"Born...with the moon in Cancer. Choose her a name she'll answer to. Call her Green, and the mountains cannot fade her...call her Green, for the children that made her. Little Green....be a gypsy dancer." My mind flows back to the first time I heard a beautiful voice that opened my heart a little more, deepened my musical feelings....held my listening ears with a sweet sadness I could not describe. I remember the moment exactly.
I was a freshman at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo, renting out an old plantation house in Wainaku, on Lehua St...with 5-6 other college girls in 1996. Most of them were from the mainland, bringing with them their own set of ways, diets, accents, and musical tastes, among other things. For me as a local girl..a lot about living in that house was new for me. It was a time of exploration and self discovery, as it is for most young adults who are 19.
I was in the kitchen of that house when I heard that voice, a haunting melody. It was a woman singer, and she sang with such deepness, yet in such a gentle way. Her voice sounded very low and motherly at times, and would then go up into these angel ranges and soar in an abandonment of one who has nothing to fear or lose any more..it seemed. The voice called me downstairs to my roommate's apartment of the house we were renting. I opened the screen door to find no one there, but a stereo blasting this song. The woman's voice called me as I made my way to my friend's empty bed, laid down, and closed my eyes paralyzed. Simple, yet strong piano melodies led me on a journey of lyrics that seemed to be tearing my heart apart. Raw and hurtful images, wove between soft and hopeful words...and I found that I could not stop listening to this music, and to this woman, as tears ran down my eyes. Her voice painted these stories in my mind, and I was captured in each one. I was stuck there on that bed..song after song..internalizing what I was hearing...wanting to hear more...what was the next song, and the next song....and..
Luckily, my friend comes out from around the corner, and laughs at me saying, "what are you doing?" She had been in the bathroom all this time, taking a shower. Come to think of it, she didn't look that surprised to find me on her bed crying, listening to music! Anyhow, I told her how I had been drawn downstairs by her music and then the rest was obvious. I asked her, "who is this?"......and that's when she said a name that forever went into my musical heart history, a moment I'll never forget...Joni Mitchell.
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