More Morbid Reminiscence

I'm obsessed lately with this Joni Mitchell song from the 70's. About a week ago, I started waking up with it in my head every day, and it's a pretty freaking complicated tune, so you can't just go around humming or whistling it when that happens. Believe me, I tried. I've heard it said that when you have a tune stuck in your head you should put it on and listen to it all the way through, because it's just your brain trying to work out how the whole thing goes and once it's heard the actual song it'll lay off. Well, so I did that and it actually brought me to tears. I don't think I've ever heard such a succint, rich, universal expression of the sadness and hope that is the human condition: It's a lonely life and, what's worse, you have no one to blame but yourself. But you are also the only one with the ability to turn it around. Very buddhist, actually.

Anyway, that didn't work at all and now it's almost always in my head. I remember going through about a year of this with the album Heijira back in the early 90's. Hopefully this one will be a little more short-lived. Yesterday morning I forced Ali to sit down and listen to it, and immediately burst into tears again. Enjoy:

[Well, I can't get this stinkin' thing working. Something's gone terribly wrong with Castpost. It was Down to You, off Court and Spark. You should go listen to it. Everyone has that album, right?]

And, in case the short glimmer of blue skies at the end was not enough upliftingness for you, here's a really nice piece of nostalgia I discovered on a pretty great site called YouTube. The ending's different from what I remember, but Ali tells me there were a few different ones. Just as well -- that handful of powder stands out as one my sadder childhood memories. Love those sweeping shots from within the contraption.


- Andrew