Another track off of "Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies From the Canyon" (which I wrote about on Tuesday), "Eternal Life" is from a 1974 senior project by Shira Small, a student at a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania. Of all the tracks on the compilation, this is the one in which it's hardest to make out any trace of Joni Mitchell's influence. It comes across instead as a deeply eccentric, crooked soul song, with nearly nonsensical lyrics (drawn, apparently, from sources like a remedial math class and some bathroom graffiti) and a brassily confident, oddly compelling lead vocal.
-- T.B.
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