Joni vs KD

When I think of Joni Mitchell and KD Lang, I think of the song The Valley and imagine the two of them separated by altitude and attitude - 'I live in the valley, you live in the hills'.  Who lives where is unimportant, except Joni lived in a canyon so maybe she should be the valley dweller: although possibly her ethereal warbling is more suited to being up on high.  When we went to see KD Lang, she took off her shoes and sang rooted to the ground, earth-connected.  Well, who cares; the point is they are very different and we both had our favourites. And The Valley was written by Jane Siberry, so neither of them.

Karin loved KD Lang.  She loved her more than I love Joni Mitchell because she loved the person as well as the music, their shared initials were surely beyond coincidence.  She loved KD's raw honesty about herself, her rabble-rousing self-confidence, sexual identity, veganism, even her hair style.  And her singing - a sound that seemed to grow from the earth like a forest, and made of a natural purity that rejected any artifice.   Lyrics that told deep stories about real people; people who sat and loved each other, properly.
New CD's were brought into this house as soon as they were released and played over and over, then added to the rotation of all the other KD CD's.  Any singers similar to KD Lang were instantly dismissed as unpalatable (an exception was made for Bonnie Raitt): and as for Joni Mitchell, well she just put her dirty laundry on display and sang with a voice that could break glass. Oh well.

The Canadian heritage of both these singers (not to mention Jane Siberry) give a hint of the icing on the cake - a connection that began and ended with our family self-definition as neo-Canadians: new settlers in a country that is still trying to understand the impact of the previous incomers.  The timing of KD Lang when she entered our consciousness at the turn of the millenium - a new age for us - was perfect as we headed toward Toronto.   So KD Lang's songs became incorporated into Karin's character, like adding a herb to soup; and by default into our family identity.

A few months before Karin died we discovered a KD Lang song we didn't know: Barefoot.  Its lupine chorus, reflective words and guitar accompaniment beautifully matched the sheer bleak cold of the film it was used as the soundtrack for.  We sent off for the film; what with that track, and KD Lang playing one of the main characters it just had to be watched.  I may be wrong but I think it was the last film Karin saw; with a glass of wine and the curtains drawn we were taken to an arctic place where no life existed outside a parker jacket.
The film felt like a film-school piece with oblique sideways glances and long atmospheric shots, but no matter - we had bought into the whole thing.  The triangulation of music, actor, country, generated a whole that reinforced what was in our mind - KD Lang is very cool.  She is very cool because she talks the language of the earth; there is an honest purity to her music and life that pushes up against other disingenuous characters in the media.  Karin liked that - no affectation.

(image taken from http://www.cinema.de/bilder/salmonberries,1296734.html)