Joni Mitchell, much like Frank Zappa and Fairport Convention, belongs in that category of music that I find the hardest to deal with:the music that I listened to before I was interested in music. You see, my dad was a huge fan of hers, and so I grew up to the sounds of “Blue” and “Ladies Of The Canyon” . Therefore, I find it hard to get into Joni Mitchell: her music is to me so familiar yet so impersonal. The facts that she’s apparently the prototype for the Lilith Fair crowd and that she always sounds cold and arrogant in interviews didn’t help, either.
Still, I decided to give “Blue” another chance today, and am I ever glad I did! I notice now that, due to my lazyness, all the faults that I saw in her weren’t really existant: they were just things that I assumed because I didn’t listen to her well enough.
You see, the charm of Joni Mitchell is very discreet: you have to listen carefully and with full concentration to fully capture the greatness of this album. To some, her constant attacks on (ex) lovers may sound annoying: but they’re honest, deadpan observations, and (unlike many another singer/songwriter) Joni never forgets to point out the good characteristics of her partner, too: even “A Case Of You”, which is generally considered to be her most scathing song, has a gorgeous affirmation of love as its’ chorus: ”Oh, I could drink a case of you/and I would still be on my feet” . Now that’s poetry!
Joni Mitchell sometimes gets lumped in with all the other early 70’s Self-Rock singer/songwriter new Dylans who, at best, sounded like a rather simplistic Bob Dylan (James Taylor, who provides some great guitar-work here on “All I Want”) and at their worst sounded like Bob Dylan if that motorcycle accident had sucseeded in destroying his brain (John Denver or Melanie, anyone?). This, to me, seems unfair. After all, the main fault of Self-Rock was that these performers usually romanticised themselves in order to sound more “relevant”: Joni sounds simply honest, whetever she’s reminiscing about “California” or pondering “The Last Time I Saw Richard”.
Another thing that I like about Mitchells’ songwriting style is her dry sense of humor: “Well everybodys’ saying that hell is the hippest way to go/well I don’t think so/but I’m gonna take a look around it though” she says in “Blue”, while in “A Case Of You”, she notes briliantly: “Just before our love got lost you said/’ I am as constant as a Northern star’/and I said ‘Constantly in the darkness?/where’s that at?/if you want me, I’ll be in the bar’ “. Ouch!
There’s little here to criticise: Joni MItchell does have one of these voices that you either love or hate (you know, like Gene Pitney); and some songs, like “This Flight Tonight” (which got covered by cheesy 70’s Hard Rock combo Naxareth) or the cheesy “Little Green” do occasionally make me embarased that I like them...but these are minor gripes.
I used to wonder how anyone could love Joni Mitchell; now, I ask myself how anyone could not do so!
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