There Is Your Song From Me
The album Blue was released 50 years ago today (at the start of Cancer season which I’m sure was a marketing strategy). A ton of media outlets and individuals have been weighing in on it but in some cases maybe they shouldn’t. It’s like if a well adjusted art historian tried to explain to you how it felt when Van Gogh cut off his ear. If you’ve never amputated a piece of your body and bled all over the kitchen table, maybe you defer making that lecture. The same thing goes for matters of the heart.
So we here at R2C thought we’d just give a round up of our thoughts and love for this record because we are romantics, we are scorpios and we grew up near the Canadian border. All the boxes are checked. What I didn’t anticipate was the interesting shift of perspective that’s found when the narrative changes direction.
PREFACE
Back in the old days, the “before time”, if you wanted music you needed money or access. If you had money you could just buy the hard copies, tapes then CDs with little forethought, just trust, faith or blind hope in the quality.
If you didn’t have money though you entered the labyrinth of the multi-purposed blank cassette. That’s where access came in. You had to raid the music collection of whoever, where ever you went and record anything good (or with the potential of being good) quickly while the intrusion was allowed. If you didn’t have a new tape handy you’d sacrifice an old one that hadn’t earned it’s worth and tape over whatever had been on it before. The more you rerecorded the more fragments of the old recordings would bleed through onto the new ones. In the silence between the tracks you’d hear soft garbled ghosts of unworthy songs by unworthy artists muffling along beneath layers of magnetic tape.
All this is to explain how I first heard Blue. I was 17, house sitting, and going through the home owner’s music collection (after searches for hidden booze and drugs hadn’t panned out). The house belonged to a single mom and the CDs mostly reflected that. Typical stuff of that geographical region and cultural era, Lilith Fair staples and Tapestry by Carole King. And Joni Mitchell. The thing that first attracted me to that album was the cover. Her face flushed with stage light and dipped in a deep indigo like she’s being submerged. Like Rothko was in charge of the art direction but was interrupted before he could paint her out. It was so visually appealing I slid the book out of the case just to feel the actual paper of the cover. I wanted to dig my hands into it, get tactile.
“I am on a lonely road and I am travelling, travelling, travelling. Looking for something, what can it be?”
With those opening lines I was all in. There was nothing more that needed to be said. I feel like even now, at 29 years old, they still have this narcotic hold over me. It’s Pavlovian, whenever the opening dulcimer lines start I’m ready to drive until I’m lost somewhere I’ve never been and get my heart broken.
Played traditionally it’s a road album that encompasses all four seasons and still feels like summer. In true Scorpio fashion almost every other song is about a change of geography/scenery but the struggles remain the same. The peaks and valleys of heartbreak and the way that pain can open rivulets to a larger pool of grief. She’s trying to balance that juxtaposed tension of being brokenhearted and simultaneously brimming with freedom. It’s the story of large transition in a life, which is a universal experience but rarely is it told so well.
James Taylor (who is the only Joni, music-related romantic partner I don’t despise) played guitar on the album and said of that time that “Joni had succeeded in music. She had a house and an automobile and wanted to have fun and see the world. After a year or two travelling in Europe with her portable dulcimer, she came back with lots of songs and ideas. It was a calm, peaceful, amazing, creative time. She quit smoking and her voice was excellent. She was at the height of her powers. It felt natural and easy for me to play on the album. There were very few people in the sessions. Blue’s brilliance lies in its minimalism. It thrives on her voice, melody and personality. It’s pure Joni.”
That same day I got a freshie from the pharmacy (they sold blank tapes then, this was right after Lincoln was assassinated) to record on and using a nice Pilot pen carefully wrote the tracks on the blank liner. It’s been one of those treasured, compass-like, pieces of art I use to help define the constant change of a life ever since.
The Story In Reverse
The way I hear Blue is not as just a random collection of songs but as a consistent narrative, almost like a folk opera. What I started thinking about only recently (mostly due to a shuffle mistake) is how it’s like the Tenet of heartbreak. That the sequencing of the record tells two connected but wildly different stories. For me a narrative flows through each but when you listen in reverse it changes the ending and the message. Sure you could play any record backwards and it would sound different but in this case it’s the same story, but the spirit of the protagonist is wildly different when it concludes. It’s more than just a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of independence or Judas Priest in reverse summoning Satan or starting the Dark side when the MGM lion roars. Let me explain.
