River or puddle?: Joni Mitchell accidentally does emo-jazz

I wish I had a river -- so I could row a boat across and get to Beth's Cafe for their 12-egg omelettes, yo! What?, what?

Much has been said of Joni Mitchell’s ode to broken hearts at Christmas time, in the classic “River.” 

Many have performed renditions of it, including longtime cohort Herbie Hancock and featured vocalist Corinne Bailey Rae on “River - the Joni Letters,” his Grammy-award-winning, Grammy-history-making (first jazz album to break into the mainstream best album of the year award) compilation of the Canadian’s past works.

The song wasn’t really intended as another Christmas classic, even though it contains a clever “Jingle Bells” interpolation throughout, and it just happens to take place at Christmas in L.A. But due to other, more contemporary, accessible artists since Mitchell (among them, Tori Amos, Holly Cole, Shawn Colvin, Sarah McLachlan, and Barry Manilow), that’s what it’s become… a Christmas classic for those of us not in the holiday spirit for one valid, cheerless reason or another, usually dire in nature. 

Before Mitchell discovered the freedom of expression of jazz from her folk origins, for her stream-of-consciousness poetry, she came out with her “Blue” album, June 1971, to immediate acclaim from fans and critics. In “Blue” was a vast repertoire of open-faced emotional confession, unencumbered; perhaps the first signs of emo music, however complex musically. “At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of *[cancer sticks]. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn't pretend in my life to be strong.” 

There’s plenty from Mitchell’s life to draw on in the disturbing undertones of her drawn-out depressive observational and personal songs. She gave up her baby at a young age, barely born, she barely out of college. No explanation given. She almost died from polio at nine, then took up the bad habit of smoking. She gives off a mysterious, foreboding, intelligent but pained aura. 

When I first heard “River” again, after decades had passed, it was through the interpretive vocals of soap opera actress and Broadway baby (“Hairspray”), singing virtuoso Kathy Brier. She’d chosen the song a year ago for a special “A Holiday Affair” CD, featuring herself and other great soap singers. While they retried the classics, “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” “Winter Wonderland,” “The Christmas Song,” and “Little Drummer Boy,” Brier went a darker route.

In Brier’s deeply soulful rendition of “River,” the suffering and torment of the lyrics matched the deceptively Christmassy, almost lilting piano and horns hiding horrifying understanding underneath, rolling along in a forced jaunty pace. She most closely matched Mitchell’s original, albeit a little more straightforward, with her enunciation exacting – Brier’s a Broadway performer after all.

Around the same time the soap opera stars came out with their holiday record, legendary piano player and composer Herbie Hancock came out with his homage to friend Joni Mitchell with “River: The Joni Letters,” reinterpreting 13 choice tracks – half instrumental, half vocal. He employed more well-known mainstream artists Tina Turner, Norah Jones, and Corinne Bailey Rae for the vocal tracks. It is Rae who tries her hand on “River” – with mixed success.

The British singer earned significant notice in 2006 with her debut, breakout, self-titled album and its hit single, “Put Your Records On.” She also, unfortunately, received further notice when her sax-playing husband Jason was found DOA by authorities, presumably from a drug overdose.

You’d think with a tragedy like that, that she’d put more tragic emotion into “River.” For me, she doesn’t. She treats the song like a little pop-idol ditty sung by a smitten little school girl, something a Donny Osmond fan might jump around to; certainly not a serious tome about aching loneliness and the universal isolation much of the forgotten world experiences around the holidays, because of incomprehensible loss and hardship. I also don’t care for her cutesy, rounded-round-about, coy, precious way of softening the words she sings. And she can sing.

Against the lush, still originally sorrowful background of the sweeping piano and the doomsayer bass, Rae’s lilting lyrical style leaves the listener unbalanced, as if unsure whether to feel relieved or upset, because hey, the chick’s problem isn’t so bad. She’s just bummed out because of a little tiff she had with her boyfriend.

I much prefer Kathy Brier’s “River,” because I get the feeling she’s talking about more than just pissing off her boyfriend by being a PMSing narcissist. Maybe she’s hiding something sinister, like an abortion she performed herself in a back alley after a gang rape impregnation, or having to face another bout of cancer, possibly losing the battle this time, leaving two small innocent children behind, or even having to give up your firstborn and only baby because of reasons you’re too choked up to give.

The fault actually lies with the original composer—Ms. Joni Mitchell herself, which is surprising, considering her other bodies of work. Everything’s fine in “River,” until little Corinne Bailey Rae pipes up with, “I made my baby cry,” only to be worsened by “I’m so hard to handle I’m selfish and I’m sad | Now I’ve gone and lost the best baby that I ever had.” Mama say what?! Everything in this song leads one to firmly believe that the sufferer has gone through the bowels of hell and back…only to be slapped in the face with a minor lovers’ tiff exaggerated out of proportion by a teenybopper’s anxiety-ridden OC-D.

Compare “River’s” disappointing, simplistically juvenile and shallow revelation to the endlessly unfathomable and scary “The Jungle Line” (“In a low-cut blouse she brings the beer | Rousseau paints a jungle flower behind her ear | Those cannibals of shuck and jive | They’ll eat a working girl like her alive”). You can’t, and it’s a shame.

Everybody else can love Corinne Bailey Rae’s innocent and hopeful pop song, but I’ll stick with the real thing, taking care to ignore the letdown parts.

*I hate smoking so much I refuse to refer whatsoever to the c-ends-with-e word. So I substitute with cancer stick.