Blue

Blue

I know what I like and I have a capacity to repeat a pleasureable process ad nauseum (a human neccessity rather than anything unique to me). When I was a child my brothers and  I were forced to take interminible drives in the country (I speak as a 7 year old - now I appreciate greatly the efforts my parents went to to keep us occupied and interested in the world around us).

Anyway, one of my methods of relieving boredom involved singing a certain (usually concocted on the spot and pertaining to a current topic) song repeatedly. Not only was there repetition but it was never ending. No matter how loud the admonishments or real the threat of The Wooden Spoon (“dodge the wooden spoon” - one of our favourites), I was not to be diverted from my mantra. 

“This is a bumpy ro-oad, this is a bumpy road. This is a bumpy ro-oad, this is a bumpy road...” You get the picture.

I have continued my obsession with indulging my pleasures ad nauseum as I’ve travelled into adulthood. I have also continued my singing. Which brings me to “Blue”.

Ah Joni Mitchell. Don’t you just love her? Actually it’s just as likely that you don’t. She’s a bit like Marmite is old Joni, isn’t she? Like another favourite of mine, Barbra Streisand. We had a discussion about this, Chris, Heidi & I, you know - what is it about Joni and Barbra that can irk so? It was suggested that it’s their insistence on being most forcefully who they are. We humans aren’t comfortable with that, are we? Oooh no, being transparent, being “ourselves”...

“you’ve got to be feckin’ jokin’, am wan o’ them stripey things over there” (thanks Billy!)

Right now I’m sitting on a Southern Train to London Victoria and the haunting strains of “River” are playing out their drama in one ear while the besuited man diagonally opposite me gobbles the last of his Ginster. Here are the words:




It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

But it don't snow here
It stays pretty green
I'm going to make a lot of money
Then I'm going to quit this crazy scene
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
I wish I had a river I could skate away on
I made my baby cry

He tried hard to help me
You know, he put me at ease
And he loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on

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
I wish I had a river I could skate away on

Oh, I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby say goodbye

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
I wish I had a river I could skate away on

© 1970; Joni Mitchell  


(Listen to it on YouTube.)

This song reminds me of me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt that way - yearning for an escape and lured by the fairytale. Nowadays it reminds me of my son too. Now in our twenty fourth year together, there have been many heart wrenching moments between us, and the line “I wish I had a river I could skate away on...I made my baby say goodbye” has a poignancy now that was missing all those years ago in my Edinburgh student house when I was first hooked in by “Glass Of You”.

Joni’s not the easiest to sing but I am determined to do something with her songs. Indeed, it’s thanks to old Joni and “Blue” that I’m inspired to attempt to warble in public once more.

I can carry a tune. Poor mum was always being slyly lambasted by my Grandma for her lack of a musical family. Grandma played the piano beautifully and I have a cousin who’s immediate family could put on a semi professional musical recital that would get the Classical X Factor judges talking (yes I am envious Trish!)  

But I can carry a tune, I have a good ear (what, only one?) I am prone to ENT problems and so suffer from Tinnitus, but it doesn’t seem to interfere with my good ear. So I progressed on from tuneless dirges to my parents’ record collection.

Ah “California” is playing - this one I will sing. I love this song, it’s so light and cute and so filled with longing for a place that I have never visited but know I belong. And the song begins in Paris - one of my favourite cities - bliss. Really, it feels like this song is mine, tailor made for me and all my layers.

I sang at school - you know, the usual - choir, school productions, folk club, that sort of thing. Of course Scotland has a fine and ancient tradition of folk music - deep and lyrical and haunting and ethereal, like so much of Scotland.

But I can’t say I ever took it seriously. I sang because I loved to sing, in the same way that I wrote because I loved words and made things because I loved getting stuck in and creating things (anything) with my hands.

As the years have passed I have continued to sing. It is indicative of my mood and forms the soundtrack to my life, in the same way that writing and art have. It is a part of who I am - part of the “wee loud Scottish lassie” that is me.

Now I’m sounding quite grown up and reflective here, amen’t I? Well, I am trying to give an honest account of who I am so I haven’t quite finished yet. 

I literally sing wherever I go. I mean singing loud enough to hear, to myself, unconciously. There I’ve said it, I’m a nutter. What happens is that I get a tune in my head from the radio or the shop hifi or my itunes and that tune stays in my head and I sing it out loud until I hear a new tune and then that one takes over. Kind of like a musical relay race permanently running in my head.

Now I don’t notice it - I’m just singing my song and thinking about what’s on my to do list for the day. But other people do, oh yes. I must hear on average twice a day “Oh someone’s happy”. And invariably I say “Sorry?” because I have no idea what they’re talking about. Living where I do and it being a friendly place, I have now resorted to smiling  and nodding in response- it’s quicker.

Thing is, when I said my singing is indicative of my mood this seems to refer mostly to my global mood. By that I mean that a piece of bad news or an irritating phonecall will not stop me from singing, even severe upset doesn’t deter me if it’s short term. But I’ve suffered from depression - you know, the one with the capital D? The one that, in our current parlance, everyone claims ot suffer from? Now that stopped me singing. That and severe, prolongued trauma - death and illness (not mine...death, that is), that sort of thing. But it takes a lot to stop me singing.

I can also tell you that I have no shame. My son will testify wholeheartedly to this. I will stare at people on buses and the Tube and if they look up I’ll smile. I have also been known to join in other people’s conversations - I can’t help it, I forget that they’re not talking to me! Mind you, embarassment was the best weapon in my armoury as the mother of a teenager and I honed it to perfection.

So picture this - and this picture comes coutresy of my dear friend Heidi who heard, then saw, me passing her gate last summer. She described me thus:

You were singing the way you always do. I could hear you coming down the High Street as I was approaching my gate. I was going to call out to you but you were such a vision of purple shoes, jangling charm bracelets and perpetual motion that I decided just to enjoy the sight.

Yes. Have any of you out there seen Billy Connolly talking about the Irish Limousine driver’s wife? He describes her as this permanently moving creation of noisy jewellery, shiny red lips and short skirt. It cracks me up every time I see it but I laugh partly in shame and in secret remembering what Heidi saw that day.

“I thought you said you were shameless?” I hear you cry! Well I am but only in as much as I can’t control myself and do strange things unconsciously (I’m not helping am I?). If I’m behaving in a conscious manner than I always try to behave appropriately. Oh, alright.

Have you ever seen someone in the street singing to themselves? I have, a young woman once while I was sitting on a bus, and she looked like a certifiable lunatic. Really, she looked as if she was talking to herself - well she would with no sound. So that’s what I look like most of the time. 

See what I mean? 

Tell me that you do the same.
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