We listened to a couple of Quebecoises yesterday, so
today we’ll feature another Canadian songwriter. The first time I heard Joni
Mitchell’s “River” (on a compilation CD) it absolutely stopped me in my tracks.
Yes—that’s what Christmas is like, when you’re not aligned with your
expectations, when you’ve screwed the pooch in a relationship, when you just
can not get into the rhythm of the
season—whatever that might mean to you.
I love the imagery of a river not as something that lets
you sail, but something that you can skate away on. It captures the
dislocation that a Northerner feels in an environment like Los Angeles. Even
though that’s my native land, I understand fully the sense that it’s not quite
real, more façade than substance, and how that adds to the alienation.
There are many covers of “River”, but I like Linda
Ronstadt’s the best, so that’s what I’m sharing with you.
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