วีดีโอ

"He" is Jose Feliciano. Blind guitarist.... diamond dog carrying a cup and cane

This song is specifically about Jose Feliciano and his first wife Janna.

Joni my Queen!!!

This song was written about Jose Feliciano

Actually, in very hot weather in CA lawns do hiss -- all of the insects and other creatures embedded in the lawn make a hissing noise. I hear it every summer, especially in the late afternoon sun. It could be a reference to sprinklers, but hot summer lawns do hiss naturally. This album grew on me and I thoroughly enjoy it. I especially love the song "Edith and the Kingpin." Feminists of the 70s agree (and would have agreed) with Joni's use of the word "master" because she describes the power dynamic in their relationship, even though the woman stays by choice. Thank you for your thoughtful analysis!

Excellent, get all the songs in this great album, never did really understand this title song, makes a lot of sense what your saying THANKS Buddy.. Do you know where i can get the sheet score piano for piano, Particularly interested in Harry House?

Shari Saras is right about the diamond dog being the woman. What supports that is that "her master's voice" is a play on the very famous old RCA Victor mascot of the dog listening to what he thinks is "His Master's Voice" (their slogan) coming from the old phonograph trumpet, an image that graced all their labels and ads for decades. Feliciano's voice, the attentive new pet wife. It's actually a pretty savage send-up. The darkness is more than the darkness of Feliciano's blindness, but that's certainly part of it. Hissing, is, of course, an audience's reaction to a bad performance, as well as the sprinklers and rattlesnakes. Ouch. I completely agree about her stature in music history, but it's not all bows & flows of angel hair, is it?

the internet is a treasure mine to people like me who grew up with music and always loved it. Joni has been playing in my house since the '60's but limited material so wow now all the live shows, bootlegs has made me a glutten and Im old/grey but with the music I have acess to i forgot age as i can draw enegy from some music// AM radio was all we had FM was a new beginning a fork in the road sorta thing. The hissing of summer lawns..dropped good acid and this album did magical things very artistically structhered trip..fractals..they just discovered fractals are the building block of everything but i seen that during this trip and as most trips you may see understand all the meaning, life etc, but as you come down alot of it departs also with only traces still swirling...so fast forward i discovr the bootleg of hissing as outtakes alternate takes and wow..just like a new set of fractals woven in can't find good acid nowadays but Id be tempted as her music like the Grateful Dead when your tripping to their music it takes you way out but brings you back Joni did so to wheather she knew or not. ac dc might be a bummer but pink floyd yeah man..dark side 101st airborne great blotter still trippin' still Joni i play more than a couple times a week so much to choose..now socialism..music will be taken away its already begun..books being burned even popeye the sailor is evil i can't believe..Joni is an artist sidetracks by music art and did she succeed? just count the different tuning she used..Einstein couldn't have done it and she..take too long to tell all..looking back the entire past of mine seems to be crumbling and taking people with it..so many have gone..only one beatle left and mick jagger still struttin round years roll by but the past is close by and closing, crumbling and im growing tired of moving on maybe wake up in a mother's arms who is swaying to music and rocking me as i wake and wonder ...how many roads must i walk down....Joni is the "sweet Bird"

This is wonderful, so fortunate to have this pop up in my feed this morning. I have always thought of ‘hissing’ as referring to water sprinklers. True poetic lyrical genius.

You say "umm" a lot.

I would love to hear you go through Joni's sweetbird I just love that song I'd like to know more about it

Wow I just stumbled across your Channel well searching through Joni Mitchell's work she's been one of my favorites since high school and I'm pretty old now she's a bit older than I am not much I hope you return to her music I have a few songs Just on hissing of Summer lawns that's one of my favorites although I did grow up her very early years great job and I hope you get this post thank you very much

Great analysis. I learned some new things about this song. However, "carrying a cup and a cane" is the master pretending to be a blind beggar, perhaps feigning disinterest, but actually watching her carefully, jealously for signs of infidelity. I think the snake on the cover refers to a different song, like Jungle Line, or even more than one. (Anima Rising)

Chaka Khan says it's about Jose Feliciano's home

Just absolutely LOVE that bass on the whole disk! These are great Dave, a great discovery!

