Blue
"...Sad, spare, and beautiful, Blue is the quintessential confessional singer/songwriter album..." Amazon reviewer Deeyar You know, it's taken me six months to write this review for Blue...I just couldn't get a handle on what I was trying to say...and this morning at 6.30 it came to me, so here it is: The problem is that, though a powerful album, Blue hardly has a song worth recommending on it! Yes, there are tune-lets...but nothing that stands out. Instead, what you get is a truthful, oh-so-truthful blog of a transitional time in a young woman's life whose diary entries have been put to music (occasionally with the help of then-sometime lover James Taylor & friend Stephen Stills).
Joni Mitchell: Blue
These raw statements produce something unique and precious, quite unlike anything I've heard since. There's:
...and underpinning it all, a melancholy that even if the right Love came along, Joni would sabotage it anyway. e.g. while Christmas reminiscing about her homeland, Canada's, winter...and her temperate home in California...she returns once more to the treatise on Love: "...I'm so hard to handle River
...And yet, when later discussing a Love she'd left in Canada, her home...and the man...are little more than sentimental attachments: "...You're in my blood like holy wine Canada
I remember reading a Joni Mitchell critic on Amazon saying: "If only she'd had Prozac. We'd have been spared all this drivel." (paraphrase) ...and y'know, though I was angered at the time, the phrase stayed with me...because it's true. If Joni had taken Prozac, Blue would probably never have been created...and that's precisely why it's so valuable, because it's a remnant from a time: when there were no boob jobs, extreme make-overs...or Prozac when, 1965, if you had a child out of wedlock, you mostly gave it away for adoption (Little Green) and wondered...or grieved for the rest of your life... Joni Mitchell on Blue: "...the point is, that soon after I'd given up my daughter for adoption I had a house and a car and I had the means and I'd become a public figure. The combination of those situations did not sit well. So I kind of withdrew from music and began to go inside. And question who I was. And out of that, Blue evolved. I guess I was being a 'shrink' to myself! And if I, in the process of doing that, found something I thought was universal..." Joe Jackson interview March 2000
...and the life of a promiscuous, guiltless hedonist seemed to fit hand and hand with that of a romantic, in the following instance, California, the place...and the man "...I met a redneck on a Grecian isle Oh, the rogue, the red, red rogue ...California..." California
Oh, but it wasn't California that was driving Joni, it was her endless needs, needs that she was unwilling to pay the price of satisfying... "...Oh I am on a lonely road and I am Oh, I hate you some ...I wanna talk to you Applause, applause Do you see...do you see And then finally, in this ridiculous...and utterly captivating song-cycle, we have Joni, pining once more for Love she won't pay for: "...But when he's gone All I Want
Joni Mitchell on Blue, again: "...By the time of my fourth album {Blue, 1971}, I came to another turning point, the terrible opportunity that people are given in their lives. The day that they discover to the tips of their toes that they're assholes {solemn moment, then a gale of laughter}. And you have to work on from there and decide what your values are, which parts of you are no longer really necessary...they belong to childhood's end. Blue really was a turning point in a lot of ways...." Rolling Stone interview July 1979
There are other delights:
...but I think you get the idea. Blue is not to be missed!
Joni Mitchell: Blue "...This is perhaps my favorite album of all time. I want to hear it when I'm sad, and I want to hear it when I'm happy..." Amazon reviewer Karen J. Echols "...Every once in a great while, an artist nails it...Blue may well be Joni Mitchell's Mona Lisa..." Amazon reviewer running_man "...This album is so indicative of the hippie genre and how we lived it (and) Joni has captured that era in her songs...All the songs on this collection are awesome and they will stay in your head...for time immemorial. I love this music for the memories and the good feelings it creates now..." Amazon reviewer Karen D. Easton "...What struck me the most about the album, after just a few listens, is how intimate it sounds...It's probably totally ridiculous but it was almost as if I felt she was singing just to me, FOR me, in a space that was occupied by just the two of us...She sings of simple things yet her lyricism is as rich as a fruitcake..." Amazon reviewer Olukayode Balogun "...I remember when this album came out. I lived in a house with a group of friends. One guy was going through a break-up with his girlfriend and used to lock himself in his room and listen to River over, and over, and over again. Needless to say, it drove everyone nuts. However, this remains my favorite Joni Mitchell album...(and)...is essential listening for fans of any style of music.." Amazon reviewer Samuel B. King "Sam King" "...I haven't taken it out of the CD player since I got it!..." Amazon reviewer Lu Ann Nye
Blue: Framed Edition
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