Pather Panchali : Joni Mitchell's Hejira

The drive to and from work when I immerse myself in my music are some of the most pleasurable moments of my day. I usually have the music on Shuffle so that an element of surprise is added to the interestingness of random track sequencing. Not least in hopes of providing a fresh impetus to this much neglected blog, I am trying to chronicle some of those on-the-go musings in this series. Pather Panchali is named after the (Bengali novel and) Indian cinema masterpiece by genius auteur Satyajit Ray. It means 'Song of the Road'.  

I came to Joni Mitchell - a fleeting acquaintance until now, Blue album , Coyote, Big Yellow Taxi, Woodstock, hippie lore, the "girl out there with lavendar eyes and flowers in her hair", female artiste -   via this recent article  and now I am hooked to the other Joni. The jazz sophisticate. Poet. Connector extraordinaire. Hejira. 

This morning on my drive to work I had on Shadows & Light , live in 1979 with Jaco Pastorius and Pat Metheny. The 20 odd minute drive fitted in  Amelia , followed by a beautiful understated Pat Metheny solo which then segued into Hejira  and finally ended with the seductive propulsion of Black Crow as I pulled into the basement parking of my office. 

Hejira , featuring Jaco on bass and no less than Larry Carlton on guitar, is my album these days. And my song. The greatest road song nobody-considers-a-road-song ever or what ? This was Mitchell spinning the road trips she had made across the cold and bleak  winter landscapes both  of America and of her broken-relationship mind into exquisite sonic yarns, yarns that unraveled on my senses today like so much Beauty and Truth as Jaco's fretless bass droned and hummed and sighed over the percussion and saxophone added into this live version.  

I'm traveling in some vehicle / I'm sitting in some cafe

A defector from the petty wars / That shell shocked love away

There's comfort in melancholy / When there's no need to explain

It's just as natural as the weather / In this moody sky today

In our possessive coupling / So much could not be expressed

So now I'm returning to myself / These things that you and I suppressed 
...You know it never has been easy / Whether you do or do not resign

Whether you travel the breadths of extremities / Or stick to some straighter lines.

I'm porous with travel fever / But you know I'm so glad to be on my own

Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger / Can set up a trembling in my bones.

No sooner has Black Crow finished and I've switched off the ignition than the phone rings. A friendly Filipina voice chirps brightly about a promotion on at 'London Fish & Chips'. Then I am that black crow flying up in the blue sky, inside a cold steel elevator, homing in to a new old day.