Joni Mitchell - The Hissing Of Summer Lawns REACTION and REVIEW 

The hissing refers to the sprinklers that water the lawns of the middle class gardens.

Joni Mitchell is a genius. Loved your review. I would really like to see your reaction to "Hejira" or "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter". Those are amazing too!

Appreciated your detailed and thoughtful review, AND that you listened to the album again later! :D Like others have stated, some songs/lyrics will have a much different effect at different times of listening. I noticed a slight "error" a time or two with the printed lyrics that had appeared on screen, which would make lyrics even more challenging to fully grasp. :D And like many Joni lyrics and song and album titles, there are often more than one meaning, such as the "hissing" somewhat referencing snakes, but primarily the sound of lawn sprinklers on a summer day! :D Re: the recent Harry Styles album called Harry's House, yes, it DID reference this song! :D Harry is a fan of Joni's music, and has even visited/musically "jammed" with Joni in her home. :D

I was literally listening to this at work , I got home and see this upload. Growing up this was the only Joni Mitchell record my parents had and it's still my favorite. The Jungle Line has fascinated me since I was a kid. She sampled the drums from a record of African drummers (one earliest examples of sampling in modern music) and apart from the drums and her acoustic guitar every sound is a Moog synthesizer, also played by Joni. She was definitely ahead of her time.

I have every Joni Mitchell album and for me with each one on every first play they never fully hit me at all. They really do grow on you and start to reveal stuff musically and lyrically. She is a master muscian and poet. Prince loved this album. It was so ahead of it's time and is an absolute classic. It’s funny you mentioned Sweet Bird as not grabbing you like the other tracks so far. I felt pretty much the same on the first few plays of the album then one day that track kind of caught me off guard and I really felt it deeply and found it quite emotional. It became one of my favourite songs/tracks. Often hear from others too that Joni Mitchell songs often sneak up on you like that. Interesting and fun reaction/review.

Great to see your first reaction to one of my favourite Joni albums. Look forward to seeing you discover Hejira, Court and Spark and the hugely underrated Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. That middle period when she moved from a folk sound to a more jazzy influenced style is for me Joni at her brilliant best.

Love that you’ve gotten into Joni. This is my personal favorite of hers. I would say Blue is her most acclaimed and also one to check out. The change in her voice through the years is interesting. Also, the modern day Joni (in my opinion) is Laura Marling. Her album Once I Was an Eagle is my favorite of the last decade or so. Check it out eventually.

Couldn't agree more about the amazing Harry's House/Centerpiece. Just gorgeous in every way. Love this album. It's definitely my favorite. Thanks for sharing your reaction!

I bought the first Joni album and every one since. This particular album is one of my favorites.

Yay. I watched this in the middle of the night. Such a great review. You noticed all the things I hoped you would. This album was hated on release and from here on her records got more and more experimental. I highly recommend Hejira, the album that came after this one. She really blends the lines between jazz and rock on that one.

The best singer songwriter ever.

Joni Mitchell is such a genius as a composer, singer and producer of her music. Her music and lyrics are only her own, she created art not music for anyone to sing along. I was born in 1967 in another country where I never heard of her but since I did recently she is and forever will be the best for me. I listen to her every single day, she feed my heart soul and I still have so much to learn because there a lot to be found in her music and poetry. I love her open tuning guitar playing so much. Thank you for your reaction to this album 👍

A whole generation of women came of age listening to Joni's early work, and all the rest of her songs became the soundtrack of their lives as the years went by. I was one of these women, and in 2017, I played one of her songs at the memorial service of my husband of 34 years. I hope you review Court and Spark, Hejira, and her live double album Miles of Aisles at some point.

If you like the jazzy Joni, check out Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, Hejira and Court & Spark. Shadows and Light a choral piece not meant as "futuristic", the synths replace the church organ. On her 79 tour, she performed the piece with The Persuasions as a gospiel piece. But you're right: the diversity is what she started going for with Court & Spark, all the way to her big jazz experiment with Charles Mingus.

So many fantastic albums, really exciting to hear her develop & broaden her music (The Beatles were the same). Court & Spark is one of my favourites & was a major turning point in her journey.

For more of Mitchell's jazz work check out Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, Mingus, and Hejira, when she works with Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and others.

Many refer to New York (or any big city) as the concrete jungle. She makes references to the symbolist painter Rousseau throughout the song.

YES OMG this was my introduction to her as well, please do Blue, Court and Spark, and Hejira which are my other absolute favorites by her! After, you might like Joanna Newsom’s Ys, and Have One On Me

I absolutely adore Joni Mitchell ! Excellent album, thank you for the reaction and review ;)

Blue and Hejira are definitely worth a listen.

That transition into snd out of Centerpiece in Harry’s House is amazing to me too! You’re the only person I know of who noticed it. It stinks me every time.

