I DREW a map of Canada, with your face sketched on it twice.. . So warbled Joni Mitchell on her album Blue, a great introspective favourite of mine in the early 1970s.
Mitchell's soulful, some would say dirge-like, lyrics really moved me. As, oddly, did those of another Canadian - 'I'm on the brink of suicide over you' singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen.
And, now that I have travelled this north-west extremity of the old empire on which the sun was never supposed to set, I see where their blues came from. The huge, brooding mountains, the vast hinterland of the looming Arctic and the apparently endless oceanic vista would make anybody pensive.
Cohen is now living on top of a mountain thinking he's the second coming and Joni, the winsome blonde with the goofy teeth from Saskatoon, is failing fast and living on the coast in quiet retirement.
Canada has committed some serious cultural crimes against the world - just think of Celine Dion, Bryan Adams and Jim Carrey. But I could drink a case of Joni Mitchell and still be on my feet.
Printed from the official Joni Mitchell website. Permanent link: https://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=974
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