Marom Malka - Joni Mitchell: in her own words: conversations with Malka Marom

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MALKA MAROM began her career as a folksinger in the popular duo Malka & Joso, who were the first to bring world music to Canada. As a soloist, Marom has performed on stage, TV, and radio around the world. She is also known and respected as a radio broadcaster and award-winning documentary maker and is the author of the bestselling novella Sulha .

JONI

MITCHELL

IN HER

OWN

WORDS

conversations with

MALKA

MAROM

ECW PRESS

For Joni

In search of love and music

My whole life has been

Illumination

Corruption

And diving, diving, diving, diving,

Diving down to pick up on every shiny thing

Just like that black crow flying

In a blue sky

I looked at the morning

After being up all night

I looked at my haggard face in the bathroom light

I looked out the window

And I saw that ragged soul take flight

I saw a black crow flying

In a blue sky

Oh Im like a black crow flying

In a blue sky

(Black Crow)

INTRODUCTION

One November night in 1966, I was driving in circles, around one block, then another, which was very strange. I always drove with purpose from point A to point B, no meandering, no detours, pressing over the speed limit sometimes okay, most times. Trying to juggle a big career and a household with two little children and a bad marriage, I was always rushing, yet could never catch up. Why did I deviate from my norm that night? I dont know. Earlier that evening I had been dealt a crucial dilemma, but instead of sleeping on it, as common sense demanded, I was driving on it. Driving from one dark and deserted street to another they rolled Toronto up for the night very early in those days. It was already winter cold, and the usually humming Yorkville Village was deserted. Even the winos and the flower children had taken shelter. The only light still on was above the entrance to the Riverboat coffeehouse.

I had never gone alone to a club, a bar, or a coffeehouse so late at night. Only streetwalkers go out alone late at night, my mother had drilled into me ever since I reached puberty. But it was a night like no other night already, and maybe because the street was deserted and no one could see me, I got out of the car and went down the steps into the basement that housed the Riverboat.

Inside, the coffeehouse was a dark hole. After the eyes adjusted, you could see that the place was empty, except at the back was that two of the staff making out? Long and narrow, the coffeehouse resembled a submarine more than a riverboat and, at a squeeze, could hold 120 people decked out in their fab, groovy, or funky attires. They would fall into a hush as soon as the house lights dimmed, crowding so close to the stage they could almost touch performers like Odetta, Gordon Lightfoot, or Neil Young. But on this November night, bereft of their presence, the place looked forlorn. And devoid of the veil of their cigarette smoke, the naked dcor seemed embarrassingly tacky: the blue glass in the portholes windows was too harsh to suggest river or sky, and the brass that ringed each window was Vegas glitzy. But the pine-panelled walls enhanced the acoustics of a sound system so good it lured musicians from all over the continent to perform there. Solid-wood slab tables anchored the booths and lent the place a sense of permanence uncommon to most of the other coffeehouses that were sprouting in Yorkville Village like mushrooms after a summer soak. I slid quietly into the darkest booth nearest to the door.

On the lit-up stage a platform only a foot, if that, off the floor stood a girl who must have picked out her miniskirt at the Salvation Army. With her back turned to the empty seats, she seemed totally engrossed in trying to tune her guitar and failing, trying and failing, which gave me the impression that she was one of the waitresses who had nothing better to do than to playact at being the performer.

Compliments of the house, Malka, whispered a server as he rested a cappuccino in front of me.

Thank you. My fingers clasped the cup to warm up. I savoured the aroma and sipped the cappuccino slowly, very slowly. I was in no hurry that night. I felt like I was sneaking out of life, and like stolen water it was sweet.

The girl on the stage also seemed to be in no hurry to do anything but tune and retune her guitar, tune and retune. My cappuccino cup stood empty and still she kept turning the knob of one string, then another, this way and that way, a bit higher and just a bit lower but with such intensity that, like a magnet, it drew you out of yourself. She turned to face the empty seats and, leaning closer to the mike, she strummed a progression of chords with a surprisingly assertive hand. They were unlike any chords Id heard before. I found myself hanging on every note. And then she started to sing. From verse to verse, her song was like a kaleidoscope that splintered my perception, turned it round and round, then refocused to illuminate a reality I had not dared to see.

York University Libraries, Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections, Toronto Telegram, ASC06243

Were captive on the carousel of time

We cant return, we can only look behind

From where we came

And go round and round and round

In the circle game

(The Circle Game)

I came to the city

And lived like an old Crusoe

On an island of noise

(Song to a Seagull)

I get the urge for going

But I never seem to go

When the meadow grass was turning brown

Summertime was falling down and winter was closing in

Now the warriors of winter they gave a cold triumphant shout

And all that stays is dying and all that lives is gettin out

(Urge for Going)

Go where you will go to

Know that I will know you

Someday I may know you very well

(Michael from Mountains)

The stranger on the stage knew me very well already. And the more she sang, the more her voice became my own.

I cant go back there anymore

You know my keys wont fit the door

You know my thoughts dont fit the man

They never can, they never can

(I Had a King)

As she sang, I realized there was no more escaping into hope now, into illusions or denial. I had a king in a salt-rusted carriage / Who carried me off to his country for marriage too soon. My marriage was a bust.