ADD: Urge for Going (Joni Mitchell)

Subject: RE: Help: Joni Mitchell's Urge for Going
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 20 Feb 03 - 02:25 AM

Don, thanks so much! It's good to know that the record really does exist, and that I wasn't hallucinating back in 1971. Hmmmm...maybe I should rephrase that...

Aloha,
Mark

PS Thanks, too, jtt, for the link to the chords. The words are different in spots from Tom Rush's -- it would be interesting to know if they are the ones on Joni's recording.

Subject: RE: Help: Joni Mitchell's Urge for Going
From: PoppaGator
Date: 05 Jan 09 - 04:17 PM

The recent hoo-hah about the "Rise Up Singing" songbook prompted me to pull my copy of RUS off the shelf and flip through the pages. I was very pleased to happen upon this song, which I absolutely loved many years ago but had completely forgotten.

I know the song from Tom Rush's recording, which was (I believe) the "original" in the sense that he recorded it before before Joni herself (the songwriter). Now, I'm not familiar with the Dave Van Ronk version, which may or may not predate Tom's. I do know that Dave was a notable champion of fledgling songwriters in general and of the young Joni Mitchel in particular, and I am certainly familiar with the very early DVR recording of "Both Sides Now," aka "Clouds."

Tom Rush was also a great one for recording the works of young unknown songwriters. I'm pretty sure that his rendition of "These Days" was the first recording of anything written by the then-very-young Jackson Browne, and I think it's also likely that his "Urge for Going" might have been the first recording of anything by the almost-as-young Joni Mitchell.

**************************

Another thought that crossed my mind when I rediscovered this song: has any aging and incontinent folkie ever made a parody of Urge for Going? A scatological interpretation of the title phrase would seem to be pretty obvious. Of course, that very lovely and evocative melody might be just too incongruous to accommodate lyrics about adult diapers and skidmarked drawers....

Subject: RE: Help: Joni Mitchell's Urge for Going
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 05:26 AM

Like t-boy, I heard this by the Johnstons on a sampler LP of "contemporary" folk music, Listen Here !.

It cost all of fourteen shillings and eleven pence in proper money - seventy four pence, I think, in today's UK currency ?

The voices of Adrienne Johnston and Paul Brady led, as I remember, and there was a flute and a tenor sax in the arrangement.

I use an open C tuning to accompany this. In this tuning, the essential Bb is as follows :

1st fret 1st string ; 2nd fret 2nd string ; 3rd fret 3rd string ; 3rd fret 5th string.

(tuning 1st - 6th : E C G C G E or low C). When I set out for work at 0745 this morning ( Northamptonshire, UK ) the temperature on the car thermomenter was reading minus 8 centigrade.

"Urge for Going" seemed right appropriate.

Subject: RE: Help: Joni Mitchell's Urge for Going
From: Michael S
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 11:27 AM

Those who use iTunes can find Urge For Going as part of a Mitchell compilation titled Songs of a Prairie Girl. You can buy it as a single track. I don't know if this is the same recorded version that appeared as a single, but it sounds to me exactly like what I remember hearing years ago.

--Michael Scully

Subject: RE: Help: Joni Mitchell's Urge for Going
From: heatherblether
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 11:34 AM

I seem to remember that Urge For Going was on the soundtrack of the movie Alice's Restaurant and was played over the funeral scene towards the end of the film.
Ifor

Subject: RE: Help: Joni Mitchell's Urge for Going
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 11:37 AM

Joni singing Urge for going

How her voice has matured...

Subject: RE: Help: Joni Mitchell's Urge for Going
From: evansakes
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 12:23 PM

David Crosby and Graham Nash released a lovely version of this song on the CSN boxset from the early 90's...it was a studio recording dating back to the summer of 1971 and was originally intended to be a single until they had a huge row over the song and ditched it.

Fortunately the CSN archivist Joel Bernstein had kept the tape...

Of course both Nash and Crosby were previously Joni's lovers....

