The slick jazz-pop sound Mitchell developed on Court and Spark (1974) would be pushed into more adventurous territory on The Hissing of Summer Lawns.[6] Some tracks reflect a fusion of jazz and “shimmering avant-pop“.[6] The album also uses an ARP synthesizer.[7]
On “The Jungle Line”, Mitchell is credited with the first commercially released song to include a sample, featuring a looped recording of percussion by the African ensemble the Drummers of Burundi.[8] This interest in world music presaged the work of Peter Gabriel and Paul Simon in subsequent years.[6] In a 1983 interview for Musician Magazine Mitchell was asked what prompted her to use the drums. Mitchell explained: “Because I loved that Burundi warriors passage. It had a Bo Diddley lick in it which I took out and made into a loop and then ran this black cultural poem under it. I thought I was black for about three years. I felt like there was a black poet trapped inside me, and that song was about Harlem—the primitive juxtaposed against the Frankenstein of modern industrialization; the wheels turning and the gears grinding and the beboppers with the junky spit running down their trumpets. All of that together with that Burundi tribal thing was perfect. But people just thought it was weird.”[9]
Songs
The first track, “In France They Kiss on Main Street“, is a jazz-rock song about coming of age in a small town in the 1950s rock & roll era. (The song was released as the single from the album and reached number 66 on the Billboard charts.) “The Jungle Line” uses a field recording from Africa of the Drummers of Burundi (called ‘warrior drums’ in the credits), onto which are dubbed guitar, Moog synthesizer and the vocal line. The lyrics pay homage to the works of the French Post-Impressionist painter Henri Rousseau. Mitchell blends details of his works with imagery of modern city life, the music industry and the underground drug culture.
“Edith and the Kingpin” marks a return to jazz in a story of a gangster’s new moll arriving in his home town. “Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow” is an acoustic guitar-based song with stream-of-consciousness lyrics, focused on women standing up to male dominance and proclaiming their own existence as individuals. “Shades of Scarlett Conquering” is an orchestral-based piece about a modern southern belle basing her life and self-image on the stereotypes of the Scarlett O’Hara character from Gone with the Wind.
The second side begins with the title track, “The Hissing of Summer Lawns”, which is about a woman who chooses to stay in a marriage where she is treated as part of her husband’s portfolio. “The Boho Dance” comments on people who feel that artists betray their artistic integrity for commercial success, with an ironic glance at those who said this of Mitchell herself and parallels Tom Wolfe‘s The Painted Word.[10][11] “Harry’s House / Centerpiece” concerns failing marriage as example of the loneliness of modern life and frames the jazz standard “Centerpiece” by Harry “Sweets” Edison and Jon Hendricks. “Sweet Bird” is a sparser acoustic track that is a slight return to Mitchell’s so-called ‘confessional’ singer-songwriter style and addresses the loss of beauty power with ageing. Its lyrics indicate that it may also be a reference to Tennessee Williams’s Sweet Bird of Youth. The final track is “Shadows and Light”, consisting of many overdubs of her voice and an ARP String Machine (credited as an ARP-Farfisa on the album sleeve).
The African theme of “The Jungle Line” also features on the album sleeve, with an image of dark-skinned people carrying a large snake (both were embossed on the original vinyl album cover). Mitchell’s own house is marked in blue on the right side of the front cover.
The album initially received harsh criticism. In Rolling Stone, Stephen Holden wrote that the album’s lyrics were impressive but the music was a failure. “If The Hissing of Summer Lawns offers substantial literature, it is set to insubstantial music… Four members of Tom Scott’s L.A. Express are featured on Hissing, but their uninspired jazz-rock style completely opposes Mitchell’s romantic style… The Hissing of Summer Lawns is ultimately a great collection of pop poems with a distracting soundtrack. Read it first. Then play it.”[11] Critic Robert Christgau called the musical accompaniment “the most ambitious of her career,” but criticized Mitchell’s choice of session musicians and opined that “only on a couple of cuts — ‘The Jungle Line’ and ‘Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow’ — do these skillful sound effects strengthen the lyrics. The result is that Mitchell’s words must stand pretty much on their own.”[12]
The record’s reputation has grown in stature over the years. Music writer Howard Sounes has called The Hissing of Summer Lawns Mitchell’s masterpiece, “an LP to stand alongside Blood on the Tracks“.[20]Prince, a lifelong fan of Mitchell, praised it in interviews;[21] he reportedly called it “the last album I loved all the way through.”[22] Critic Jessica Hopper of Pitchfork noted that the album was originally felt as a betrayal by some listeners, but stated that while “it doesn’t have the rhapsodic rep as Blue, it’s unquestionably one of Mitchell’s finest albums, and it is certainly her most timeless.”[15]
↑Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian, eds. (2004). “Joni Mitchell”. The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. London: Fireside. pp.547–48. ISBN0-7432-0169-8. Retrieved September 8, 2009. Portions posted at “Joni Mitchell > Album Guide”. rollingstone.com. Archived from the original on July 31, 2011. Retrieved May 29, 2018.
↑Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992: 23 years of hit singles & albums from the top 100 charts. St Ives, N.S.W, Australia: Australian Chart Book. ISBN0-646-11917-6.
