The DU Lounge

..."Both Sides Now" which wasn't, of course, her song, although for a while I think her version was more popular than Joni's. I did that one in an open tuning more generally known that Joni's tunings, which was convenient for a lot of Dylan songs as well.

I have to say I was never much involved with Leonard Cohen's music. I was a Dave Van Ronk kind of guy though, with smatterings of David Bromberg interpretations, for which I was never really good enough.

I rearranged Ellen McIlwaine's version of "Up from the Skies," and was inspired by one of her records to develop a very complex arrangement of "Ode to Billy Joe" in a minor tuning inspired, but not identical, to Joni's tuning in "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire."

People liked that "Ode to Billy Joe" arrangement; people often asked me to play it after saying, sometimes, "You know, I never liked that song." I started saying that on stage in the introduction to it. I'd say, "People tell me all the time they never liked this song, but I'm going to play it anyhow."

I haven't picked up the guitars in more than five years. I'm kind of afraid to do it now, because it will hurt to realize what I lost to inattention. They lay around idle. I look at them sometimes and sigh.

I had other things to do.