Subject: RE: Help: Joni Mitchell's Urge for Going
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 13 Jan 09 - 12:09 AM

I have the 45, as the flip side of You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio. It's the only 45 I have ever owned. And I'm not the only one - many years ago, when rec.music.folk filled the ecological niche now occupied by Mudcat, a poster there noted that Urge For Going was the only 45 he had ever owned, as well.

Her phrasing is, as I think someone noted above, different from Tom Rush's. I think the world is more than big enough for both versions.

Mary Black - I love her voice, but I can't get past the mondegreen where she sings, "When the sun turns straight and cold" instead of "when the sun turns traitor cold."

Subject: RE: Help: Joni Mitchell's Urge for Going
From: clueless don
Date: 13 Jan 09 - 11:13 AM

Speaking on mondegreens, the youtube link that Suegorgeous provided (thank you for that!) verifies that the words are

...bully winds did rub their faces in the snow

and not

... bully winds did rub them face down in the snow

as I have seen given here and there.

Don

Subject: RE: Help: Joni Mitchell's Urge for Going
From: Stringsinger
Date: 13 Jan 09 - 01:25 PM

The words are lovely.

But the title reminds me that the older you get, the more urge for going.

Subject: RE: Help: Joni Mitchell's Urge for Going
From: vectis
Date: 13 Jan 09 - 06:43 PM

Thanks for the link Suegorgeous. I've been singing this song for almost 40 years and have never heard the original version before.
I got it from a recording I made of a local bloke down at my local folk club in about 1970.

Subject: RE: Help: Urge for Going (recorded by Joni Mitchell?)
From: GUEST,Mark Leier
Date: 19 Sep 21 - 09:20 PM

Joni Mitchell singing on Oscar Brand’s television show.
https://youtu.be/Z3EofN3Flag

Subject: RE: Help: Urge for Going (recorded by Joni Mitchell?)
From: DaveRo
Date: 20 Sep 21 - 02:25 AM

There are several performances of Urge for Going on the recently-released 5-CD box set:
Jone Mitchell Archives - Volume 1 (1963-1967)

Eastern Rain is on there too. It has an extra section which Fairport left out. I like to think Joni heard Fairport's version and decided she couldn't better it.

There are quite a few unpublished songs, but I hear chords and phrases that I recognise.

Subject: RE: Help: Urge for Going (recorded by Joni Mitchell?)
From: GUEST,LarrytheRadioGuy
Date: 20 Sep 21 - 12:03 PM

I first heard it in 1967, by George Hamilton IV. The 'b' side of Changes.   I still have the 45. He leaves off the last verse, unfortunately.

Subject: RE: Help: Urge for Going (recorded by Joni Mitchell?)
From: GUEST,Jerome Clark
Date: 20 Sep 21 - 08:06 PM

George Hamilton IV did the same with his version of "Don't Let Me Come Home a Stranger" -- that is, dropped the last verse when he recorded it That's a song I wrote with my longtime pal Robin Williams (the folk singer RW, not the other one).

I also heard "Urge for Going" for the first time many years ago when Hamilton sang it in concert. Also the first time I heard Joni Mitchell's name.

And yes, Mitchell recorded "Urge" at least twice. And yes, I agree with the correspondent who loves Dave Van Ronk's reading of the song. Van Ronk was always good with Mitchell material.

Subject: RE: Help: Urge for Going (recorded by Joni Mitchell?)
From: GUEST,Jerome Clark
Date: 20 Sep 21 - 08:25 PM

Um, to clarify:

"Urge for Going" appears on two Mitchell discs that I'm aware of. Both albums are retrospectives. They are probably the same recording.

So, to be clear, the song is featured on two Mitchell recordings but likely stem from a single session early in her career.

Subject: RE: Help: Urge for Going (recorded by Joni Mitchell?)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 21 Sep 21 - 05:04 AM

Don't Let Me Come Home A Stranger - a truly great song, Jerome!

And an unforgettable version by Robin and Linda Williams.

I wish they'd come to England.