Joni Mitchell - Harry's House (Live 1998)

[Mousetoescamper]

Harry's House
Heatwaves on the runway
As the wheels set down
He takes his baggage off the carousel
He takes a taxi into town
Yellow schools of taxi fishes
Jonah in a ticking whale
Caught up at the lights in the fishnet windows
Of Bloomingdale's
Watching those high fashion girls
Skinny black models with raven curls
Beauty parlor blondes with credit card eyes
Looking for the chic and the fancy to buy
He opens up his suitcase
In the continental suite
And people thirty stories down
Colored currents in the street
A helicopter lands on the Pan Am roof
Like a dragonfly on a tomb
And business men in button downs
Press into conference rooms
Battalions of paper-minded males
Talking commodities and sales
While at home their paper wives
And their paper kids
Paper the walls to keep their gut reactions hid
Yellow checkers for the kitchen
Climbing ivy for the bath
She is lost in House and Gardens
He's caught up in Chief of Staff
He drifts off into the memory
Of the way she looked in school
With her body oiled and shining
At the public swimming pool
Shining hair and shining skin
Shining as she reeled him in
To tell him like she did today
Just what he could do with Harry's House
And Harry's take home pay

[surfered]

1. I cherish the Court and Spark album

[Mousetoescamper]

2. Court and Spark's a splendid album

This song is from JM's 1975 album The Hissing of Summer Lawns.

[NNadir]

3. I have always considered this song as being near the peak of...

...her poetics.

"...like a dragonfly on a tomb..."

Poetics imagery doesn't get much better than that in this context.

The Lambert Hendricks and Ross tribute on the album, "Centerpiece" always blew my mind.

Thanks.

[Mousetoescamper]

4. The "dragonfly on a tomb" line left a lasting (nearly 50 years) impression on me as well

"Centerpiece" was the perfect ironic contrast to "Harry's House". The wife in JM's song is done with absentee father and husband Harry being the center of her world.

The Hissing of Summer Lawns album is rich with some of JM's best and most mature observations and imagery.

From the title song:
He put up a barbed wire fence
To keep out the unknown
And on every metal thorn
Just a little blood of his own
She patrols that fence of his
To a Latin drum
And the hissing of summer lawns

You are most welcome.

[Easterncedar]

5. Incomparable genius

Thanks for posting. The lyrics are worth reading as she sings, and it’s just mesmerizing watching her fingers flash on the strings as her voice flows so easily along

[Mousetoescamper]

6. Her alternate tunings and chord voicings create a wall of sound for the other muscians to hang their embellishments.

You are most welcome!