"...This is Joni Mitchell's most accomplished album and the work by which she should ultimately be judged. Joni by turns satirises, laments, cajoles and savages the cultural millieu of mid 70s America. We are drawn towards parties full of arrogant and ruthless fat cats, alienated housewives, model girlfriends and disenchanted artists, in a landscape of cocktail soirees and pool parties.

Song by song, Joni deconstructs the commercial world that she felt was straightjacketing her creativity and freedom. In it's place, she reveals ennui and hypocrisy..." Amazon reviewer Barron

Aha! By 1975 there was an incredible cultural divide in pop music between both sides of the Atlantic as epitomised be:

• in the USA, Rolling Stone voted The Hissing Of Summer Lawns as the worst album of the year
• in the U.K., the then-influential weekly Melody Maker, named it Album Of The Year  

One year later, the British press would embrace ugly Punk Rock music as an antidote to the dinosaurs of Rock, whereas the USA would resist for several years until Punk was watered down to become New Wave...and radio-friendly through bands like The Pretenders.

Joni Mitchell: The Hissing Of Summer Lawns

My theory:

The Hissing Of Summer Lawns is actually the first punk album! O.K. granted, there's no silly adolescent snarling and primitive guitars...instead there's slick jazz, sonic and lyrical exploration, some of which comes off, some of which doesn't.

The theme is not so difficult to discern if you trace the dualistic ramifications of Blue:

Hedonistic promiscuity and girlie romance are not good er...bedfellows

Follow the line of thought and the end of Court & Spark reveals an Annie Hall-like character in Trouble Child, who's:

"...Up in the sterlizied room where they let be l-a-z-y
Knowing your attitude's all wrong...and that's not e-a-s-y

The peacock is afraid to parade..."

                            Trouble Child 

...with that track being followed by the comic cover, Twisted, about a girl who's certifiably psycho.  

By The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, Joni feels trapped...but rather than be  confessional, she writes:

• as a novelist e.g Harry's House or Edith & The Kingpin or
• as a journalist e.g. In France They Kiss On Main Street 

...and it's no coincidence that on the album's inner sleeve, there's a picture of Joni in a swimming pool, alone, surrounded by (presumed) affluence.

She isn't drowning, nor floating...but plotting a slow self-gratifying course through this approximation of the ocean.

There seems little point in reviewing The Hissing Of Summer Lawns further, as it's primarily a long musical experiment. Much of it works, some doesn't, with the words as a featured instrument, rather than stand-alone...and to quote them, is to somehow do them a disservice, strange as that might sound.

That's not to say the words aren't good! Indeed, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns contains fabulous evocative stuff like Edith & The Kingpin, about a girl meeting a criminal and/or drug lord, about to become a member of his harem. Joni powerfully but impartially describes the scene  in a sumptuous verbal movie montage of the kingpin's other women, looking on:

"...Edith in the ring
The passed-over girls are conferring
The man with the diamond ring is p-u-r-r-i-n-g
All claws for now withdrawn

One by one they bring
His renegade stories to her
His crimes and his glories to her
In challenge they look on

Women he has taken
Grow old too soon
He tilts their tired faces
Gently to the spoon..."

    Edith And The Kingpin

Like Edith, so many women in this album are trapped and it's quite clear that this isn't merely female empathy, each of these women are part of Joni. Incidentally, the "hissing" in the title refers to the sprinklers on a suburban lawn, snakes whose fangs are the bite of a loveless marriage.

No, I don't want to go into the words too much because they would detract from the cinematic feel of the whole album and you should experience them as the artist intended. 

The Hissing Of Summer Lawns is a brave work, miles, miles away from the folk-rock sounds of Chelsea Morning & Both Sides Now.  If songs like that are your bag, then this may be too much for you and you may find the near-acapella Beat poetry of songs like Shadows And Light just too difficult to take.

"...Every picture has its shadows
And it has some source of light
Blindness, blindness and sight

The perils of benefactors
The blessings of parasites
Blindness, blindness and sight..."

     Shadows And Light

Joni Mitchell on The Hissing Of Summer Lawns #2:

"...When I met Dolly Parton, I played her The Hissing Of Summer Lawns album, and she said to me quite shyly after the record was played back: 'My God, if I thought that deep, I'd scare myself to death'..." Capitol Radio interview April 1988

On the other hand, if you'd like to see how a fascinating artist begins to present her road to Life's resolution (as on her next album, Hejira), you must have The Hissing Of Summer Lawns. Don't expect to "get it" immediately, this is an album of nuance, which works by osmosing slowly, sometimes by a phrase, sometimes by music, seeping slowly into your emotions, rather than entering via intellect or "heart". However, in my eyes, it's priceless. It's one of my favorite Joni Mitchell albums.

The Hissing Of Summer Lawns

"...I'm a big Zappa fan and Joni's music is pretty much as far removed from Frank's as you can get but you know what? This CD just freaks me out. Edith And The Kingpin has to be one of the most moving songs ever written - I don't weep over many songs but I do over this one, time after time. The whole CD (and many of her other CDs) is just pure, no-nonsense, honest emotion - emotion that just happens to come from a truly amazing musician. Buy it..." Amazon reviewer Gary F. Perkinson

"...This is a tricky album. My overall impression...was that of dull, uninspired and exhausted but, as with most great albums, this one doesn't reveal everything at the first couple of listens. It's filled with pretty hooks and jazzy backings that create a very typical kind of mood, warm and haunting. The songs crawl under your skin, but very slowly...Once they (do), you'll find yourself with Edith And The Kingpin or the title track running through your head..." Amazon reviewer Hans

"...I was born the year this album came out, 1975...(and) for some reason, records that came out between 1971 and 1975 tend to be some of my favourites...If you like Joni for the straight-ahead folk/hippy thing, be prepared for this album to be quite different. Rather than being sparse and folksy, it's lush, jazzy, "pretty", and a little eccentric...(it) of washes over you like a summer haze...and takes you into a place of fantasy..." Amazon reviewer Kelly G

"... Joni's work always has something but this album has everything we expect from her and more. It's sultry & evocative. It's stylish & reserved. It's jazzy & folky. It's pure Joni..." Amazon reviewer Susan E. Slater

For more info, see:

• wikipedia The Hissing of Summer Lawns
• Tina Turner & Herbie Hancock Edith And The Kingpin fantastic version that make the lyrics "live", from Herbie Hancock's River album of Joni Mitchell covers, River, 2007 + Herbie Hancock interview about Joni Mitchell