Crazy Crow (for Joni)

Sometimes I give myself a songwriting challenge — a “puzzle” to solve during the creative process. Previous challenges resulted in Same Old Me (from Little Green Man), Underground (from The Small Time), and Time to Say Goodbye (from my first album). Coincidentally, those songs were all album-closing tracks, and my new album follows this pattern once again.

An Ape’s Progress is built around a dark theme: Homo sapiens’ struggle to survive and evolve on its home planet. So I wanted to add an emotional “lift” at the end of the album — a dollop of hope and gratitude — while still supporting the album’s concept. One of my favorite musical artists is the incomparable Joni Mitchell — a brilliant composer, lyricist, singer, guitarist, pianist, and painter. Joni’s career has spanned 50+ years filled with countless recordings, peerless artistic integrity, and restless exploration. Joni’s songs span the range of human emotions, travelling from the light into the darkness and back again, daring to illuminate all facets of our world, good and bad. Before this album, I had never written a “tribute” song, but wanted to honor Joni, refer to her influential work, connect it to my own experiences, and deliver an emotional finish to An Ape’s Progress. Not an easy puzzle to solve!

Joni’s music-publishing company is called “Crazy Crow Music” — a reference to her childhood. During Joni’s early school days in Saskatchewan, her art teacher separated students into groups depending on artistic aptitude. The best art students were dubbed the “bluebirds,” then “robins,” “sparrows,” etc. The children with the least artistic potential were the “crows” — and for whatever reason, Joni was relegated to this group! Of course as we know, Joni became a brilliant painter and visual artist alongside her musical pursuits, so that teacher couldn’t have been more wrong! Crow references and imagery appear throughout Joni’s work, and I loved the alliteration of her publishing name “Crazy Crow” — so right there, I had my song title! I decided to include a dedication in the title, so that nobody could miss the tribute: Crazy Crow (for Joni).

The question was: How to best honor Ms. Mitchell’s artistry in a song?

Musically, I wanted to use complex chord voicings to achieve a “Joni” harmonic feel — her collaborators used to the call them ‘Joni’s weird chords.’ This would mean emphasizing suspended, add9, min9, 13, and other chords to reference her style. I tend to gravitate toward unusual chords anyway, so the voicings and melodies came easily and felt like a tip of the hat to Joni.

Lyrically, I thought it would be fun to make every line of the song refer to one of Joni’s titles or phrases without lifting lines verbatim, and simultaneously create a narrative fitting the album concept as well as my own life experiences. A tricky puzzle indeed, and one that required many lyrical revisions before I could declare the puzzle “solved!”

Production started with a demo, as usual. A Joni fan himself, my co-producer Thom Flowers was keen to include the song on the album — however, Thom suggested that I slow the tempo to enhance its lonely, wistful vibe. Thom was right, and after I recorded an updated demo with acoustic guitar, vocal, percussion, and synthesizer — we were ready for our session players to add their tracks. Our Joni tribute was on its way!

For authentic “Joni” flavor, we wanted fretless bass — to echo the great Jaco Pastorius from all those classic Mitchell albums. Thom had previously worked with Travis Carlton (son of Larry Carlton, who played guitar on a bunch of Joni records), so we passed him the session files and Travis served up some amazing bass tracks. Drummer Jake Hayden turned in a tasty jazz performance on brush kit, guitarist Allen Hinds came up with atmospheric “mood” tracks beyond our imagination, and Dallas Kruse added gorgeous Rhodes and synth parts. For the instrumental section we enlisted Lyle Workman, who gave us a soaring, melodic guitar solo. For the song’s ending, I wanted to tip my hat to the crickets that Joni used on her wonderful Night Ride Home title track — adding crow vocalizations and other bird noises. The sound effects library obliged! With instrumental tracks all done, I sang lead and backing vocals, Libby sang her harmony tracks, et voila — recording was complete! The mix came together beautifully, and mastering added the final shine.

Crazy Crow (for Joni) turned out great and works well as An Ape’s Progress’ closing track. It turned out so well in fact, that based on early feedback we decided to make “Crow” the third single from the album!

But wait, there’s more — this tribute also involves visual art! Along with the haunting cover image, Igor Koutsenko was creating a special illustration for each song, so we knew that the “Crow” painting had to be something unique! It turned out great, visually conveying the song’s lyrical themes alongside a surrealistic portrait of Joni herself. Since Joni is such a brilliant and accomplished painter, we aimed high — and Igor (as usual) nailed it!

The final piece of the “Crow” puzzle was the music video. I decided to go with a lyric-style production — so that the words would be clear, and the tribute message strong. Lots of cool imagery in this music video, and I’m really pleased with the final result! Check it out right here on my YouTube channel.

I hope you enjoy my tribute to the great Joni Mitchell!

Puzzle solved.

-Pawlie.