Did you know Björk is a Joni Mitchel fan? She even did a cover of her song "Boho dance" from this same album.

Ich bin begeistert, dass ich nicht der einzige deutschsprachige junge Mann bin, der Joni Mitchell und dieses Album - wie viele ihrer anderen Alben - großartig findet.

Good request/selection/reaction. It's a shame Joni doesn't understand the modern music industry enough to allow her music on Spotify. I wish she would realize the music industry has always been evil. The only difference is that now executives' and associates' personal lives are scrutinized in the public eye more closely. I can't imagine she morally agreed with the actions of all the executives and fellow artists that were employed by her labels before the advent of streaming music services, so why take a stand like this now?! She basically took herself out of the equation when it comes to her modern influence. More accurately, for all intents and purposes, when it comes to Joni's exposure to younger audiences, Neil Young, who I also love, clipped Joni's wings. She is a really amazing artist though. Everything she did before 1980 was amazing, and everything after 1989 was pretty good as well. She just didn't blend with the 80s well. I highly recommend Court and Spark, For The Roses, Ladies Of The Canyon, and of course, her total masterpiece, Blue, but seriously, everything she did before 1980 was amazing. Everyone should especially check out the recent box set of early recordings that was recently released. It's pretty straight folk, but it's incredible. It is spectacular. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-45GWKQZaV7M.html Joni is magnificent!

Hi Lugga, it's been 9 months since you reviewed this album. Any new perspective on it now that you've had time to let it settle in? There's one common thread to Joni's musical journey. She never repeated herself. She was always open to change. At the time she wrote Hissing, Joni was at the crest of her popularity. But she did not want to become a song smith cranking out imitations of her popular songs to this point.She was burnt out on writing confessional 'I' songs. Instead she decided to write about the world around her. She craved change. A major influence of that was falling deeper and deeper into the company of jazz musicians. And learning to trust them. This album is the first where Joan allowed her band members to free form behind her music. Previously, even though she could not write lead sheets, she dictated earlier recording sessions by humming what she wanted other players to play. On this one, she learned to trust. And the musicians delivered spectacularly. They would play. She would edit and create what sounds like organic tracks from a collage of sonic parts offered up by her fellow musicians. This is the record that cemented her skills as a producer. Speaking of collage, the album cover is just that. The natives and snake are from a National Geographic cover photo that she turned into a line drawing. The row of houses in the middle is a shot from her home town in Canada. And the skyline is of course New York. Joni grew up in in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She moved to L.A. and lives there to this day. But at the time of this album Joni had moved to a penthouse apartment in New York, where she spent her time painting modernist paintings and mingling with the jazz scene. So the cover 'threads' disparate parts of her life and the world. It sets the metaphors behind all the songs. How there is a thread between the 'modern' world and the 'primitive' world of the jungle. On three levels: The most obvious being the drug traffic that carries hard drugs from tropical regions to the streets of urban cities. The next thread being musically. How the complex rhythms of African music provide a genesis for Jazz music moving up through the American South to places like New York. And the final thread, human nature. Where no matter how many buildings and corporate ladders there may be, humans often act with animal like instincts. This album was eagerly anticipated after the popular success of Court and Spark. People assumed there would be more of the same. Instead they got THE JUNGLE LINE. Whooah! People reacted just as you did when they got to that second track. Speaking of collage again, Joni tells a wonderful story, I can't recall the source at the moment of how that track and those drums came to be. The main track of the song was already in the can. But she felt something was missing. So she found herself walking through the lobby of a Las Vegas Casino singing along with a friend. Someone joins them on the elevator ride up where she randomly mentions she needs some African drums to fill out the sound of the track. And the new guy chimes in, "I have a tape with African drums, Burundi Warriors, up in his hotel room. He gives here the track and to Joni's surprise the rhythm of the drums were in perfect sync with Joni's track. And thus, history was made. She lost a lot of her audience breaking the rules as she did. But time has won out and her work is seen as the great material it is. If you get a chance, I would recommend you react to Joni's studio recording of Paprika Plains. It is another song where Joni turns conventional song writing upside down -and inside out. It is a sweeping, orchestral piano piece with the most glorious piano, bass, horn and drums jam at the end. Loved your reaction to this great album!

I had the same reaction to this album years ago. I suggest you also review David Sylvian Secrets of the Beehive or Brilliant Trees

This is my fav from her

React to the velvet rope by janet jackson,another art pop & rnb classic!!

This is a strange choice of album to start discovering Joni, as she had dramatically changed her musical style here to move towards a more jazzy sound. She was originally a folk musician playing folk clubs and coffee houses. If you listen to the album Clouds (1969), that was typical of how she used to sound for a few years.

You are so Cute!!!!