Wile E. Coyote (also known simply as "The Coyote") and the Road Runner are cartoon characters from a series of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons, created by animation director Chuck Jones in 1948 for Warner Brothers. The character went on to star in a long-running series of theatrical cartoon shorts and occasional made-for-television cartoon. The E never refers to a name within the context of the cartoon, but a 1975 comic has it standing for 'Ethelbert'.
The Coyote has separately appeared as an occasional antagonist in Bugs Bunny shorts. While he is generally silent in the Coyote-Road Runner shorts, he speaks with a refined accent in these solo outings. The Road Runner vocalizes only with a signature sound, "meep meep", and an occasional tongue noise. Wile E. was initially voiced by Mel Blanc and the Road Runner by Paul Julian. The interviews included in the DVD commentary were recorded by animation historian Michael Barrier for his book Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age.
"Coyote" was the opening song from Joni Mitchell's 1976 album Hejira and also the first single.
The song constituted a major departure from her previous work The Hissing of Summer Lawns, which had been quite ornate with pianos, layered vocals and percussion (although the song had been introduced in an embryonic form on the supporting tour). On "Coyote", her sound was stripped down to electric and acoustic guitars and a fretless bass guitar played by legendary virtuoso Jaco Pastorius. In a sense, this was similar to her early albums, but the sound was extremely spacious, even repetitive, with the verses made much longer and more like a long story. Thus, although this is one of the faster-tempo songs on Hejira, it still lasts for an even five minutes, whereas most songs on Mitchell's earliest albums were less than three minutes. Mitchell's guitar itself was in an unusual (low to high) C-G-D-F-C-E tuning - presumably a type of open tuning designed to play a seventh, ninth, or even eleventh chord.
Lyrically, "Coyote" is concerned with the difficulty of establishing any sort of connection with people who come from "different sets of circumstance" (as the song has it). In particular it describes an encounter (which turns into a one night stand) between the narrator (possibly meant to be Joni herself as there is a reference in the lyrics to her coming home from the studio) and "Coyote", a ranch worker. Coyote represents nature and the narrator's big city (presumably LA) life where "pills and powders" are necessary to "get us through this passion play". The aforementioned line is also a reference to Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue, which Joni was a part of in the fall of 1975.
A version of "Coyote" was performed by Joni with The Band for the concert movie The Last Waltz and is included on the soundtrack. The song was also covered by Spirit of the West on the 1992 Mitchell tribute album Back to the Garden.
