Song Haunt
A case of you
There are two types of people in life: people who have been caught in an inescapable, addictive, emotional reliance loop with Joni Mitchell’s album Blue, and people who have not.
For those who have not, enjoy your smug perch all you like. Don’t get too cocky, though, for the insidious Blue can creep in and strike you at any time, perhaps when you least expect it.
I was a Blue/ Joni resister once. The first time I heard Joni Mitchell my ears found her slightly (ahem) caterwauling upper register a bit grating. I had grown up listening to Judy Collins’ more placid, sweet rendition of Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” (not on Blue, but canon obviously), and Joni’s original version, to my ears, was a bit underwhelming. Gasp, heresy, I know. I have since learned the error of my ways.
I don’t know why this was. I liked plenty of fiery, guttural and unpretty sounding chanteuses when I was a teen - from Sinead O’Connor to Tori Amos to Ani Difranco to Bjork, I wasn’t afraid to have my ears bleed with furious femme tones.
I think Blue finally hit me towards/during the end of a tumultuous/doomed relationship. Possibly slightly earlier. I know I stole it from my mother when I moved to NYC and never gave it back. Blue has a great balance of upbeat tunes and sad tunes, but it all holds together as a listening experience that feels like you have taken a nice boat ride around a misty bay, had a few sobs, but return a bit fresher for it.
“A Case of You” was always that song for me. The scratch the heartache of a fresh breakup itch song, the wallow in the yet another beat up rejection and failure love song. Sometimes I wouldn’t let myself listen to it when playing the album. Other times I would listen to it ten times in a row and roll around sobbing.
It’s emotive, and makes me feel things anyway. Joni’s voice is so soft and heartbreakingly vulnerable on it.
Just before our love got lost, you said
"I am as constant as a northern star"
And I said, "Constantly in the darkness
Where's that at?
If you want me, I'll be in the bar" - “A Case of You”, Joni Mitchell
I think at that moment I related to Joni’s portraying of her seeking nature undermining her need for love - from “All I Want” to “Carey” and “California”, Joni was seemingly always on the run from a lost love, but being tormented by it all the same. As someone who had chosen to move back to NY, to not change my plans when a relationship unexpectedly got caught in the mix, I felt Joni was my spirit animal. I too was “strung out on another man”, wanting the city to “take me as I am”, hoping it was worth it.
The wind is in from Africa
Last night I couldn't sleep
Oh, you know it sure is hard to leave here
But it's really not my home
Maybe it's been too long a time
Since I was scramblin' down in the street
Now they got me used to that clean white linen
And that fancy French cologne - “Carey”, Joni Mitchell
I zoomed through the most recent season of The Morning Show (Apple) in a jet lagged daze the past few days. It’s kind of an easy show to not have to think too hard about. This most recent series has a strong tinge of midlife mourning, of the circle of life catching up with us all eventually.
In one episode one of the main characters (SPOILER) Cory (Billy Crudup) has a parent die. He reacts initially by going on a drug and alcohol binge with an old friend. But as the buzz wears off and reality creeps back in in the dawn, he starts a reverie about what it was like to discover new music as a kid in the 80s and 90s via the mail order company Columbia House. He is rhapsodizing about some band or other, but then he sort of crumples to the floor and starts singing “A Case of You” in a blurry daze to himself.
I perked up. WHAT. WHY is this so familiar?? Not the song, but Billy Crudup singing it. And I remembered, almost immediately, that Crudup was once in an indie film from sometime in my youth where the song plays on heavy repeat throughout the film.
It is a film about grief called Waking the Dead (2000) that came out around the time I was going through it. From what I recall it is a very depressing kind of watch, I think I saw it in the cinema and knowing me probably rented it too.
A Case of You is played incessantly in it. It is almost enough to make a (sane) person hate it. I couldn’t help but wonder if Crudup resented having to sing it in The Morning Show, if it was some weird coincidence or a very niche reference. And who knows, maybe it wasn’t played as much on set as it was in the film. Maybe he thought it was funny.
Weirdly I also saw Crudup in one of his first roles, on stage in Bus Stop on Broadway in 1996. It was when I took a year off of college and was living in the city taking acting classes. It co-starred his then paramour Mary Louse Parker. Crudup was a mesmerizingly charismatic young actor, and gave one of those performances that steals the show with young bravado.
The other cool thing that happened that night was that Paul Newman was in the audience. I would not have known it was him, but my friend, whose movie buffdom made mine pale in comparison, clocked the aging star and she was right. A sort of hush descended over the crowd when he filed in to his seat.
This past month has been difficult for me, mixed in with fun times visiting home/America/my mom. I don’t know how to write about it, and I don’t want to either. A close friend from my formative years, who I still hold very dear, has had a terrible health event happen out of the blue. It has been a tenterhooks, hoping for the best but not knowing what comes next situation. It has been all consuming and deeply scary and sad.
It has also made me revisit many happy memories and try to keep positive/grateful, because if you don’t pray, you do the positive energy thing, and we are not supposed to be sad when trying to send the good/healing vibes. In truth I don’t know what I believe, but it makes me feel better to try something, anything, to keep the faith that this is not the end. I write letters, burn candles, make playlists, anything to try to keep the essence of them alive in my heart.
Joni Mitchell was not an us thing, in truth I don’t know if my friend likes Joni. Sinead was our siren call.
But “A Case of You” is in me now, again, in a way I never felt before. I have always known this person is a ride or die for me, but I had forgotten just how easy it was to summon how it felt to be so close to a friend, how in my blood like holy wine they are to me. It hurts, but I am so glad I got to have a friend like that. I can’t give up or let go of hope.
I have rediscovered songs a few times like this, hearing it on a TV show, singing along, eyes wet, and then adding to a playlist and listening to it on a loop for a few days. Music carries so much. Perhaps it also helps us carry everything.