Two Gray Rooms

knevils   2009-Jun-15 at 21:16:46 I have been a Joniphile since the late '60s and my latest obsession is her song "Two Gray Rooms." I love the restraint and sophistication of it. Plus, its topic is haunting and the music is beautiful. Gorgeous! Does anybody have the piano music to this song? I'd love to have it!

HenryPuck   2009-Jun-20 at 04:40:30 "Two Grey Rooms" was all I played for a week back in 2003. I had the CD since it's release, but for a week in 2003 that song resonated with me and I keep pushing replay to the point of being asked by a pounding on the wall by roomate to "PLEASE FIND ANOTHER SONG TO CRY TO"...when I was finshed doing so to this one, I did like I was told and found another, but "Two Grey Rooms" is one of her best songs IMO.

knevils   2009-Jun-25 at 21:21:40 Henry, can you articulate what you liked about it? The best I could do was in my previous post. Maybe you can do better than I did.

MontgomeryP   2009-Aug-15 at 23:25:14 I find Joni's ability to create a "living environment" amazing--truly the creation of a poet. In an interview, she was asked about the impetus for this song, TWO GREY ROOMS, and she answered that it was a love story between two men, in Germany, in Berlin. The older man (the narrator) lives upstairs and wathes his "beloved" from afar (a man who works Monday through Friday) and crosses the street below his window. The weekends were the worst, because the object of his desire did not work on weekends. In the song, its never resolved whether they actually meet face-to-face. She said the "longing" went on for years (in the song's storytelling). In the interview, Joni went on to elaborate, in past lives, had predominately been male, and that being incarnated as "female" in this lifetime was still taking time to adjust to, as she thought of herself not as a female, but having strong male energy. I guess that flies with recent statements and interviews with Joni (about upcoming 2009 book) about being part of the "boys club" and her strong reaction to rejection from it, or criticsm for it...Fascinating how far Joni's (genderless) spirit stretches and inhabits her works.