the_three_great_stimulants raze i'd like to tell you my lifelong love affair with joni_mitchell began with "blue", or "court and spark", or "the hissing of summer lawns", or "hejira", or even "don juan's reckless daughter". but i didn't hear "river" for the first time until i was sitting at mark's kitchen table in grade ten and the radio ripped me to shreds when i wasn't prepared to feel so much so soon. it all started with "dog eat dog" — a brace of angry, urgent songs carved up by critics who wanted more acoustic guitar and less synthetic sounds. "last night i dreamed i saw the planet flicker," joni sang. my muddled adolescent mind imagined a literal universal remote control, not knowing what she really feared was the dimming of all our days. even before i knew what it meant, that chorus hit like a fist to the throat. "and we call for the three great stimulants of the exhausted ones: artifice, brutality, and innocence. artifice and innocence." 260302 what's it to you? who go blather from