Every current critique, review and retrospective of the album goes song for song, starting with All I Want and ending with Last Time I saw Richard. They love to pull that meaning from such a heavy, piano laden, closing time song, about the hangover from the summer of love. The broken cynicism of the hippie’s failures. Then they have their conclusion paragraph and voila thank you for reading Rolling Stone. The narrative becomes a very intimate album about breakups and change ends with the protagonist grappling with what Richard told her 1968 that to be a romantic and a dreamer will only end in pain. The spotlight dims and she’s utterly alone on stage as the curtains draw.
But consider this, listening in reverse from finish to start a different hero’s journey begins to emerges. A quest to find who you are, where you go and what you do when it all falls apart?
THE LAST TIME I SAW RICHARD
The final lines of the album:
All good dreamers pass this way some day
Hidin' behind bottles in dark cafes
Dark cafes
Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings
And fly away Only a phase, these dark cafe days
Now follow me here for a sec, what if that’s the opening rather than the closing of the album? It’s not a descent into heartbreak any longer but a journey through it. It begins with Joni, now successful and a “star” (as Taylor noted) reflecting on a conversation she had with a folk singer Richard (really Patrick Sly) who once told her “"Oh, Joni, you're a hopeless romantic. There's only one way for you to go. Hopeless cynicism." What if as the world of success and stardom starts to ring hollow, as she sees her own life hit a wall of experience and intimacy she thinks of his warning that “all romantics meet the same fate.” ?
The uncertainty of the song’s ending seems almost like the opening of a musical in which the protagonist is introduced (wild, romantic, dreaming artist) and their central struggle made clear (the world will break you). We see Joni from Richard’s point of view and we hear the uncertainty and fear in her rebuttal. Her reassurance that she’ll fly away. Curtains close “and scene!”
A CASE OF YOU
Hopefully you know it. Hopefully someone at sometime in your late teens/early twenties played it for you and sat there quietly watching your face as you listened to it for the first time. Hopefully afterwards you both sat there and talked for a long while about the lines You’re in my blood like holy wine, you taste so bitter, bitter and so sweet. Oh, I could drink a case of you darling, and I would still be on my feet. Oh I would still be on my feet. Hopefully even to this day, when it comes on and you’re all alone you do your best to hit those high notes even though you don’t stand a chance. If this has never happened for you then consider this your invitation.
I won’t go any deeper into that, there’s endless conversation to be had and a ton of articles. A Case of You is perfect but at risk of becoming like the Cohen song Hallelujah. Adored for it’s sincerity but then superficially covered on such a grand scale that it loses its powers. Leave it alone society, let the only ones who cover it be the solitary fans singing their hearts out alone in their homes.
For the purpose of our retelling of Blue though, our protagonist is again at a bar. Not in Detroit but a roadhouse. She’s alone and remembering a moment “just before our love got lost.” Reflecting on a relationship that’s all consuming but simultaneously grounding. She misses her home (Canada) and that person that felt like home (with your face sketched on it twice). There’s was a deep trade that had to occur for it to last and ultimately it was too much to pay (be prepared to bleed) Thinking of this as the next chapter after Last Time I Saw Richard the dark cafes and the cocoon to bar lights, homesickness and homelessness. It’s the bittersweet relationship and like with Richard an indication that her toes are curling over the precipice of transition.
RIVER
If Die Hard is one of the greatest Christmas movies than River is one of its greatest carols.
The story continues, we leave the bar and it’s winter, but not real winter. instead the empty, unchanging, season-less December and she yearns for the reality of the North. Where the snow buries the trees and the stillness is palpable. The magical winters of childhood, where you slip into the woods and find yourself in a totally altered landscape, re-imagining what’s possible. Instead she’s in LA, trapped and alone with her own failings and surrounded by superficiality. Helplessly lonely and all she wants to do is go. Escape into something real and natural, make a lot of money and then quit this crazy scene, which is exactly what she did those years before blue.
If Richard as the opening is the seed of warning, Case of you is the loss of comfort and then River when the protagonist hits their wall and has their break down. She finds herself despairing with the life that she’s in and herself. It’s that kind of breakdown where you’re too raw to dress it up with melodrama. Instead just honest sadness, “I’m so hard to handle. I’m selfish and I’m sad. River is when she accepts that her only option is escape, to run into the world. To fly away. River is the final moments in the cocoon.
