"People's Parties" by Joni Mitchell

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My first analysis for the Court and Spark series illustrates a person going to a party and feeling like they do not belong there. Many of Joni’s songs have to do with psychological roadblocks to connection and inner peace, and this especially highlighted with the Court and Spark album and especially “People’s Parties.”

Before going into my analysis, be sure to give the song a listen:

Lyric Analysis

This song is a good example of becoming more distant in narrative pronouns. The song naturally progresses toward the more intimate narrative types until around the fourth verse:

[Verse 1] All the people at this party They've got a lot of style <-- Third-person begins They've got stamps of many countries They've got passport smiles Some are friendly, some are cutting Some are watching it from the wings Some are standing in the center Giving to get something [Verse 2] Photo beauty gets attention Then her eye paint's running down She's got a rose in her teeth And a lampshade crown One minute she's so happy Then she's crying on someone's knee Saying laughing and crying You know it's the same release [Verse 3] I told you when I met you I was crazy <-- First-person begins Cry for us all beauty Cry for Eddie in the corner Thinking he's nobody And Jack behind his joker And stone-cold Grace behind her fan And me in my frightened silence Thinking I don't understand

[Verse 4] I feel like I'm sleeping Can you wake me <-- Second-person direct begins You seem to have a broader sensibility I'm just living on nerves and feelings <-- Back to first-person With a weak and a lazy mind And coming to people's parties Fumbling deaf dumb and blind

[Verse 5]

I wish I had more sense of humor

Keeping the sadness at bay

Throwing the lightness on these things

Laughing it all away

Laughing it all away

Laughing it all away

The fourth verse disrupts this natural progression. It backs off from second-person direct to first person and stays there for the rest of the song. This distance may even come sooner, as it may switch to third-person in the third verse.

I find this unconventional narrative type change to be really fitting for the theme of the song, where the speaker reaches for connection but ends up getting trapped in their own head instead.

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Formal Analysis

This song is in strophic form, meaning there are only verses or a repeating A section. Before the verses start there is a four-bar intro with only guitar.

What’s interesting or different about this form is that verse 5, the final verse of the song, can be seen in multiple ways. One way to see the verse is that it bleeds into the outro of the song. Another way to see the final verse is that it gets cut short and followed immediately by the outro. Either way, the overlapping of the outro and the verse would look something like this:

[Verse 5]

I wish I had more sense of humor

Keeping the sadness at bay

Throwing the lightness on these things

Laughing it all [Outro begins here] away

Laughing it all away

Laughing it all away

The strangeness of the verse-outro hybrid also affects the hypermeter of the song. The first four verses are a consistent 8 bars of 4/4. The final verse, however, has this form interrupted. Judging by the melody established by the previous verses, the final verse only has about 4 bars of 4/4 before going into the outro. I can’t say I’m sure about this because by the time the fourth bar is over the lyrics are already going into the “Laughing it all away” repeated ad nauseum. Melodically, too, you can tell the fourth bar of the final verse is setting to transition into the outro. The final verse, therefore, can also be interpreted as only having three bars of proper verse, then a fourth bar dedicated to transitioning into the outro, and then the outro.

What about energy? The energy levels seem to stay pretty consistent until the final verse. There is some rhythmic variation in the second line or bar that gains energy, and the outro also gains energy through a thickening texture and dynamic increase.

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Timbre/Texture Analysis

The elements of texture are as follows:

• guitar percussion (explicit beat)

• Acoustic guitar (filler)

• electric bass (bass)

• vocals (melody)

What makes this interesting? The bass moves up to make novelty sounds in the fourth verse “I feel like I’m sleeping / Can you wake me” (about 1:14 in the video above). It’s a high figure that is almost like a trill or a bird’s call. The figure seems to be interacting with the speaker, trying to wake them up.

The most obvious change to the texture is in the outro with an added novelty layer of high, breathy vocals singing “Laughing it all away” in a descending scale at a faster rhythm than the lead vocals. The breathiness of the vocals and the rhythm make the novelty layer feel free-wheeling and bubbly, as if imitating the laughter the speaker longs for.