Joni Mitchell's song "Crazy Cries of Love" on her album Taming the Tiger (1998) opens with "It was a dark and stormy night". In the December 1998 issue of Musician, Mitchell discusses her idea of using several cliche lines in the lyrics of multiple songs on the album, such as "the old man is snoring" in the title song "Taming the Tiger". Her co-lyricist, Don Fried, had read of a competition in The New Yorker to write a story opening with "It was a dark and stormy night" and was inspired to put it in the lyrics of "Crazy Cries of Love". Mitchell states:
But the second line is a brilliant deviation from the cliché: "Everyone was at the wing-ding." It's a beautiful out, but that was because it was competition to dig yourself out of a cliché hole in an original way. He never sent it in to The New Yorker, but he just did it as an original exercise.[20] — Wiki - It was a dark and stormy night
Really pleasantly surprised by this, not being a follower of Joni Mitchell. Is it me, or is her voice different? — Amity
Mitchell released her final set of "original" new work before nearly a decade of other pursuits, 1998's Taming the Tiger....
It was around this time that critics also began to notice a real change in Mitchell's voice, particularly on her older songs; the singer later confirmed the change, explaining that "I'd go to hit a note and there was nothing there".
While her more limited range and huskier vocals have sometimes been attributed to her smoking (she was described by journalist Robin Eggar as "one of the world's last great smokers"), Mitchell believes that the changes in her voice that became noticeable in the 1990s were because of other problems, including vocal nodules, a compressed larynx, and the lingering effects of having had polio. — Wiki - Joni Mitchell
At the very least, since Sam can do that song, it would be embarrassing for me to despair. — Paine
GIVE ME LOVE. Sometimes you open your mouth and you don't know what you are going to say, and whatever comes out is the starting point. If that happens and you are lucky - it can usually be turned into a song. This song is a prayer and personal statement between me, the Lord, and whoever likes it.
— George Harrison
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