Thank you for your analysis - I'd never given this song much thought until now. Mesmerizing stuff! Care to do more of these? And if so, I already have a suggestion: do Sweet Bird, please! :) I found this article on the Joni Mitchell website where Chaka Khan, her friend, describes the origin of the song as told to her by Joni herself: Chaka Khan, March 2012 Chaka opens by telling the audience "I guess it's no secret that Joni Mitchell is one of my all time favorite artists." She then goes on to share, "she's a friend of mine," and explains "she told me ... this is a song that she wrote when she went to visit José Feliciano a hundred years ago when he got married. He and his wife invited her to their new home in the Valley in LA. This is what she saw. This is her interpretation of their marriage and house. It's called The Hissing Of Summer Lawns."

Court and Spark - total album was my favorite. "Hissing of Summer Lawns" - the song - is up there with the Court and Spark album. Imagery in sound. These works are paintings. The lyrics and music are the medium placed on a canvas of sound.

One of my favorite Joni songs!...I am one of those who is a fan of her early stuff but this song always makes me smile...it is just incredible.

The barbed-wire fence... the Latin drum... the fact that she patrols the manicured lawn and poolside areas *inside* the fence... none of that ever struck me as metaphorical or figurative. Because the setting is bigger than LA-it’s Africa, Brazil-as are several other songs on the album. Rousseau’s jungle paintings, the Boho Dance...Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow; lyrics referencing deforestation and a record jacket featuring Amazonians carrying an anaconda ... (That will help you with the more strained moment in your interpretation, that somehow a kept woman would take a “patrolling” role in defending metaphorical boundaries set around her. Stay away men, I’m out here pacing so that you won’t come near. Doesn’t quite make sense in the narrative, and I sensed you kind of didn’t think so either. Rather than see patrolling as a literal description and hope that the action itself is ironic or counterintuitive, let’s see the word a an ironic, playful word-choice for a familiar and intuitive action. She’s pacing in a cage. Inside is television, climate control, privilege, and jewels. Outside is poverty, culture, and the threat of the growing third world. By the way, barbecue is more important in Brazil than in California. :)

I listen just to get an interpretation of the “diamond dog carrying a cup & a cane” and that’s where you started guessing and I stopped.

These lyrics have always fascinated me .This is a wonderful analysis ...thank you .I love how Joni can make a lawn sprinkler sound so sinister . A true poet .

I'm on a current kick with Joni Mitchell... frequently return to Her rich musical & lyrical content...

Song for Seagulls?

Esta canción me hipnotiza, y valga mencionar que me permitió echar una miradita a un pequeño fragmento de lo que fue la vida de José Feliciano, en un determinado momento de la historia. Algo cruel la Joni en desnudarlos así, al matrimonio Feliciano. Pero bue..ella es muy cruel consigo misma, así que, por ser ella tan coherente, se le perdona todo!. Qué maravilla este músico, que analiza con tanto detalle y pasión no sólo las laberínticas imágenes plasmadas en las letras de Joni, si no que además lo complementa diseccionando acordes y cambios de ritmo. Eres un maravilloso Ser Humano, da gusto ver esto en verdad, me devuelve algo de fe en la humanidad👌. En otro orden de ideas...serán Nash y Crosby los que hacen el coro, en la parte que recita: "Darkness", en esta canción Hissing ????

I love this song too. I first bought the album in 1975 when it came out. I've studied the lyrics only very recently, but there is no doubt in my mind the song is about entrapment. The view from the windowsill is seen by a woman who has succumbed to a life of decadence and wealth, but knowing only isolation and despair. The blue pools and valley barbecues heighten her sense of isolation at the height of summer. The barbed wire fence is to keep them in, and together, in the only way he knows how, but is symbolic of her imprisonment; her patrolling of the fence is further indicative of her compliance. His blood on the fence is a token gesture of his gallant efforts in maintaining the emotionless relationship. I think you are totally wrong in the interpretation of the diamond dog. Think about it, it's an exposure of how the couple are seen from another perspective, "a diamond dog carrying a cup and a cane looking through a double glass looking at too much pride and too much shame", is merely a reference to material wealth. The diamond dog is an expensive ornament, that is protected by a double-lined glass case. Joni allows you to assume the perspective of the dog and in doing so, we, and the dog, are onlookers "looking at too much pride and too much shame" in the couple as the symptoms of their relationship. The "black fly buzzing, there's a heatwave burning in her masters voice" further indicates his dark mood and evidence of fear on her part, and repressed anger in his character. As an afterthought only, the "hissing" may also be her cat-like response to his darkness, but that is not to disagree with your interpretation of the meaning of "hissing" in the lyrics. The rest of the lyrics are self-explanatory with his only way of expressing his feelings for her is further gifts and extravagance. She stays in the relationship for the safety of his wealth and her own weakness and inability to break out of her situation. Yes, it is a beautiful song, but deliberately deceptive, with it's jazzy melodic veneer hiding a dark and despairing existance, but like lots of songs, it's easy to read too much into relatively simple message. I think you are stretching the symbolism a bit, but I agree with most of what you are saying. Anyway! That's just my take on it. It would be nice to get your opinion on the diamond dog bit actually.

