "Big Yellow Taxi."
She went against the grain, but inspired a number of imitators of lesser quality (James Taylor, Jackson Browne, the new Carole King).
Then, when the singer-songwriter movement she helped create really took off, she went in another direction: jazz fusion and avant-garde music.
She collaborated with forward-thinkers like Jaco Pastorius and Charles Mingus.
But now she's just following along with the crowd.
Many people who used to be original, innovative talents (Pete Townshend, Burt Bacharach, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell) are following the lead of ninth-rate hacks like Conor Oberst and putting out cookie-cutter anti-Pope and anti-President songs and albums.
It doesn't make me angry - it makes me kind of sad. It's like watching a spry grandparent who used to be full of clever jokes and interesting stories and who liked to take you traipsing all over town reduced to drooling incoherently in a nursing-home basement watching gameshows.
LOL! A good description, indeed!
>>Me too! They swing back and forth between “butterfly and rainbow world” and “rage and ignorance world” very quickly.<<
Spot on!
It’s a “Why can’t we all just get along/all we need is love” thing, unless they disagree with you. Then it’s war.
Yep, that one.
I was a naive teenager and the politics of rock stars meant nothing to me. It was all about the music.......
Amen to that!!!
it may be very unhip and unsophisticated of me to ask this...
what prisons?
Interesting. My daughter is adopted. She tracked down her birth mother several years ago. The first meeting went so well she decided to revisit her. The 2nd meeting was quite the reverse. She has since lost all interest.
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I've never adopted nor given up a child for adoption, so I'm not terribly equipped to comment. Let me simply say that I'm not overly surprised.
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