2007 - DREAMLAND

"It was an American friend named David Linger who suggested that I pay attention to this woman Joni Mitchell and her music. This was in London, where I lived in exile for two-and-a-half years. Soon I was standing pretty close to the stage of the Isle of Wight Festival, seeing the young lady David had talked about, a dulcimer on her lap, reacting to an overexcited fan in the audience to “give us some respect”, then resuming her singing with this incredible high pitched voice. Later I heard recordings that showed how miraculously musical that voice was. Back in Brazil, eventually I was amazed by her Mingus record, filled with loose guitar strings that seemed to x-ray Mingus’s bass timbers. Over the years, through choice or chance, I would go back to her musical personality.

Once I read in a newspaper here that she had been in Rio, incognito. Soon there was “Dreamland” with Canada seen from Brazil. When I had the honor to be invited to join those paying homage to her in a record, I immediately thought of “Dreamland”. I asked my son Moreno to help me work on it. I knew what I wanted to do but was terrified with the difficulty of the many words that floated over the percussion.

Moreno not only gave me courage: he told me how in love he himself was with Joni’s music. It had not been me who introduced her work to him. It was Chrissie Hynde, a friend of his who turned him on to it. We spent, Moreno and I, many nights together studying how to face the challenge of “Dreamland” and listening to Blue. It was a dream indeed to hear again those heavenly recordings, this time with my son. In the end we invited Wilson das Neves, master of Rio samba percussion, who brought a genius disciple, and together created a structure for the track according to the way I sang the song. Daniel Carvalho worked all the way through the process, solving the sound problems Moreno and I presented.

I wanted Brazil to answer to Joni Mitchell’s call. Discretely. Modestly. But passionately."

Caetano Veloso

2007 - CAETANO VELOSO

Álbum "A Tribute to Joni Mitchell"

[Varios intérpretes]

Nonesuch CD 122620-2, Track 3. [EE. UU.]


DREAMLAND
Letra y música: Joni Mitchell
© 1976 Crazy Crow Music

Del álbum "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter", editado en 1977.

 
It's a long long way from Canada
A long way from snow chains
Donkey vendors slicing coconut
No parkas to their name
Black babies covered in baking flour
The cook's got a carnival song
We're going to lay down some place shady
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland dreamland
Dreamland dreamland

Walter Raleigh and Chris Columbus
Come marching out of the waves
And claim the beach and all concessions
In the name of the suntan slave
I wrapped that flag around me
Like a Dorothy Lamour sarong
And I lay down thinking national
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland dreamland
Dreamland dreamland

Goodtime Mary and a fortune hunter
All dressed up to follow the drums
Mary in a feather hula-hoop
Miss Fortune with a rose on her big game gun
All saints all sinners shining
Heed those trumpets all night long
Propped up on a samba beat
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland dreamland
Dreamland dreamland

Tar baby and the Great White Wonder
Talking over a glass of rum
Burning on the inside
With the knowledge of things to come
There's gambling out on the terrace
And midnight ramblin' on the lawn
As they lead toward temptation
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland dreamland
Dreamland dreamland

In a plane flying back to winter
In shoes full of tropic sand
A lady in a foreign flag
On the arm of her Marlboro Man
The hawk howls in New York City
Six foot drifts on Myrtle's lawn
As they push the recline buttons down
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland dreamland
Dreamland dreamland

African sand on the trade winds
And the sun on the Amazon
As they push the recline buttons down
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland dreamland
Dreamland dreamland