THIS FLIGHT TONIGHT
And so she does, substituting gorgeous wings for airline tickets on This Flight Tonight. That song is a frantic, emotional, mixed messaged goodbye letter. It’s like Will’s exit from Southie to see about a girl. She’s doubting and regretting but turning up the head phones, trying to numb her mind and moving on and out into the night. Interestingly enough it makes me think of how James Taylor (again) talked about how: “When I was taking her to meet my family in North Carolina, between flights she suddenly said she had to return to California and left me at the airport—at the altar, so to speak. Maybe she sensed the wreckage of my next 15 years and didn’t want to be tied down. She is totally real and self-invented and it’s one of the best things in my life that I’ve known her."
Sometimes motion is the only salve for the open wounds or the nagging fears. Keep moving till it makes sense.
And like that she’s gone. In this reverse version of Blue, heartbroken and free, out into the world. For context most of the songs on Blue were written during 1970 when she was living in Europe. The song California (and Carey, inspired by her relationship with an American named Cary Raditz, who was the "redneck on a Grecian Isle" in "California) were both written on Crete.
CALIFORNIA
So in reality California is about her failing and troubled relationship with Graham Nash (he didn’t deserve her, couldn’t write a decent song to save his life) she ultimately sends him a telegram breaking it off while there.
For the purpose of this re-examination bridging the narrative from this Flight Tonight to California is a bit trickier right? (Shout out to you if you’re even still reading at this point). When you listen in the normal order you get to California and Joni sounds healthy but road weary. Longing for an idealized version of a home she left and an idealized version of a failing relationship that looks appealing with distance and hindsight.
But in terms of a story, a narrative. It’s a travelling song, action packed and in different locations every verse. Yet despite it all she’s lonely and missing the comfort and predictability of what she just fled. She feels hung out there and wants to retreat back to the place she needed to escape. I would have this same experience when I would travel for long stretches alone. Days where I’d romanticize the jobs, times, places and people I once couldn’t wait to leave. It’s a Homeric style Odysseus like test. A spell of overthinking, isolation and self doubt to see if you’ll turn around. This song is like the montage in the movie, we see her travelling, coming to life and having adventures. We understand that time is passing and though she’s really living she’s still not finding what she’s hoped to and is unsure of what that means. It’s a road song but like everything in Blue the underlying current is that hurt that launched her and that fear she will turn into another Richard.
BLUE
Blue is Blue. Its themes sadly fit anywhere, in every story and is still just as relevant. I see it as a rainy, foggy morning in a town on the Mediterranean or in some gray European city. It’s a slip into the depression that starts at a personal level and then expands to encompass the world. It’s resigning to the hopelessness you feel as a way to move through it. Facing the monsters in the shadow and writing them a song. It’s allegedly about James Taylor who was really starting to sink into his addiction prior to the album. I think it speaks for itself. A post mortem of the “scene” as well as the sixties and her struggle of what to do with the wreckage.
CAREY
Sometimes I think Carey is my favorite song on the album. It’s kind of my dream. To escape to some small grecian village, get beach tar on my feet and laugh and celebrate nothing in a tiny bar under a moonlit sky. It’s the European bohemian fantasy that you grew up reading in the Beats, Nin, Miller, Hemingway etc. It’s that siren song of being in a magical place and asking “why can’t I stay here forever?” while already knowing the answer. It’s also an essential aspect of travel, dreaming of what’s next while rediscovering yourself as a stranger, through strangers. This song is pivotal to the plot. It’s when she finds a strength and a confidence in the idea that the world is her home, she’s not separate from it.
LITTLE GREEN
Little Green. Like a fighter, sometimes you have to build yourself up, get into fighting shape before you’re ready to face a strong opponent. That’s why I think this song following the celebratory bravado of Carey makes so much sense.
What if facing and making peace with this event is a big part of the raw pain and grief that keeps the protagonist running? Sure I’m projecting but I’m kind of a black belt at it. I know from personal experience, that a lot of the running from and to different places and experiences is a really effective way to avoid telling the story of your grief. But once you get where you’re going or what you thought you needed, that sorrow is still there waiting. Right behind the door you closed and locked on it.
In my reverse version I like to think the roaming and the loneliness that started with the catalysts of dissatisfaction and romantic heartbreak led her eventually to a place where she could sit and tell the story of a really difficult decision. An offering to the kid she had to let go but also to the kid she was who was unable to make it work. There’s a fuck ton of healing in the telling of the stories.
Child with a child pretending
Weary of lies you are sending home
So you sign all the papers in the family name
You're sad and you're sorry, but you're not ashamed
Little green, have a happy ending.
