How long have I been listening to Joni Mitchell; singing along. Forty years? Forty five? According to Wiki (so it must be true!!!) her first studio album was released in 1968 (I was eleven and have no recollection of any track from it). But a year later cam Clouds and I do know Chelsea Morning and Both Sides Now. I'm pretty sure that BSN caught my attention as a twelve year old, probably as a result of my big brother's record collection. He would have been 15 going on 16. He was into contemporary folk - Pentangle, Donovan (but not Dylan, funnily enough), Joan Baez, CSN&Y, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell - as well as - let's think - John Mayall, Cream, Hendrix (of course) and way out there on the Californian edge of blues-based rock n roll, The Doors. You can see where my tastes come from. Did we all look west ... to America? Anyway, I've been listening to Ms Roberta Joan Anderson sing for at least 43 years. Still am.
So I'm sitting here in Sydney, early in May, listening to Night Ride Home (1991). As I type, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, based on Yeats's The Second Coming, is playing. Sing on Joni. Sing along Dougie.
I love the whole album; no track is better than another but this poem / lyric / song never ceases to grab me. The unanswered question is audacious, irrefutable, unanswerable: Who you gonna get to do the dirty work / When all the slaves are free?
Passion Play (When All The Slaves Are Free)
Magdalene is trembling
Like a washing on a line
Trembling and gleaming
Never before was a man so kind
Never so redeeming
Enter the multitudes
In exxon blue
In radiation rose
Ecstasy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(who're you gonna get)
I am up a sycamore
Looking through the leaves
A sinner of some position
Who in the world can this heart healer be
This magical physician
Enter the multitudes
In exxon blue
In radiation rose
Misery
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(who're you gonna get)
Enter the multitudes
The walking wounded
They come to this diver of the heart
Of the multitudes
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
Oh, climb down, climb down he says to me
From the middle of unrest
They think is light is squandered
But he sees a stray in the wilderness
And i see how far i've wandered
Enter the multitudes
In exxon blue
In radiation rose
Apathy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(who're you gonna get)
Enter the multitudes
The walking wounded
They come to this diver of the heart
Of the multitudes
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
Oh, all around the marketplace
The buzzing of the flies
The buzzing and the stinging
Divinely barren
And wickedly wise
The killer nails are ringing
Enter the multitudes
In exxon blue
In radiation rose
Tragedy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(who're you gonna get)
