Shine is Joni Mitchell's first release of new material in 9 years. Following Paul McCartney, it is the second release on Starbucks' Hear Music label. True to form, she once again takes on subjects such as war, religion, pop culture and it's worship of consumerism, and man's relentless and continued assault on nature. More about Joni's music and her new release below the fold.
First for those wishing to hear Joni's own words regarding Shine, here is a promotional video provided by Concord Music Group.
Shine is Joni Mitchell’s first new release of original music since Taming The Tiger some 9 years ago. Taming The Tiger was an exceptional work, with it's namesake song in which she railed against the recording industry and it's plethora of one hit wonders, in additional to the artwork which showcased her talent as a painter. Another track from recording, Man From Mars, featured in the 1996 movie "Grace Of My Heart", superficially resembles any number of love songs in which one laments the loss of love. This love song just happened to be about her cat Nietzche, who disappeared one night, only to show up about two weeks later at her door. I know that I am tired of wasting my money on CDs that have one or two worthwhile songs on them but having bought her every release, I know that Joni’s CD will be a keeper. This CD has her uncharacteristically playing the piano or a synthesizer on many of the songs as opposed to the guitar, the first heavily piano oriented work since For The Roses.
The Grammy award nominated album Court and Spark marked the height of her career in terms of record sales and "popularity". The subsequent release of The Hissing of Summer Lawns would reveal an artist who was not content on churning out repackaged versions of what was obviously a successful formula in her musical journey. Her music would continue to reflect the changing tones that open tuning with a guitar made possible with jazz becoming increasingly predominant in her work. The focus changed from intensely personal introspection to one of extrospection with criticism of the "star maker machinery" that was the recording industry, consumerism and it’s inevitable ties to destruction of the environment, and of course the wars that mankind cannot refrain from, as if they were an integral part of the human genome.
Songs from her subsequent work were extraordinarily prescient and many spoke about the Dog Eat Dog consumerist society we live in, where "lawyers and loan sharks are laying America to waste". Hmm... reminds me of a certain mortgage crisis in our economy right now. And more than a few congresscritters smart enough to obtain law degrees and use their ability to create legislation that ultimately favored the corporations that lined their coffers and kept them in power. Lamenting about the wholesale destruction of nature would also become a frequented topic, with lyrics such as "last night I dreamed I saw the planet flicker, great forests fell like buffalo, everything got sicker, and ’til the bitter end, big business bickered". The destruction of forests worldwide, whether it be for monocultures of corn to produce the apparently not so bio-friendly fuels, to the coming destruction of the vast expanses of arboreal Canadian forests to extract the oil in the tar sands after events in the Middle East make it economically feasible to do so, were all presaged in those few lines. She finally was recognized with the Grammy award for her brilliant work Turbulent Indigo which featured a portrait of herself (Joni has always considered herself to be first and foremost a painter) fashioned in the manner of Van Gogh.
Crooks and Liars made the entire track of the song If I Had A Heart available for downloading and listening to this past Saturday.
Here are some lyrics from the song:
There’s just too many people now
And too little land
Too much rage and desire
It makes you feel so feeble now
It’s so out of hand-
Big bombs and barbed wire...
Can’t you see
Our destiny?
We are making this Earth
Our funeral pyre!
Holy Earth
How can we heal you?
We cover you like a blight...
Strange birds of appetite...
If I had a heart I’d cry
Joni Mitchell Copyright © 2007; Crazy Crow Music
Lyrics for all of the songs on "Shine" can be obtained here.
Joni's own words about each of the 10 songs on the CD can be found in this interview here.
I believe that in the lyrics of the song above, she is essentially addressing the awful mess we’ve created in which we are on a course not only of self destruction, but of wholesale destruction of nature, whose vanishing animal and plant species we have a fundamental connection with. Western religions discount our vital link to the natural world of which we were once a part, by proclaiming man is nobler that any beast (do his recent actions indicate this?) and Western paradigms are not able to assign an economic monetary "value" to the natural environment so species have gone silently extinct exponentially. Corporations and thus by definition the government they sponsor tell us that consumerism will make us happy, which it can never really do by appealing to "our discontent (which) is their delight, they offer relief for the purchase price". She knows that in the 9 years since she has released any new music, that we are truly at a tilting point, and I might argue actually past it, and it is a sort of sobering and desperate wake up call for humanity.
BTW, everyone (myself included) has automatically attributed her deeper voice to cigarette smoking, however, Joni has been smoking since she was 9 years old, and it didn’t affect her early soprano-like vocals (she has always had an alto voice actually). Digestive problems were given to her as the reason by her own doctor. And if you’ve ever been to LA or for that matter Phoenix, just breathing the air is probably equivalent to smoking a pack or two each day. These are the symptoms of our man made world becoming toxic to even ourselves, not simply bad air quality days with bad AQI (Air Quality Index) numbers.
Anyways I am elated that after 9 years in which she had sworn off the music industry, Joni, who has always been something of a personal sage to me, has graced us once again with the inspiration and beauty that is her music.