Road songs similar in arrangement/style to Joni Mitchell's Hejira?

October 3, 2013 1:00 PM

This is probably my favourite Joni song. I especially love playing it during long trips on the road. I was wondering if anyone here could recommend me anything similar in melodic arrangement or narrative? It doesn't have to be from the exact same same genre. Thanks.
posted by ethelwulf to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

This is tough, because that album sounds so distinctive and so different from anything else — different even from anything that Joni Mitchell recorded.

I'm tempted to suggested Wichita Lineman, which is definitely lonely road music and which has odd chord changes that remind me a lot of the way Joni Mitchell writes. (Though they're even closer to the changes for Oh Amelia on the same album then they are to Hejira.) But then the vocal style and the arrangement on the original are totally different, so maybe it's not at all what you're looking for.

(For a much sparser arrangement and female vocals, try this version, which is totally fucking heartrending — so much so that I can't really listen to it very often — but which maybe captures some of the lone-woman-in-an-emotional-crisis vibe that Hejira's got and that Glenn Campbell is definitely missing.)
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 3:20 PM on October 3, 2013

This isn't really what you're looking for exactly, but do check the Joni Mitchell song (and album) "Night Ride Home".
posted by thelonius at 4:07 PM on October 3, 2013

Also, thinking about it more, a big part of what makes that track sound like it does is Jaco Pastorius's fretless bass playing (which is high enough that it doesn't even really sound like a bass at all; you might have thought it was a low guitar or even some kind of horn).

I really don't know enough about his other work to make sensible recommendations, though. But maybe that would be someplace to look?
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 4:20 PM on October 3, 2013

If it's more of the lyrical Jaco that you seek, then I would start with "Continuum" or Weather Report's "A Remark You Made".
posted by thelonius at 5:03 PM on October 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

The Sundays

Beth Orton
posted by h00py at 8:33 AM on October 4, 2013

Response by poster: Awesome! Thanks very much everyone! Definitely checking out all of the recommendations, and hope there'll be more to come.
posted by ethelwulf at 1:23 PM on October 5, 2013