Mack, Just catching up on a backlog of emails, and was touched by a couple of your recent posts - in particular your Lonely Wisconsin Night post, and your DED post.
I hope things are looking up for you - things sounded rather bleak in that first post. I also found your DED post very insightful. I'm one of the few who also like DED very much, but what I really found interesting was your comments about how Joni's other albums really just brought your attention to things you somehow already knew, while DED opened your eyes to things you hadn't thought about before. For some reason I found this fasinating. Hejira is one of my favorite Joni albums, and the one that I can mostly relate to. It felt like I was listening to a musical diary of my life at the time. It's familiarity was startling, and one of the reasons it resonated with me so much. This 'listening to my life' is a re-occurring comment from most of Joni's fans. Your comment that DED "opened my mind to avenues, thoughts that I had not traveled, known before." is a stark contrast to "that album was like a mirror" comments so common with Joni's music. I wonder if maybe that's one of the reasons DED is so often looked at as a low point in Joni's career. A lot of people blame the prodution values, but I wonder if there's more to this than just the sound. Maybe it's just that they can't make a personal connection to the lyrics, as they've done on some many of her other albums. Anyway, you've given me plenty to think about today. Jack