Ive enjoyed reading your twist on it .I think you got it right. I think the hissing is a snake in the grass.( On the cover. ) The man who has provided this lady with a good life has trapped her, she does not love everything about her life with him . She stays because it,s easier. But what I like about your video is you are helping to teach people to analyse so they get more enjoyment out of music. Thanks a lot Dave. I love Joni Mitchells music I,m going to love it even more after seeing your video.

another thing, as for the lonely straight guy. It's like a gimmick she's unaware of. it's as if you want to hold her and say, look poor girl, i'll take care of you. and the face of a woman so good looking singing about lonelieness so much. a lot of gay people like her music and they might think of her songs a different way. Where as a no gay could feel as if she's singing to you. that's come off so homophobic. but I was trying to be clear on my analysis.

"Still she stays with love of some kind, it's the ladies choice" a "WOMAN" does really stay with the love of some kind, i guess it's the ladies choice. probably the most relevant lyric in the song

In the analysis of "The Hissing of Summer Lawns", I think it's important to note that this album marked a real departure from Joni's earlier work. Sure, she changed quite a bit with each consecutive album, but as she changed, she didn't lose the adoration of her fans the way she did with "Hissing". Personally, I though it was the next logical step after "Court and Spark" and I thought it was brilliant, maybe her most imaginative and innovative record. The songs are beautifully written and the music is strikingly beautiful. But I knew many of her die-hard fans were alienated by "Hissing". Her lyrics became difficult for some of her fans to understand: "...the band sounds like typewriters..." (Edith and the Kingpin), "....poppy poison, poppy tourniquet...." (The Jungle Line), etc... An analysis of these lyrics show they make perfect sense and are vividly descriptive, but they were just too sophisticated for many of her early fans to appreciate. Somehow, the social commentary and third-person references to class, religion and gender lost a lot of people. The song, "Hissing", seems to be based on Joni's observations of a lifestyle of greed and conspicuous consumption of a couple living in the suburbs of (probably) LA. Even the title of the song describes the wastefulness of people excessively wasting water to keep their lawns green in the summer in a desert. Lines like, "He gave her a room full of Chippendale that nobody sits in" or "He bought her a diamond for her throat, he put her in a ranch house on a hill", describe the excesses of wealthy American suburbanites. The wife chooses to live in "The Arrangement" because the husband provides the material wealth that she believes is necessary to her happiness. "It's the lady's choice". The couple defends their materialism by putting up a barbed-wire fence to keep out the unknown and numb themselves to reality by watching TV, which provides no color and no contrast. They are oblivious to the wider world around them because they have too much pride and too much shame. Joni talks about many of these same concepts in "Shades of Scarlet Conquering", "The Boho Dance" and "Harry's House". This is a beautiful song, and the chord changes during the bridge under Findley's trumpet solo are exquisite.

At last someone who has dared to delete "female" and "20th century" from an old cliché and turned it into a true description of Joni Mitchell's unfathomable talent. I liked your interpretation very much, Dave. Thank you for this labor of love. Wally, another brother in Joni.

Diamond dog carrying a cup and cane - That describes david bowie, but it's not likely

I think in most of Joni's songs, she includes just enough visual imagery and storyline to challenge the listener to fill in the blanks based on their own experiences. Each person who listens to her songs has their own personal relationship with them. We all see the world through different eyes. On a separate note, I know she can no longer sing (her own admission) but I wish she would continue to write and record instrumental music. Good job, Dave.

I have also been revisiting Joni. Seems I always come back to her. Brilliant musician. And "Ladies of the Canyon" is my favorite, where my husband's is "Hejira"

Have you considered that "carrying a cup and a cane" implies a blind beggar?

Billiec1422 please tell me more!!

