Sunday, July 31, 2011

Collaging Joni Circles

~"Circle Game" atc I made for Paper Traders monthly yahoo group lottery~
You may or may not be familiar with the music of songwriter Joni Mitchell, but I sure am. She was as much a part of my coming-of-age in the Sixties and Seventies as anything else. I have always loved listening to her musical poetry of words.

So, when I received my latest issue of Technique Junkies newsletter and saw the Collaged Circles technique, I also thought of Joni's song, Circle Game, and I knew I wanted to use a bit of those lyrics on whatever it was that I made. Here's a really nice live performance of the song, from 1967, with all of that rawness and non polish that makes those times and their talents so special, at least for me.

Make sure you hear the story she tells at the beginning!


The lyrics of the chorus, from which I took part of them as my sentiment (bolded), are here:

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.

Now, did you hear her story? She is talking about my all-time favorite musical artist, Neil Young. Exactly 40 years ago, I discovered them both as a fresh-faced sheltered 15 year old. They were my first leap into adult music, from my previous teeny bopper world of The (pre-psychedelic) Beatles, The Monkees, The Cowsills and Herman's Hermits. Back then, I always wanted Neil and Joni to fall in love, get married, perform together and make beautiful music happily ever after. Haha. Now, much older and wiser, I'm really glad they became best buds and lifelong friends instead.

And they are both Canadians. Why is it that so many of my favorite artists (Norma Shearer, Mike Myers, Alanis Morisette) are from there? I have a good guess as to why, based on spending several hours in a layover at the Ottowa Airport in 2004: Canadian people are fantastically friendly and kind. And the people online that I know who are Canadian are as well. They also seem to be very serious about being authentic and real. I'd say that describes Joni and Neil, too. 

I do have to wonder, though, what is in the water up there that makes for such awesome poet song writers...

It is on my bucket list to one day visit Canada. Perhaps I'll find out if I ever get there.