We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago….
Today’s choice is the flip side of yesterday. If the Graham Nash LP ‘Songs For Beginners” was his way of dealing with his breakup with Joni Mitchell, the Lp “Blue” was not only a chronicle of that relationship but also her brief and torrid affair with James Taylor (he dumped her), her self imposed European exile, and other issues so personal that you seemed, as you dropped the needle on the vinyl, to become some sort of priestly confessional. It was noted songwriter Kris Kristofferson who reportedly spoke the words that make up today’s title after hearing ‘Blue” for the first time.
So what makes this album so special? What made the critics and the audience swoon and puts this record high on most lists of the best LPs of all time?
It’s certainly not the music. (I will always prefer the jazzy stylings on ‘Court & Spark and ” Hejira”) Although Joan’s choice of out-of-the-box instrumentation (Appalachian dulcimer, anyone?) and her penchant for odd tunings and keys that just make her music sound different than anything else out there. It wasn’t even that magnificent voice swooping and swirling around the melodies like a beautiful seabird soaring.
It was the words. With Joni Mitchell you will always start with the lyrics. Her strength as a wordsmith is otherworldly. She paints with language as well as any songwriter ever. And “Blue”, just her fourth LP, arrives like a thunderbolt.
The subject material is varied. From her time with Nash ( My Old Man & River), to her European exile where she lived in a cave for a time with a bunch of hippies ( Carey, California) to her time with with Taylor, who reportedly broke her heart when he moved on (All I Want, Blue, This Flight Tonight).
In early 1971 Mitchell and Taylor were flying high, playing on each others LPs and working with mutual friend Carole King on the “Tapestry” LP. It didn’t last.
The album also includes a song that has been covered by over 300 different artists. ‘A Case Of You” is a beautiful song that once again is reportedly about another old flame, Leonard Cohen. I’m not sure there is any artist, alive or dead, that has mined the lode of love and love lost as successfully as Ms. Joan.
Even Prince, who knew a thing or two about love & lust, covered ‘A Case of You” during the “Purple Rain Years.
And it wasnt just the pain of failed love affairs that populates the record. The LP also includes the song “Little Green”. It wasn’t widely known that Mitchell had given up a baby for adoption in the 1960s. This song deals with that kind of heartbreak and it wasn’t until many years later that Mitchell and the child were reunited.
In a 1979 interview Mitchell said “There’s hardly a dishonest note in the vocals. At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. No secrets from the world and I couldn’t pretend in my life to be strong”. I would suggest there is a certain kind of strength in being able to publicly open yourself to this kind of scrutiny. Most artists have some kind of limits to what the public sees. That’s what makes this record so special. Also, the fact that Mitchell really cared little about commercial success and being a “star”. She did what she did, wrote what she wrote and recorded what she recorded, with no apologies. Which makes it ironic that this LP helped make her all of that.
This is not a record to put on in the background while you’re working. This needs your attention. So, pour a glass of wine, sit back and listen to a slice of life, warts and all. It was a cathartic experience for many people back in the day, and probably can still be so now.
If you have never listened to this LP, which I have heard dozens of times, I envy you your first experience. It will take more than one listening to get it all…and trust me, it’s worth the effort.
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