It's great that you have inside knowledge. But you are being negative and dismissive. I wrote my analysis without the benefit of any inside knowledge and, as such, it is excellent and explores many of the devices a songwriter can use. As much as I love Joni's work, I am more interested in encouraging an entire art form than in idolizing any one person's work. It goes without saying, though, that I would love to speak with you and see those photos. Be good.

As a songwriter who experiments with many styles, topics and concepts, I think songs are entities unto themselves. Certainly one can pull conceptual threads through multiple songs, but there are so many elements to balance in one song alone (melody, harmony, rhythm, textures, lyrics), I DO think we need to start our analysis one by one, just as a songwriter creates them - one by one. A symphony with 3 movements is closer to a unified whole than most pop songs strung together for a concept.

I also think you can say that this, Hejira, Night Ride Home, etc. each represent a complete slice of a world view. In Hissing of Summer Lawns the tale is disillusionment (rarely are things what they appear), self compromise, "women he has taken grow old too soon..he tilts their tired faces...gently to the spoon" from Edith & the Kingpin. I don't think these sound portraits can be decontextualized or disassembled as each is a complete painting. One piece flows into the next with purpose.

I think the "double glass"is a cocktail glass and isn't the lyric "drinkin up too much pride and too much shame" so while the female archetype is filtering reality through a window the male archetype is filtering everything through booze. And the word is connote in the context you are using.

The beggar connotation... excellent. I think writing 'images' is a very 'open' way to write, rather than making exact denotations in action or dialogue. It allows the listener to fill in their own experience. There are two ways to write imagery; one is honest and one is dishonest. If the writer actually SEES a vision - but describes it loosely, this is honest. If a writer is attempting to be 'coy' or 'artsy' and can't really tell you what they are describing... this is dishonest. B.S. : )

Thanks so much for the breakdown of Joni's chord structure/progession. Diamond dogs ? maybe just her love of alliteration plus a flashback to the, "... diamond for her throat..." line in verse 1. Joni views some part of the song writing/composition process as having parallels with cinematic narrative devices. Cup and cane? I interpreted this as the stereotyped old school image of "a blindman" - tapping his cane orienteering/stumbling around his world plus the beggar connotation -

First of all, thanks for this great analysis. Like any analysis, it's a starting point for more discussion, but I just wish more people - including myself :-) - would take the initiative - to say nothing of time and effort - to kick off proceedings on such fascinating topics. This is a perfect example of what there is to love about TH-cam/Internet. Second, you are right to begin with a clean slate - whatever the biographical specifics, the wider resonance is fixed firmly in Joni's sights.

The protagonists in this song are only just managing - as we all are - to keep a lid on these forces (jealousy, pride and so on) that threaten to break through at any time. (I think of the central crisis in "Harry's House - Centrepiece" on this album). You are right, Joni's lyrics necessarily resonate far beyond any mere biographical limitations, whatever the specific events that might have triggered the penning of this piece. Thank you.

Hi Jeffrey, just a word of thanks for your very edifying reflections, which make an intriguing counterpoint to the great commentary of Dave Bass. This is a terrific thread, and I feel indebted to everyone here :-) Ah well, that's Joni for you. For what it's worth, my own reading of the "hissing of summer lawns" concerns the dark, primeval forces that lurk even in the most highly manicured lawns, ready to irrupt and devastate the sham veneer of civilised life without warning.

MY Joni album (s) are: For the Roses, Hejira and believe it or not, Hissing of the Summer Lawns. Hissing is EPIC. I dont enjoy The Jungle Line but Edith and Interrupt the Sorrow and of course, Hissing is brilliant beyond brilliant. there arent words to adequately describe her music

Thank you so much for your input, I so agree that she is the best. The only reference to Dylan is he could write, sing OMG musically, I don't think so, and open tuning painter I could go on Thanks again You are right...

It has already been pointed out that Mitchell (apparently) made reference to this song being about Jose Feliciano and his wife. When I gave my interpretation (above) I did it from a clean slate, with no knowledge of such. I am leaving the video up because I think it makes a good many observations that are useful from a songwriter's perspective. I hope you agree.

Very interesting discussion

Thanks Alexandra. Although I think the comments made by Mitchell about the song itself (which I found later) shred some of my interpretations, I think others stand. I do intend on doing more exploratory videos soon.

What a cool idea! You should do more of this series, especially with Joni. It seems like every one of her songs has so many layers of meaning to it.