Hejira, the definition i guess is 'escape', or taking flight, the whole album seems to revolve around Joni Mitchell's wandering self, she's a traveller, and not just in geography, it documents her life on the road, she travelled over much of the United States alone, discovering herself, and a lot of her insights and observations found their way onto this album.
Joni Mitchell is Canadian, now 67, i feel very much after the seventies her songwriting abilities went downhill, she recorded this album in 1976, the booklet shows her on an ice skating rink [photos by Norman Seeff], and shows on the cover a montage of the road and sky, a sort of inner self of Joni's passion.
This is one of my most favourite albums, but it's not an easy listen, all the songs sound quite similar, with similar instrumentation, it therefore takes quite a while to discover the true individuality of each song, one of the things Joni Mitchell is famed for, is her imagery through words, she's a great songwriter, but she's a truly great words writer, there are dozens of gems on this album, it takes your breath away how she expresses herself, she makes you 'see' what she's singing about, here's the highlights i felt this time,
2 Amelia, the best song on the album by far, she sings of Amelia Earhart, 'a ghost of aviation, she was swallowed by the sky, or by the sea, like me she had a dream to fly ', she likens herself to the solo female aviator, however her sky is the endless road, and like Amelia who is lost at sea trying to circle the globe and find herself, Joni gets lost on the road trying the same discovery across America.
3 Furry Sings The Blues, 'pawn shops glitter like gold tooth caps, in the grey decay', the old world music gets torn down to make way for the new and sparkling.
4 A Strange Boy,
1 Coyote, she speaks about herself as 'a hitcher, a prisoner of the white lines on the freeway', and 'i tried to run away myself, to run away and wrestle with my ego ', she speaks of the freeway actually as a sort of prison, some cause that she can't free herself from.
3 Furry Sings The Blues, 'pawn shops glitter like gold tooth caps, in the grey decay', the old world music gets torn down to make way for the new and sparkling.
4 A Strange Boy,
'a thousand glass eyes were staring, in a cellar full of antique dolls '.
5 Hejira, 'in the church they light the candles, and the wax rolls down like tears '.
6 Song For Sharon, the first track i fell in love with on this album, it's a whopping 8 minute plus track, and it reads like a story / travelogue.
7 Black Crow, 'i looked at the morning, after being up all night, i looked at my haggard face in the bathroom light '.
8 Blue Motel Room, 'here in Savannah it's pouring rain, palm trees in the porch light like slick black cellophane '.
9 Refuge Of The Roads, 'a photograph of the earth... that marbled bowling ball '.
Her words truly are revelatory, it makes me want to follow in her footsteps, hire a car and travel the breadth of the country.
Here's Joni Mitchell singing 'Amelia' on YouTube.
