The first time I heard Joni would have been in 1969 shortly after Clouds was released. Our family had recently moved to the Toronto area from small-town Pembroke, Ontario. I was 12 when we moved and I felt uprooted. Puberty/adolescence is probably not a good time to move from the town you've spent most of your life in to a completely new, bit city. I was a bit immature, that is, compared to the "city" kids. We moved in mid-summer and I started Grade 7 that fall and the kids in my class all seemed so grownup. They were interested in boys, I was afraid of them. They were wearing makeup and going to make-out parties in the garage near some townhouses. I didn't think I had anything in common with them.
Over the course of the next three years, because we were in a new subdivision that was growing by leaps and bounds, I went to about five different schools, as they kept building new schools and changing the boundaries. Or, the new school wasn't quite finished on time, so we spent part of the year being bussed to another school, where we had temporary classrooms in the gym. Two schools each in both Grades 7 and 8. Then, I started highschool. All my classmates from Grade 8 were going to the public highschool, but my parents wanted us all to go to Catholic schools, so once again, I started highschool not knowing a darn person. Needless to say, I was a wreck - I'm not a really outgoing person at the best of times so put adolescent angst on top of that, and I felt like biggest freak in history. Somewhere in that time - I guess if it was 1969, I would have been 16 (for some reason, I always thought it was earlier than that), a friend of ours from our old hometown came to visit and she told me about Joni Mitchell. I was imagining she'd be some country and western type artist - which is what I figured anyone Canadian would be (Canadians of a certain age would probably get this, the rest of you, maybe not!) but I bought Clouds without having heard her first, took it home, put it on the record player and.... I was in love, I had found my idol, the person who understood my soul and lifted me out of the gloom (temporarily anyway!) Joni became my goddess - I wanted to be just like her. I wanted to play her songs on the guitar and I wanted hair just like hers (with the help of Summer Blonde, I got as close as I could). The beauty of discovering an artist not at the very beginning is that you can buy their older albums too, so it's kind of like Christmas every day for a while - I just had to go out and get the first one (STAS, Joni Mitchell, whatever you want to call it.) I was in Joni heaven. Years later, still a freak but fairly comfortable with it, she still lifts me up and inspires me. Yet, I still haven't listed to Joni this year and I guess I should because I'm feeling way too melancholy lately (it's winter, it's dark, I owe lots of money to lots of people, and we're all too friggin' gloomy in my family - resolution for this year: have some fun!) Sometimes Joni makes me feel really good and positive; other times, she makes me cry (which is good, because then you get it all out). It's funny - I'm not sure whether I'd have felt the same about Joni if I had discovered her at a later age. I'm sure part of the devotion (that's all I can call it) that I have to her relates to my age and personal circumstance at the time. I have since discovered many talented singers/songwriters (many, thanks to this list) but no one ever does it for me like Joni. Ahh, first love! --- Mags <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > close your eyes and remember > remember that very first time you ever heard Joni > it took your breathe away > stopped you....no, deeper than that > riveted you in your tracks > you could not believe > how a human voice could reach down > so deep inside you > touch your very soul ______________________________________________________ Send your holiday cheer with http://greetings.yahoo.ca