May 15, 2009 - 04:30 AM

NUMBER TWO

Joni Mitchell -- River

"I wish I had a river I could skate away on."

The solo female artist is an iconic form in this frigid country but they are neither Madonnas nor Magdalenes but partners in the true sense. In popular music, kd Lang, Feist, Alanis Morrisette, Sarah McLaughlan, Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne, Anne Murray, Diana Krall. The title, Canadian female singer/songwriter, gets one's foot in the door. It does so because the immediate thought is of Joni Mitchell. The greatest female artist is a Canadian. In a way, it's ironic that one who had to give up her own daughter would have metaphorically given birth to so many women. A little green has become a whole forest.

She has influenced not only generations of girls but also guys, everyone from Herbie Hancock to Jimmy Page to Prince. Sonic Youth hail her on Hey Joni from Daydream Nation. She is experimental with her music but a realist in her lyrics.

River is from Blue, played on a piano, The sounds are glacial clean. The riff on Jingle Bells which hovers on the song is an evocative hook.

River is the love letter to her home. A frozen river, skates, snow, the postcard-picture Christmas she builds up in the lyrics sing of a deep personal relationship. Her lost baby (child? lover?) and the loneliness of being away adds to the melancholic mood.

"I wish I had a river so long I would teach my feet to fly." Mitchell's voice soars on the word fly. She holds the note. The river is a runway. She carries us with her and we feel the loss when she drops. This is motion as cure. Movement needs space and Canada has space to spare. Mitchell takes us from water to air. From water, the source of life, to the sky the desired destination.

When one grows up in the vastness of the prairies perhaps the only way out is up. Those jetliners streaking slowly from horizon to horizon can only underscore the gravity of isolation. As Gordon Lightfoot sang... "you can't jump a jet plane."

River reaches beyond place, beyond space, right to the heart of the nation.

William McGuirk is a freelance writer and longtime Oshawa resident. He can be contacted at wmacg@yahoo.com.