MY OLD MAN
My Old Man is allegedly about Graham Nash and my feeling about him are clear (disdain also applies to C&S).
Joni does a great job here and it’s a beautiful song, more than he probably deserves. But it also seems like the most out of place song on the album. The love she talks about here isn’t as nuanced and hard earned as it is in the other songs, the road weary ones. It’s oversimplified, “naive” seems mean, but idealistic at least. It’s the way teenage sweethearts talk and plan for their future together, blindly confident in their ability to last and effortlessly hurdle all the worldly obstacles that have destroyed young lovers since time immemorial. We won’t make the same mistakes they whisper lying on a blanket in the sun. This is the type of talk that would make a Richard sneer.
But it fits the reverse version in that there is real truth to the relationship she’s singing about but it often can only come after real and repeated struggle and failure. You have to get your ass kicked by love until you wise up and define it from within as opposed to hinging it all on another. My experience is you can really only build a relationship on freedom and harmony after you’ve been burnt, battered and bruised by all the ones that came before. So for our purposes, she comes out of the healing of Little Green, the transformation of that story and is then imagining the love she really craves, the warmest chord I’ve ever heard.
ALL I WANT
Which brings us to the grand finale. The final scene of the story. All I Want.
Our hero is still on a lonely road, traveling (traveling traveling traveling) and searching. She’s torn between a desire for roots, domesticity and love but she doesn’t want to lose the freedom she’s found out alone in the world and the person she’s become. It’s a tenuous balance. To love and need someone yet also wanting to slip into adventure, chaos and the unknown when your spirit deems it necessary. I think what I find in the song is rather than having to choose she’s trying to make the other person understand that love doesn’t mean surrendering all of the rush and excitement that make it all worthwhile. I want to make you feel better, I want to make you feel free.
This is my favorite song on the album. It’s a bumpy road in a fast old car with questionable brakes and balding tires. It makes so much sense to me that I once considered tattooing the entire thing on my skin because (as I mentioned in the beginning) I wanted it to be tactile, to be something that’s physical. It’s the big finish! We don’t know if she finds it, we don’t know if she can make it work, we don’t know if she’ll be forced to choose all we know is she’s still going. We’ve seen someone sparked by deep heartbreak take that pain out into the world and report back to us with a breathless honesty. Blue is an album where the singer yearns for flight just to be repeatedly educated about gravity and finds a compromise in motion. Escaping dark cafes and passing through lonely bars, solitary holidays, old Mediterranean landscapes, Matala moons, into her own past and back once again on a lonely road. In a cycle of hurt and healing. Still moving forward with a yearning and eyes full of moon.
POSTSCRIPT
I hope this doesn’t read like a dude trying to explain Joni Mitchell to you or (even worse) to her. My intention is to honor her wish that instead of solely looking for her in her art you instead find yourself in it. I think ultimately what I’ve written above was way more revealing of me than of her. Let us never speak of this again.
These are just a few notes I found interesting but they didn’t fit in the above narrative though they certainly contributed to it.
Throughout writing this today I had the Joni Mitchell version of Urge For Going stuck in my head. It just seemed to fit so well with the overall theme of Blue. How the seasons and the daily activities of a life trigger the wanderlust deep within. Then at one point while I’m doing some research I found out that it was recorded during this session and supposed to be on Blue but was cut. I would love to know where it would’ve fallen. Vibes man.
Prince’s favorite artist was Joni Mitchell and his favorite album of hers was Hissing of the Summer Lawns. Legend has it that the last record he bought before he passed away was a copy of Hejira. He covered and A Case of You many times in concert and a version is on his 1983 outtakes collection Piano and Microphone.
Mitchell even remembers spotting the singer at one of her shows. “Prince attended one of my concerts in Minnesota. I remember seeing him sitting in the front row when he was very young. He must have been about 15. He was in an aisle seat, and he had unusually big eyes,” she said. Adding: “He watched the whole show with his collar up, looking side to side. You couldn’t miss him—he was a little Prince-ling. Prince used to write me fan mail with all of the U’s and hearts that way that he writes.
Led Zeppelin were huge fans. Going to California is allegedly a love letter to her. When they performed it live Plant would say “Joni” after the lyrics “Someone told me there's a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair.” When they finally had the chance to meet her in the mid 70s Plant was reportedly too shy to introduce himself. For his part, Page did meet Mitchell around the same time, and he was ecstatic about the encounter.
