A CASE OF YOU by JONI MITCHELL. Story by Helen Askew.

Canberra, 2024

We met for the first time at the old family home on the day of his mother’s funeral. He asked about my hobbies, using the occasion to detail his own. He was very proud of his stereo system, that included a valve amplifier, in a purpose-built bunker under his house. An open invitation to visit was extended.

Intrigued, we looked him up when we were next in Canberra. He poured generous glasses of red wine and then ushered us in to his music room, a cavern designed for one.  There was a toilet, a bar and one chair.

The room was dimly lit, the ceiling low and claustrophobic. The valve amplifier glowed invitingly at centre front. Speakers were placed with surgical precision on either side of the chair. There was a turntable, a Digital Audio Player (DAP), and other black boxes I didn’t recognise, all inter-connected with umbilicus-sized cords. The music came from Tidal, a streaming product specifically designed to provide high resolution sound.

My partner, Michael and our host, Nick, regressed into cousinhood, playing music from their youth, most of which I had heard before and did not particularly like. I stayed on the periphery, in the doorway, exchanging glances with a lone budgerigar in an adjacent aviary.

Just as the session was winding up, Michael delighted and surprised me by asking his cousin if he could play one more track, for Helen… Our host seemed unfamiliar with the request and fumbled around a little to locate it.

I was ushered into the well-worn whiskey leather armchair. The amplifier sparkled as those first notes from the Appalachian Dulcimer, like a heartbeat, guided me expectantly into the beginning of the song.

Then came that crystal voice, at first tentative, fragile, “Just before our love got lost you said…” Joni was playing for me alone in that room. I was completely unprepared for my emotional response. Tears trickled down my cheeks.

I was relieved that the room was dark and that the men were standing behind me, unaware of my tears.

Joni’s lyrics encapsulated so much meaning with great economy.

… I remember that time you told me,

You said, “love is touching souls”

Surely you touched mine

‘cause part of you pours out of me

In these lines from time to time…

A song of lost love, of homesickness and loneliness. My favourite song—as familiar as my own skin—was lapping around me, entering my pores, completely filling me senses. I wanted it to go on forever.

Joni’s voice, a rare mixture of power and vulnerability as she confided her innermost thoughts, soaring an octave and a half into falsetto, a sound to pierce the heart.

Oh, you’re in my blood like holy wine,

You taste so bitter and so sweet

Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling

And I would still be on my feet,

I would still be on my feet.

The song ended, my composure restored. Somehow, I managed to rise from the chair and walk out into the sunlight. We left soon afterwards. As we drove away, I thanked Michael for asking for that song to be played and confessed that it had made me cry. “Me too”, he said.

I have never loved him more.

Stereo Story 868